Dick Van Dyke On His 46-Year Age Gap With His Wife: I’m Lucky ‘I Didn’t Grow Up’

Arlene Silver admits that when she first met her very famous husband — Dick Van Dyke — she had no idea who he was.

“I had never seen the ‘Dick Van Dyke Show,’ I never saw anything he was in,” Silver, 58, recently told Entertainment Tonight in a joint interview with her husband, 98.

Van Dyke first laid eyes on Silver backstage at the 2006 SAG Awards, where she was working as a makeup artist. The “Mary Poppins” star was so struck by her, he said, he decided to hit on a woman for the first time.

“I never approached a strange woman in my life,” the Emmy-winner confessed. “And she walked by and I jumped and I said, ‘Hi, I’m Dick.’ I had no idea she was half my age. Beautiful.”

The TV legend said when he found out Silver was a makeup artist, he quickly figured out a way to get to know her better.

“She had one [business] card left, which I took, and hired her,” Van Dyke, who was previously married twice.

The two became fast friends, and with time their relationship blossomed into romance — a turn Silver, Van Dyke and all their friends felt was pretty natural.

“We were friends for so long that when I told people that I know, they were happy about [our relationship], and I was scared,” Silver said. “I mean, the facts, our age difference. But it’s so irrelevant. I think when you see us together, it’s like you don’t even think about it.”

Van Dyke then quickly joked: “I was fortunate that I didn’t grow up!”

“We were meant to be,” he added.

Silver moved in with Van Dyke in 2011, and they tied the knot in February 2012.

“I’ve never met anyone like him,” Silver said. “He’s always happy and just positive. Always singing, and I would never sing in public. He got me to sing. He got me to sing up on a stage and sang in front of