Dick Van Dyke’s Wife, Arlene Silver, Had Never Seen Mary Poppins When They Met

Dick Van Dyke’s wife, Arlene Silver, says she’d never seen any of her Hollywood icon hubby’s work when they met — including Mary Poppins.

It’s hard to imagine anyone who didn’t grow up singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “A Spoonful of Sugar” and “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” but on the most recent episode of Ted Danson’s podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Van Dyke, 99, told the host and wife Mary Steenburgen that the 1964 Disney classic was among the many films and TV shows he starred in that Silver had managed to miss.

“She didn’t know who I was,” Van Dyke said of his first encounter with Silver backstage at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2006.

“No, that’s not true,” Silver, 53, corrected. “Of course I know who he is. He’s Dick Van Dyke!”

In fact, Silver explained, one of the very first things she ever said to her future husband was that she “had never seen anything he was in.”

“She’d never seen Mary Poppins,” Van Dyke added.

Van Dyke, of course, starred as chimney sweep Bert opposite Julie Andrews as the title character in the film, earning a 1964 Golden Globe nomination for his performance and, along with the rest of the cast, a 1965 Grammy Award for the soundtrack.

The actor already had a 1961 Tony Award for his performance in Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway, and went on to win multiple Emmys for his sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show between 1964 and 1966.

“In a way, it was kind of good for me, because she wasn’t over impressed or anything,” Van Dyke said of meeting Silver. “I was just a guy, you know?”

“Doesn’t sound like she was very impressed at all,” Steenburgen joked.

“I was a hard sell,” Van Dyke quipped.

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Van Dyke, who was previously married to Margie Willett from 1948 to 1984, explained that he was “totally in love” the moment he saw Silver, who is 46 years his junior. The couple married in 2012.

In July 2024, the couple opened up about their 46-year age gap, with Silver admitting in an interview with Entertainment Tonight that it “scared” her at first.

“But it’s so irrelevant. I think when you see us together, it’s like you don’t even think about it,” she said. “We don’t think about it, we just meet in the middle.”

“I was fortunate that I didn’t grow up,” Van Dyke chimed in. “It was meant to be.”