Mahaba Niue: DISEASES

<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><img alt="Billy Connolly has cancer surgery" src="http://in2eastafrica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Billy-Connolly.jpg" /></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">“The operation was a total success, and Billy is fully recovered,” his spokeswoman said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">The 70-year-old Scot began working as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards but quit in the late 1960s to become a folk singer before turning to stand-up.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">He has also starred in films including the Oscar-nominated Mrs Brown.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">“Billy Connolly recently underwent minor surgery in America after being diagnosed with the very early stages of prostate cancer,” his spokeswoman said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">“In addition, Billy has been assessed as having the initial symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, for which he is receiving the appropriate treatment.”</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">She added the star would continue to work as normal.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">“Billy has been assured by experts that the findings will in no way inhibit or affect his ability to work, and he will start filming a TV series in the near future, as well as undertaking an extensive theatrical tour of New Zealand in the new year,” she said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Steve Ford, chief executive at Parkinson’s UK, said: “Many people, with the right medication, continue to live a full and active life with Parkinson’s, but for some, it can be life-changing and it is vital that Billy gets the support he needs to live with this complex condition.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">“We salute Billy’s bravery in speaking out about his condition at this difficult time.”</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Other recent films in which Connolly has starred include the Oscar-winning animated film Brave where he voiced the lead male character and Quartet, which saw him play a womanising former opera star.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">In an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20857571" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">interview with the BBC</a> earlier this year, he said he wanted to stay young at heart: “Stay young. Me? I’m 37! I haven’t changed my attitude to things since I was 37.”</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">He also played a dwarf warrior in the second part of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit franchise and finished filming the third instalment at the end of last year.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">In December 2012, the star was given the Bafta Scotland award for outstanding contribution.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Connolly began his stand-up career touring clubs known as the bearded Big Yin.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">His Great Northern Welly Boot Show eventually reached the London Palladium.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">An appearance on Parkinson in the 1970s helped introduce him to a wider audience, and he later said his appearance on the show changed his life. By 2007 he had appeared on the chat show 12 or 13 times.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">He completed his first world tour in 1987, including six nights at the Royal Albert Hall in London.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">In June 1992, Connolly performed his 25th anniversary concert in Glasgow. It was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show later that year.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">In early January 1994, Connolly began a 40-date “world tour of Scotland” which was broadcast by the BBC, and two years later he did a similar tour in Australia which was also broadcast.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">His acting career began to take off in the 1990s as he played a Glaswegian hard man in Down Among the Big Boys and then an 18th Century Scottish inventor of the trap-door gallows in Deacon Brodie, both for the BBC.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Connolly has been married twice, and has five children. His second wife is writer, actress, broadcaster and psychotherapist Pamela Stevenson.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">BBC</div>

COMEDIAN AND ACTOR BILLY CONNOLLY HAS HAD SURGERY FOR PROSTATE CANCER AND HAS BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE.

“The operation was a total success, and Billy is fully recovered,” his spokeswoman said. The 70-year-old Scot began working as a welder in t...