Jeanne Louise Calment was a French supercentenarian who had the longest confirmed human lifespan
on record, living to the age of 7002122000000000000122 years, 7002164000000000000164 days. She lived in
Arles, France, for her entire life, outliving both her daughter and grandson by several
decades. Calment became especially well known from the age of 113, when the centenary of
Vincent van Gogh's visit brought reporters to Arles.
Calment became the last living documented person born in the 1870s when the Japanese
supercentenarian Tane Ikai died on 12 July 1995. Her lifespan has been thoroughly documented
by scientific study. More records have been produced to verify her age than in any other
case.
Early life
Calment was born in Arles on February 21, 1875. Her father, Nicolas Calment, was a shipbuilder,
and her mother, Marguerite Gilles, was from a family of millers. She had an older brother,
Francois,. Some of her close family members also lived an above-average lifespan, although
none lived anywhere near as long as Jeanne: her older brother François lived to the age
of 97, her father to six days shy of 93, and her mother to 86.
According to Calment, she met Vincent van Gogh at the age of 13, when he came into her
father's shop to buy paints in 1888. She found him to be "Dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable."
Personal life In 1896, at the age of 21, she married her
double second cousin, Fernand Nicolas Calment, a wealthy store owner. Their paternal grandfathers
were brothers, hence the same surname, and their paternal grandmothers were also sisters.
His wealth made it possible for Calment never to have to work; instead she led a leisured
lifestyle, pursuing hobbies such as tennis, cycling, swimming, rollerskating, piano, and
opera. Fernand died in 1942 at the age of 73 after eating a dessert prepared with spoiled
cherries. Their only child, a daughter named Yvonne
Marie Nicolle Calment, produced a grandson, Frédéric Billiot, on 23 December 1926. Yvonne
died at age 35 from pneumonia, after which Calment raised Frédéric herself. Frédéric
became a doctor, but died at age 36 in an automobile accident on 13 August 1963.
In 1965, at age 90 and with no heirs, Calment signed a deal to sell her former apartment
to lawyer André-François Raffray, on a contingency contract. Raffray, then aged 47 years, agreed
to pay her a monthly sum of 2,500 francs until she died. Raffray ended up paying Calment
the equivalent of more than $180,000, which was more than double the apartment's value.
After Raffray's death from cancer at the age of 77, in 1995, his widow continued the payments
until Calment's death. During all these years, Calment used to say to them that she "competed
with Methuselah". Recognition
In 1985, Calment moved into a nursing home, having lived on her own until age 110. Her
international fame escalated in 1988, when the centenary of Vincent van Gogh's visit
to Arles provided an occasion to meet reporters. She said at the time that she had met Van
Gogh 100 years before, in 1888, as a thirteen-year-old girl in her father's fabric shop, where he
wanted to buy some canvas, later describing him as "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable",
and "very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick". Calment recalled selling coloured pencils
to Van Gogh, and seeing the Eiffel Tower being built. At the age of 114, she appeared briefly
in the 1990 film Vincent and Me as herself, becoming the oldest actress ever to appear
in a motion picture. A documentary film about her life, entitled
Beyond 120 Years with Jeanne Calment, was released in 1995. In 1996, Time's Mistress,
a four-track CD of Calment speaking over a background of rap, was released. On her 122nd
birthday on 21 February 1997, it was announced that she would make no more public appearances,
as her health had seriously deteriorated. Jean-Marie Robine, the French demographer
and gerontologist, said that this “allowed her to die, as the attention had kept her
alive." She died on 4 August of that same year.
Both before and after Calment's death, there have been several claims to have surpassed
her age but none of them has been proven and Calment therefore continues to hold the record
for the oldest verified person ever. Record breaking
After her 1988 interview, at age 113, Calment was given the Guinness title "world's oldest
living person". However, in 1989, the title was withdrawn and given to Carrie C. White
of Florida, who was claimed to have been born in 1874, although this has been discounted
by subsequent census research. On White's death on 14 February 1991, Calment, then a
week shy of 116, became the oldest recognized living person.
On 17 October 1995, Calment reached 120 years and 238 days to become the "oldest person
ever" according to Guinness, surpassing Shigechiyo Izumi of Japan, whose claim has since been
discounted. Calment was believed to have been the first person verified to have reached
115 years of age, although Augusta Holtz has since been verified to have reached this age
before her. She is also the only person verified to have
lived for 120 or more years. The person who came closest to this age was Sarah Knauss
of the United States, reaching 119 years, 97 days on her death on 30 December 1999.
Calment also holds the record for being the oldest living person for the longest period
of time, by far – with nearly nine years and seven months, counting from the death
of Florence Knapp on 11 January 1988, to her own death on 4 August 1997.
Calment broke the record for longest confirmed lifespan by over seven years. Breaking a previous
record for age by that amount was, in itself, a record. Before Calment, the only person
who had surpassed a former longest confirmed lifespan by more than one year, was Delina
Filkins who became the first 113-year-old in 1928. Filkins surpassed the by-then longest
confirmed lifespan by just over two years. Health and lifestyle
Calment's remarkable health presaged her later record. At age 85, she took up fencing, and
continued to ride her bicycle up until her 100th birthday. She was reportedly neither
athletic nor fanatical about her health. Calment lived on her own until shortly before her
110th birthday, when it was decided that she needed to be moved to a nursing home after
a cooking accident started a small fire in her house. However, Calment was still in good
shape, and continued to walk until she fractured her femur during a fall at age 114 years 11
months, which required surgery. Calment smoked cigarettes from the age of
21 to 117, though according to an unspecified source, she smoked no more than two cigarettes
per day towards the end of her life. After her operation, Calment needed to use a wheelchair.
In 1994, age 119, she weighed 45 kilograms. Calment ascribed her longevity and relatively
youthful appearance for her age to a diet rich in olive oil, as well as a diet of port
wine, and ate nearly one kilogram of chocolate every week. Calment reportedly remained mentally
intact until her very end. On 4 August 1997, at 22:45 Central European
Time, Calment died, aged 122. After her death, 116-year-old Marie-Louise Meilleur became
the oldest recognized living person.
Verification Exceeding any other longevity case reported,
Calment establishes the record as the most-verifiable supercentenarian ever recorded. Beginning
with the 1876 census, she was indexed within fourteen census documents until 1975. She
was still managing independently at the time. See also
Ageing Jiroemon Kimura, the oldest verified male
List of French supercentenarians List of the verified oldest people
Longevity claims Longevity myths
Maximum life span Oldest people
Senescence References
Further reading Allard, Michel; Lebre, Victor; Robine, Jean-Marie;
Calment, Jeanne. Jeanne Calment: From Van Gogh's Time to Ours : 122 Extraordinary Years.
New York: W.H. Freeman. ISBN 0-7167-3251-3. Robine, Jean-Marie; Allard, Michel. Jeune,
Bernard; Vaupel, James W., ed. Jeanne Calment: Validation of the Duration of Her Life. Validation
of Exceptional Longevity. Odense University Press. ISBN 87-7838-466-4.
External links Jeanne Calment at the Internet Movie Database
Jeanne Calment discography at MusicBrainz Image gallery of Jeanne Calment from aged
20 to aged 122