Dick Van Dyke, 96, Who Lost Two Partners to Cancer, Dances with Wife, 50, in New Music Video

Long before Dick Van Dyke was a household name, Margie Willett left her football-playing high school boyfriend for the young actor. Three years into their relationship, Van Dyke and Willet wanted to get married, but their financial situation was not stable. They still managed to tie the knot in 1948 on the ABC radio show, Bride and Groom.

"We were too broke to get married, but a radio producer offered to pick up the tab and send us on honeymoon if we got hitched on his show," Van Dyke told The Guardian. "So in 1948 we exchanged our vows in front of a minister and two radio microphones while 15 million people listened!"

Willet preferred a life away from the spotlight, and spent most of her days at the family's ranch in Arizona. The couple split after more than 30 years together in 1976 when Van Dyke began an affair with actress Michelle Triola. They were officially divorced by 1984. In 2008, Willett passed away from pancreatic cancer. Triola and Van Dyke lived together for more than 30 years but were never married. "We talked about marrying," he said, "But I could never get her to put a date in the diary." Just one year after Willet passed, Triola was diagnosed with lung cancer.

Speaking of his first wife's death, Van Dyke said, "I lost a part of myself." And when Triola was diagnosed just a year later, he wasn't ready to confront the truth of her disease. "When she asked if she was going to die, I pretended I didn't know the hardest acting I have ever done," he said. "After she passed, I realized I had never been without a companion looking out for me."

Van Dyke met Arlene Silver in 2006 at an awards dinner. The two quickly hit it off. "We became firm friends and it just grew from there," he said. It is easy to see their chemistry in Silver's new video. They have been married since 2012, and through all the loss Dick Van Dyke has experienced, his openness to love has just kept growing.

Coping With Losing a Loved One to Cancer

Whether it’s a spouse, a family member or a friend, grief is inevitable and essential when you're forced to say goodbye to a loved one, especially if you're losing that person to cancer.

There's no one way to cope, but, in a previous interview with SurvivorNet, widower Doug Wendt shared his thoughts on the grieving process after losing his wife to ovarian cancer.

'I Don't Want to Move On; I Do Want to Move Forward': Doug Wendt On Being a Caregiver and Tragically Losing His Wife to Ovarian Cancer

"We're never gonna move on, I don't even think I want to move on, but I do want to move forward," Wendt says. "That's an important distinction, and I encourage anybody who goes through this journey as a caregiver, and then has to face loss, to think very carefully about how to move forward."

'Therapy Saved My Life': After Losing a Loved One, Don't be Afraid to Ask for Help

Camila Legaspi, in a previous interview with SurvivorNet, shared her own advice on grief after her mother died of breast cancer. For her, therapy made all the difference.

"Therapy saved my life," Legaspi says. "I was dealing with some really intense anxiety and depression at that point. It just changed my life. Because I was so drained by all the negativity that was going on, going to a therapist helped me realize that there was still so much out there for me, that I still had my family, that I still had my siblings."

Contributing: Sydney Schaefer

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