Dick Van Dyke, 96, and Wife Arlene, 50, Have Been Married for a Decade: Learn More About Her!

For the majority of his time in the limelight, Dick Van Dyke was married to Margie Willet. However, the pair split in 1984 after 36 years of marriage. Later, in 2012, the actor moved on with his now wife Arlene Silver. To learn more about Arlene and her marriage to Dick, keep reading. 

How did Arlene Silver and Dick Van Dyke meet?

The couple first crossed paths at the SAG Awards in 2006 while she was working as a makeup artist. “I remember seeing Dick at the catering table with his bow tie and his big smile,” Arlene recalled in a 2013 interview with HuffPo. “Right when I sat down, he was sitting next to me. He said, ‘Hi, I’m Dick.’ The first thing I asked him was, ‘Weren’t you in Mary Poppins?’”

Although Dick and Arlene became fast friends, their relationship wasn’t initially romantic. “I didn’t really realize how powerful the relationship was becoming. I would come over, but I didn’t want to bother him I guess,” she continued. “He gets so many people around him I didn’t want to be intrusive, so I would just say I’ll come over after work and we’ll have dinner, and it turns out he was looking forward to it the whole day.”

Dick and Arlene remained friends until they began dating “about a year” before tying the knot in 2012.

Has Arlene Silver been married before?

“I haven’t been married before so it’s wonderful,” Arlene said. “He’s the perfect human being but he’s also the perfect partner. I went through a lot of frogs to get my prince.”

Who did Dick Van Dyke date before marrying Arlene Silver?

It’s no secret Dick’s love life got a little complicated over the years. In 1976, while he was still married to Margie, he fell for actress Michelle Triola Marvin. “She was feisty, smart and, unlike Margie, knew the showbiz world inside out,” Dick told Closer Weekly in a July 2020 interview.

Eventually, Dick came clean about their affair and he and Margie, who shared kids Christian, Barry, Carrie Beth and Stacey, called it quits. Although Dick and Michelle spoke about marriage, they never got around to putting a “date in the diary,” he explained.

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Sadly, in 2009, Michelle died after being diagnosed with lung cancer. “When she asked if she was going to die, I pretended I didn’t know — the hardest acting I have ever done,” the West Plains, Missouri, native admitted.

After Michelle’s passing, Dick said “that’s it” to love, until he met Arlene, that is. “It happened to me just out of the blue.”