Comic Sir Billy Connolly has been making the world laugh for more than 50 years.
But in a new interview, the Big Yin has revealed how he has finally seen the funny side of death, after coming to terms with his ongoing battle against Parkinson's disease.
His world was turned upside down in 2013 when doctors diagnosed him with prostate cancer - which he got the all clear from - and Parkinson's on the same day.
In typical Connolly style, he laughed off what would have broken most people. "Yes, it was a funny week I had,” he chuckles. “On the Monday, I had hearing aids. On the Tuesday I got pills for heart burn, which I have to take all the time, and on the Wednesday I got news that I had prostate cancer and Parkinson's.
"The doctors told me on the phone, ‘Look we have had the results and it is cancer.’ I said ‘Oh, nobody has ever said that to be me before’." Revealing the first thing his wife did, Sir Billy added: "My wife Pamela (Stephenson) was standing behind me and gave me a cuddle. I was not unduly worried."
Billy, 81, even joked how his Parkinson's must have stemmed from countless appearances on Michael Parkinson's chat shows over the years, which helped make him a household name.
He tells The Mirror : "I just thought ‘I have got Parkinson's. I wish he (Michael) had kept it to himself!’ It was easy (making fun if it).
"You just confront it and make decisions based on it. You just have to think ‘Don't think you are being badly treated (in life) or you have the bad pick of the straws. You are one of millions’. Just behave yourself and relax.
"You then realise it (death) is not the big thing everyone has made it out to be. It is nothing. It is just a sudden nothing."
Billy talks about his health struggles, career highs and lows next Monday, as the first celebrity guest on the new BBC1 series In My Own Words.
He shares about his friendship with the late US comic Robin Williams in the 45 minute documentary, revealing how he shared a final dinner with the Mrs Doubtfire star before his suicide in August, 2014.
He discusses his booze battle, the loneliness of fame and how he feels he was a bad father to Jamie and Cara, his children by first wife Iris Pressagh who he married in a drunken ceremony in 1969.
He confesses to being guilt ridden after being propelled to comedy stardom from the Clydeside shipyards, often leaving his young family to hit the comedy circuit.
He speaks of his abusive childhood and how he’s found peace living in Key West, Florida, with his wife of 35 years, comedian turned psychologist Pamela Stephenson.
Billy, a former welder on the Glasgow shipyards, laughs: "Essentially I am a Clydesdale worker who got lucky. "I love the Clyde. I loved the men and the camaraderie. It was a lovely time in my life working with genuinely funny men. I was a welder and we were known as The Erection Squad. How is that for a title?
"When I started out in comedy, I had long hair, a beard and electric blue velvet flares. Someone said to me 'You are windswept and interesting'. I said 'Exactly'. After that I had to maintain my reputation."
In the early 1960s, after finding a way out of the shipyards to become a member of the folk rock band, The Humblebums with Gerry Rafferty, Billy went on to become a solo artist.
A transition from folk to comedy followed in the early 1970s with a stint at the Edinburgh Fringe, followed by his first album Connolly Live! which helped him top the UK singles chart in 1975 with his single D.I.V.O.R.CE.
In the new documentary, Billy tells how comedy saved his life after being abused by two sadistic aunties, following his abandonment by his mum, Mary, aged four.
During his harsh upbringing in poverty in the Glasgow tenements, he and his older sister Florence were forced to sleep in a recess off the kitchen and bathed in the kitchen sink because there was no hot water.
Billy says: "It was not a happy time. It was a dark time. It was very violent and I was beaten up by my aunts. It had a profound influence on me. I felt kind of abandoned as a child and trapped.
"I was brought up in a home and it was hellish. It is not the way to treat children. It is funny to see people on children today when they say ‘It is not right to hit a child... but a little slap.’
It does not work. It was cruel and it was not right. I was longing to be an adult. "I kept thinking ‘Where is all the fun?’ I read books at school where kids were having fun with their parents but, for me, it was not there."
Comedy freed him, but countless nights on the stand-up circuit also left Billy turning to booze. He says: "I was very successful but I was very naive and I was about to fall on my arse with alcohol. I was just about to blow it. I felt as if I could do anything.
"I did my best but I got drunk and threw myself around. It was waste of time. Success makes you lonely. It is difficult to live with. Some people join monasteries and others get drunk. I got drunk.
"Alcohol does not make you clever. Once I was in a phone box and I could not find my way out. I mean it is hardly Hampton Court maze is it?"
He reveals his saddest moment at the height of his success in 1980 to be doing the famous TV show This is Your Life, then hosted by late TV star Eammon Andrews, who paid tribute to Billy's glittering career.
But the comic says it was painful to be on the same show as his first wife Iris - who he later divorced in 1985 - alongside his current wife Pamela, who was one of the surprise comedy star guests.
He reveals: "My life was a mess at the time. My wife and I were not getting along and it was all coming in on me. I was not sure what to do about it.
"Love is easy. It is everything else that is hard. Love is the easiest thing in the world. It falls on you and devours you. All you can do is return it, but sometimes the world comes along and the world takes control.
"There are all these different pressures on you and it is difficult. To make things worse Pamela was on the show. It was horrible."
Gazing at his wedding day photo to Iris - who died from alcoholism in 2010 aged just 67 - he says: "It was a time in my life I have cut out and left.
"We both look drunk, we both were drunk. I got married in the government office in Glasgow. We had a horse and cart to take us there and we got half legless and I played a gig that night in Kilmarnock."
Billy was saved thanks to fellow comic Pamela Stephenson whom he met after a brief appearance on her BBC sketch show Not The Nine O'Clock News alongside Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and Rowan Atkinson.
Instantly taken by Pamela's zany sense of humour, Billy says: "When I did Not The Nine ’Clock News they were all off their heads. Pamela was a huge star at the time.
"She later came to see me in Brighton. I remember we were back in the hotel that night and she said ‘I am going to bed.’ I just said ‘I will see you in a minute....’ Little did I know that we would get married, grow up and have children."
Today, the tranquil Florida island where they live helps Billy come to terms with his Parkinson's. He says: "Key West is great. Nobody bothers you. They don't care if you are rich or poor. Everybody gets along. There is a lot of relaxation in the air. Everyone is free. Everything is cool and the fishing is great."
Sober for 40 years, looking out from the windows of his seafront home, he says: "Therapy saved my life. When I gave up alcohol I thought ‘That will do me". I thought I might lose my wildness but it is not wildness. It is pretend wildness. I don't have any regrets. I am perfectly happy."
In fact, Billy says he is the luckiest man in the world thanks to his rock Pamela and is proud he has not fallen off the wagon or become one of life's casualties.
Despite his numerous awards over the years for a life in comedy, Billy says the top honour will always belong to the late American star Robin Williams, who once taught him that you don't have to be funny all of the time for people to like you.
Remembering Robin, he says: "It was a lovely thing to meet him and think ‘I am not alone’, like there are other people trying to be funny without telling jokes.
"When he took his life it was the saddest day. Before he passed he phoned me and said ‘Let's have dinner.’ During the dinner he said ‘I love you.’ He said ‘Do you believe me?’ I said ‘Of course I do.’ He said ‘Believe me, I love you’.
"I thought it was weird for him to say that as it was not his usual thing and he was dead on the weekend. I always felt that was him saying goodbye. It was a sad day in my life, as I saw his whole career and it was stunning. He was like a rocket ship and it just took off. He was the best ever."
Today, Billy looks back on his own comedy days with pride, admitting he can't believe the outrageous jokes he got away with in the early years, which would shock today's woke brigade.
Thanking the late Michael Parkinson for help making him a star, he signs off: "The Parkinson show made me. That was a great moment and I became a star. I did the show and I never looked back.
"I have to say, something happens to you on the way from the dressing room to the stage which is magical. That is how it feels and you turn to the left and the audience is there. You wave and they just go crazy."
* Billy Connolly: In My Own Words airs Monday (Sep 2) on BBC1 at 10.40pm.
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