After months of major health dramas, you might think the 70-year-old Gold Coaster and double Gold Logie-winner would avoid discussing her eventual demise, but this born entertainer couldn’t be more enthused.

“I’m doing some commercials for a funeral home so I went ahead and did the pre-planning for my own funeral. I have to say, I loved it. It’s possibly the best party I’ll ever throw,” she says.

“I’ve picked all the music, lots of rock’n’roll. We’ll play Hey Jude and Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye.

“I’ve picked a white satin casket and I’m going to wear beautiful blue satin pyjamas and slippers and at the foot of the casket there’s going to be an Esky.

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“It will be filled with ice and hold two bottles of champagne. One bottle will be open and there will be a really long straw going from the bottle to my mouth. I’m going out happy.”

It’s a return to form for the entertainment veteran, who returns to the Studio 10 panel on March 13 after enduring a “lifetime of pain’’ the past five months.

Certainly a knee replacement, a detached retina, blood clots, a disturbingly swollen left breast and suspected shingles (later diagnosed as a serious infection) are no laughing matter.

While she’s almost mended now, Denise says the experience has changed her.

“I had some pretty dark days there,” she says.

“In pain, alone. It really shakes the confidence. I felt very vulnerable being at home on my own and it was a funny feeling not coping well. I’m not used to that. But it was just too much for too long.

“Going back to work now will really be good for me. I’m so lucky that Studio 10 held my place for me. Jobs in showbiz are tricky at the best of times, let alone when you’re a 70-year-old woman.

“I have a few other things going as well, the commercials for the funeral home and another project that I can’t talk about yet. But I’ve also realised that it’s time that I slow down.”

It’s a distinctly different pathway for Denise than that of her former Studio 10 castmate and now ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose, at whom she once famously threw a brussels sprout.

“That bloody brussels sprout incident, that’s what’s going to be on my gravestone, I bet. Ita will do a great job. She’s a real go-getter — and she’s 77.

“For me, I’m just not cut from the same cloth.

“I’ve always been lucky that I can book out as many shows as I want to, and you always have the sense that you should book everything you can because you never know when the next job will be, but it’s time I get picky for my health’s sake.

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“I’m going to keep doing the things I love but I want to spend more time at home on the Gold Coast too. I’m a real home body at heart and I think I should indulge that side of me more. Plus, I really want to get a puppy soon.”

Having built her own dream home in the Gold Coast Hinterland 18 months ago, Denise isn’t always keen to share her space.

Although she says she has a number of good friends and family who visit from Sydney and Melbourne, there are only a handful of locals she has become close with. And certainly no gentlemen callers.

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“It’s hard to meet lots of people when I am so busy and, to be honest, I have so many good friends and family who come visit. But there are a few here who I wouldn’t be without.

“As for men, well, I truly am happy on my own.

“It took me a while to get to that place. You spend your whole life looking for a prince on a white horse. I had 48 of them but none lasted the ride.

“You just get older and used to things being your way. I’m a very neat person. You know, I can’t handle it when someone comes over and thinks my pretend tea towels are okay to use. No! They are there to look nice. Look in the drawer and you’ll find the ones I actually use.

“Who wants to live with that? Even last night I was up until 3am reading. I like running my own show my way.”

Denise was married to actor Christopher Milne for 10 years, the father of her two sons, but says the couple truly succeeded at divorce.

She says they supported both each other and their children after the break-up, something that helped build her career.

“I think we were both forward thinkers in that respect. We didn’t do drama, we didn’t argue over holidays and birthdays, we just helped out whenever the other needed it.

“I knew I could rely on him to help with the kids and vice versa.”

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Denise says while the industry has changed for women, she never faced her own #metoo moment.

“Look, if someone had exposed themselves to me I would have just said ‘oh, it looks just like a penis … only smaller’.

“Maybe they knew that so they didn’t try it.

“But I do wonder for those who say they went with it because otherwise they would have lost their job. You have to decide what matters more, your job or your self-respect? There is a line that you can draw.

“By all means report what has happened, but don’t let them get away with it.”

Denise believes one of the biggest issues still facing all women is the constant preoccupation with looks and weight.

She says she has battled all her life worrying about her body image, finally throwing away her scales five years ago.

“I definitely had disordered thinking about eating and weight,” she says.

“When I was 16 I was a ballerina on a night-time show with Graham Kennedy and they sacked me because I grew boobs.

“It had a huge effect on me. I would weigh myself 16 times a day. I used to chew gum, spit out the sweetness — because that’s where the calories were — and then keep chewing so I wouldn’t eat.

“The thing is, I did have huge boobs but my legs and body were fine. When I was in my 30s I felt so big and gross. Now I look at those photos and I was thin.

“What an enormous waste of time.

“It’s just something we’re taught as young girls. My own mother used to make me do exercises so I wouldn’t get a big bum.

“I never really got over it, either. I finally threw away my scales five years ago and that was the best thing I ever did.”

Although it might come with its share of illness and pain, as Denise experienced these past months, she says ageing can be liberating.

She says she’s also not scared to talk about death and wishes more of her generation would discuss it.

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“That’s part of the reason I’m doing these funeral commercials, although I think they were a bit worried I was taking it too seriously when I got so sick,’’ she says.

“But it is something we should talk about. You can pretend it’s not going to happen, but it’s still going to happen.

“I want to change perceptions about this part of life. I’m a big believer that even when someone dies, if you really love them their spirit stays with you.

“I had my mum and dad’s ashes put into these special jars and I take them everywhere with me. They’ve done more travelling in death than they ever did in life.

“I went up in a hot-air balloon in South Africa and someone asked what this box was that I had on the ledge. I said, ‘Oh, that’s Dad’.”

It’s obvious why this born entertainer’s final gig will bring the house down.

Dead or alive, Denise Drysdale is a hard act to follow.