Dick Van Dyke is celebrating his 96th birthday today, an age that not all of us will be lucky enough to see.
And it turns out Dick almost didn't make it either - twice.
He's cheated death under absolutely terrifying circumstances, and managed to come out laughing both times.
In 2010, the Mary Poppins actor fell asleep on his surfboard, and was consumed by fear when he woke up to see fins circling around him.
"I woke up out of sight of land," Dick told chat show host Craig Ferguson.
"I started paddling with the swells and I started seeing fins swimming around me and I thought, 'I’m dead!'"
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Dick was convinced he was about to become sharks' dinner - but moments later his fears vanished.
He realised the fins belonged to harmless porpoises - who not only didn't eat him, but also helped save his life.
"They turned out to be porpoises," he said. "And they pushed me all the way to shore!"
Three years later, Dick would come face to face with his own mortality again.
His car burst into flames while he was driving along the Californian freeway, and Dick was completely trapped.
As the Jaguar filled with smoke, a passer-by noticed there was an elderly man stuck inside and rushed over to help.
The Good Samaritan forced the car door open and dragged the veteran actor out, before two off-duty nurses who happened to be at the scene checked he was okay.
Dick didn't even require medical attention after escaping the flaming wreckage, and made a cheeky joke about the situation on Twitter.
He posted a photograph of the blackened, completely burnt out car, with the caption: "Used Jag for sale REAL CHEAP!!"
Dick made his screen debut on the Phil Silvers Show before landing his own TV sitcom in 1961.
He has starred in a multitude of films including Bye Bye Birdie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Dick Tracy, as well TV drama Diagnosis: Murder from 1993 to 2001.
More recently, Dick has been spotted in blockbuster Night at the Museum and its 2009 sequel.
The star has been married twice - the first in 1948, to Margie Willett, with whom he shares four grown up children: Christian, Barry, Stacy and Carrie Beth.
Their marriage was troubled - at one point Dick spent three weeks in hospital recovering for alcoholism, and just weeks later, Margie checked into the same place for treatment for addiction to prescription pills.
Afterwards, while they both embarked on a sober lifestyle, Margie began retreating to their desert ranch, abandoning the Hollywood circus that Dick was part of.
Meanwhile, Dick found himself growing closer to his agent's secretary, Michelle Triola.
He wrote in his memoir, My Lucky Life In And Out Of Show Business: "She was easy to talk to, she understood me.
"I was drawn into a relationship. I was involved with a woman other than my wife. It was unbelievable. I was writhing in guilt. By 1976 I had to do something. I needed to be honest."
He and Margie separated but didn't divorce until 1984, after 36 years of marriage. She died from pancreatic cancer in 2008, something which "deeply affected" Dick.
"Even though we were long divorced, with her death I lost a part of myself," he recalled.
Dick stayed with Michelle until her death from lung cancer in 2009.
"She spent her last week in a coma," he explained. "Her doctor said she could still hear, so I sang and talked to her until the hospice nurses told me she was gone."
In 2012, at the age of 86, Dick married 40-year-old make-up artist Arlene Silver, who he met six years earlier at the SAG awards.
Gushing about his wife, Dick told Closer : "She’s just delightful, a great cook and a woman of great patience.
"She's given me a third life, and I'm tickled to death with it."
Despite the heartache Dick has endured, he is grateful for all his long life has offered so far.
"My life has been a magnificent indulgence," he admitted.
"I've been able to do what I love and share it. Who would want to quit?"
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