The actor, who tied the knot with Arlene Silver in 2012, spoke exclusively to PEOPLE about the secret to the couple’s marriage
Dick Van Dyke and Arlene Silver at the 2017 premiere of HBO’s ‘If You’re Not In The Obit, Eat Breakfast’
Dick Van Dyke and his wife Arlene Silver are continuing to prove the naysayers wrong.
Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE at Dick & Arlene Van Dyke Present Vandy Camp on Sunday, April 20, the actor, 99, revealed that people didn’t believe that his relationship with Silver, 53, would work out.
“We get along so well,” Van Dyke says of how his marriage of 13 years runs smoothly.
“We just care about each other so much,” Silver notes.
“Everybody said it wouldn’t work,” Van Dyke adds, before Silver says, “Yeah. I mean it’s like eerie how well it works. People the same age don’t last.”
Van Dyke also opened up about meeting Silver for the first time.
“I never said hello to a strange girl in my life. I was too scared,” he says. “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 and got me, and I was right.”
“He’s made me feel like I can do anything,” Silver tells PEOPLE with Van Dyke adding, “And you can.”
“Very supportive of each other,” Silver says. “I feel like this Vandy Camp is a great representation of all those things in one event.”
Arlene Silver and Dick Van Dyke at the 2024 Emmys in Los Angeles
“It’s a great … I love that title. Vandy Camp,” Van Dyke says.
The couple also opened up to PEOPLE about what date night looks like for them at Vandy Camp, which was held at Aviator Nation Dreamland in Malibu, Calif., with all proceeds benefiting the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation (LAEPF) Community Brigade.
“We just love being home. We love Malibu, and it’s our favorite place, our house especially. So this is like our, you’re at our house,” Silver says. “We’re so grateful. Our house did get hit by the Franklin fire, but in the scheme of things, we got very lucky.”
“And I’m seven months from a hundred,” Van Dyke adds.
The couple first met at the SAG Awards in 2006 when Silver was working as a makeup artist.
Van Dyke then hired her for other projects before tying the knot in 2012.
