“I think I’ve decided that people are born with an outlook,” he explained. “I just think I was born with a brighter outlook. I look at the horizon. I think some people are born just to have to fight against a downward spiral. And after 100 years, I think I’m right.”
Though the 99-year-old recognizes that he has more life behind him than in front, the thought of death doesn’t rattle him one bit.
“When you expire, you expire,” he said. “I don’t have any fear of death for some reason. I can’t explain that but I don’t. I’ve had such a wonderfully full and exciting life. That I can’t complain.”
After all, he also knows he’ll live on with his onscreen legacy.
“What I left in the way of children’s entertainment and children’s music — that’s my legacy,” he declared. “I don’t think remembering me is that important. 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.”
