Actor, comedian, and musician Billy Connolly spoke openly about his life recently, and it seems his health is deteriorating quickly. However, despite the dire news, Connolly admits that he’s not afraid of dying.
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Born in 1942, the Scottish creative is known by his peers as “The Big Yin” or “The Big One,” and he went from being a welder to a folk singer to a comedian to an actor during the length of his 76 years on Earth so far.
According to a Mirror exclusive, Connolly’s life is “slipping away” due to his battle with Parkinson’s disease. During his two-part BBC documentary series, Made in Scotland, the actor admits that he doesn’t have much time left.
“I’m 75, I’m near the end. I’m a damn sight nearer the end than I am the beginning. There is no denying it, I am 75, I have got Parkinson’s and I am at the wrong end of the telescope of life,” he says.
However, he wants viewers to know that it “doesn’t frighten” him. In fact, he sees it as “an adventure” that is “quite interesting.”
Connolly explained what it’s like to feel himself “slipping away” in grave detail. “I don’t have the balance I used to have, I don’t have the energy I used to have. I can’t hear the way I used to hear, I can’t see as good as I used to. I can’t remember the way I used to remember,” he admitted.
Connolly is married to psychologist Pamela Stephenson and is perhaps best known recently for roles such as Il Duce in The Boondocks Saints (1999) and his return to the film’s 2009 sequel. Recently, he appeared as Dain in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014), and was last seen acting in Wild Oats (2016).
Other notable works include voicing Fergus in Brave, playing Zebulon Gant in The Last Samurai, and writing various specials, comedy tours, and documentaries.
After being diagnosed in 2013, Connolly continued to work and tour for a while, but it has, according to him, become too much of a struggle.
“I hadn’t stood anywhere since I got Parkinson’s and I discovered that I got kind of rooted to the spot and became afraid to move. Instead of going all the way to the front of the stage and prowling along the front the way I used to do, I stood where I was,” he explained.
Despite the tribulations that come with his disease, Connolly continues to be the funny man he always has been.
“It takes a certain calm to deal with, and I sometimes don’t have it. I sometimes get angry with it, but that doesn’t last long, I just collapse in laughter,” he says.
When it comes to reaching the end, he’s is glad to have a successful body of work to reflect on.
“And I am very lucky in as much as I made a bit of a mark, and you think ‘well I must have done something right’. And that keeps you company when you are older, is the fact that when you were creative, you created well, it accompanies you, it is a great companion.”
The second part of Billy Connolly: Made In Scotland airs January 4th on BBC2 at 9 PM.
