Dick Van Dyke comments on 46-year age gap with wife Arlene Silver

Dick Van Dyke is proving age is just a number as he shuts down critics of the 46-year age gap with his wife, Arlene Silver.

“We get along so well,” the “Mary Poppins” star, 99, told People Sunday at the couple’s Vandy Camp fundraiser in Malibu, Calif. “Everybody said it wouldn’t work.”

Silver, 53, added, “We just care about each other so much,” explaining that it’s “eerie how well [the marriage] works.”

“People the same age don’t last,” Silver joked.

The Disney icon sweetly recalled first meeting the makeup artist during the SAG Awards in 2006.

“I never said hello to a strange girl in my life,” he confessed. “I was too scared. But I was at a show backstage and she walked by, and for some reason, I just jumped up and said, ‘Hi, I’m Dick.’ There’s something about her [that] got me, and I was right.”

After their initial meeting, Van Dyke hired Silver as a makeup artist for subsequent projects, but they didn’t start dating until years later.

The couple also agreed that they empower one another, with Silver sharing that Van Dyke “made me feel like I can do anything.”

“And you can,” Van Dyke replied.

The pair tied the knot in 2012 when the comedian was 86 and Silver was 40.

Van Dyke, who narrowly escaped the expansive fires in Los Angeles in January, once said he didn’t even realize Silver was decades younger when he first approach her.

“I had no idea she was half my age,” he told Entertainment Tonight in 2024. “Beautiful.”

“I was fortunate that I didn’t grow up,” he added in part. “We were meant to be.” 

The “Dick Van Dyke Show” star was previously married to Margie Willett from 1948 to 1984.

The former couple share four grown children: Christian, 74, Barry, 73, Stacy, 69, and Carrie Beth, 63.

He also had a long-term relationship with Michelle Triola Marvin, living with the actress from 1976 until her death in 2009.