Dick Van Dyke has said he believes the secret of living to an old age is not to feel anger or hate as the veteran actor nears his 100th birthday.
The Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang star is due to reach the milestone age on 13 December – and he said he is not bothered about being remembered.
He explained to the US magazine People: “But it’s the music, the music we leave behind.
“For as long as children are proudly belting out their new word, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, or singing and skipping along to Chim Chim Cher-ee, the most important part of me will always be alive.”
Van Dyke told the magazine he is unsure why he has reached such an old age, but he said he has always had “a brighter outlook”.
He continued: “I’ve always thought that anger is one thing that eats up a person’s insides – and hate.
“And I never really was able to work up a feeling of hate. I think that is one of the chief things that kept me going.
“There were things I didn’t like, people I don’t like and disapprove of, but I never really was able to do a white heat kind of hate.”
Van Dyke, who released a new book – 100 Rules for Living to 100 – this month, appeared in a Coldplay music video last year.
He told People: “I feel really good for 100. Sometimes I have more energy than others – but I never wake up in a bad mood.
“I feel like I’m about 13.”
He also said he has enjoyed such “a wonderfully full and exciting life that I can’t complain”.
Van Dyke’s career has spanned more than seven decades and earned him an array of awards including four Emmys, a Tony for Bye Bye Birdie, and a Grammy for the Mary Poppins soundtrack.
He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Source: Press Association