DICK Van Dyke has admitted he’s “finally slowing down”, as the Hollywood icon prepares for his 100th birthday.
The father-of-four is set to celebrate his milestone birthday on December 13, and he has been reflecting on his long and incredible life so far.
To celebrate his HUGE milestone, Marry Poppins star Dick chatted to Today’s Al Roker, for an emotional interview about his life.
During their sit down, they discussed the actor’s new book, 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life.
Al also revealed how the actor had admitted “to finally slowing down” in his incredible career.
Reading from Dick’s new book, Al said: “You’ve written here, ‘I care about the survival of what I have shared with the world.’”
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To which Dick replied: “It’s true.”
The star also added of his incredible career: “I got to do for a living, what I would’ve done for nothing.”
Dick also encouraged fans to “look for the best of everything, look what’s positive and the people that are positive.”
It comes just days after Dick revealed that he was becoming increasingly housebound as a result of “physical decay”.
“It’s frustrating to feel diminished in the world, physically and socially,” he penned in an essay for The Times at the weekend.
“I get invites to events or offers for gigs in New York or Chicago, but that kind of travel takes so much out of me that I have to say no.
“Almost all of my visiting with folks has to happen at my house.”
SECRETS TO A HAPPY LIFE
Despite his physical ailments, the iconic actor is still positive about life.
“Boiled down, the things that have kept my life joyful and fulfilling are pretty simple: romance, doing what I love and a whole lot of laughing,” Dick wrote.
Despite his physical ailments, the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang star is relentlessly positive about life, praising his wife for keeping him young as well as seeing the world and his experiences of it like a “giant playground”.
“Boiled down, the things that have kept my life joyful and fulfilling are pretty simple: romance, doing what I love and a whole lot of laughing,” he wrote.
Dick also revealed he goes to the gym three times a week, as well as continuing to dance and sing.
BECOMING A STAR
After starring in the film version of Bye Bye Birdie in the role of Albert J. Peterson, which he played on Broadway, Dick got his huge break and was cast by Disney in Mary Poppins in 1964.
His main role was as Bert, a jack-of-all-trades who is very good friends with Mary Poppins, but he was also cast as the doddery old bank chairman Mr Dawes Senior.
The film, which starred Julie Andrews in the lead role, was a huge success and Chim Chim Cher-ee, which Bert sings in the movie, went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song.
However, to this day, Dyke’s Cockney accent is lambasted as the accent in film history, and according to Dyke, no one on the set of the film told him how bad it was.
But to this day it is still his best-known role and on his 90th birthday, he was surprised by a flash-mob at The Grove shopping mall in Los Angeles.
Dyke also starred in Disney’s 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the lead role of Caractacus Pott, after he turned down the role of Fagin in the 1968 musical Oliver!