Bertrand Jeune, Robine, and other researchers compared Jeanne Calment with nearly 20 people worldwide who had been verified to have reached at least 115 years of age. They concluded that the lives of these people differed widely and that they had just a few common traits: most of them were female (only two were male), most smoked little or not at all, and they had never been obese. They all had exhibited strong characters, but not all were domineering personalities. Although they aged slowly, all became very frail and their physical fitness declined markedly, especially after age 105. In their final years, they required wheelchairs and were nearly blind and deaf. “But they did not fear death, and they appeared to be reconciled to the fact their lives would soon end.”
When she was 85, she took up fencing, and still rode her bike when she reached 100. At the age of 114, she starred in a film about her life, at age 115 she had an operation on her hip, and at age 117 she gave up smoking, having started at the age of 21 in 1896. She didn’t give it up for health reasons; her reason was that she didn’t like having to ask someone to help her light a cigarette once she was nearly blind.
In 1965, Jeanne was 90 years old and had no heirs. She signed a deal to sell her apartment to a 47-year-old lawyer called André-François Raffray. He agreed to pay her a monthly sum of 2,500 francs on the condition he would inherit her apartment after she died. However, Raffray not only ended up paying Jeanne for 30 years, but then died before she did at the age of 77. His widow was legally obliged to continue paying Madam Calment until the end of her days.
Jeanne retained sharp mental faculties. When she was asked on her 120th birthday what kind of future she expected to have. Her reply, “A very short one.”
Here are the Rules of Life from Jeanne Louise Calment:
“I’m in love with wine.”
“All babies are beautiful.”
“I think I will die of laughter.”
“I’ve been forgotten by our Good Lord.”
“I’ve got only one wrinkle, and I’m sitting on it.”
“I never wear mascara; I laugh until I cry often.”
“If you can’t change something, don’t worry about it.”
“Always keep your smile. That’s how I explain my long life.”
“I see badly, I hear badly, and I feel bad, but everything’s fine.”
“I have a huge desire to live and a big appetite, especially for sweets.”
“I have legs of iron, but to tell you the truth, they’re starting to rust and buckle a bit.”
“I took pleasure when I could. I acted clearly and morally and without regret. I’m very lucky.”
“Being young is a state of mind, it doesn’t depend on one’s body. I’m actually still a young girl, it’s just that I haven’t looked so good for the past 70 years.”
At the end of one interview, the journalist said, “Madame, I hope we will meet again sometime next year.” To which Jeanne replied, “Why not? You’re not that old; you’ll still be here!””
Source: Random post on Facebook
The photograph pictures her 1945 at the age of 70 which was past the French life expectancy during that time already.
She would continue to live for an additional 52 years.
BUT…
There have been various theories about the authenticity of her age. In 2018, Russian gerontologist Valery Novoselov and mathematician Nikolay Zak revived the theory that Calment died in 1934 and her daughter Yvonne, born in 1898, assumed her mother’s official identity and was therefore 99 years old when she died in 1997.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
Does the photograph show a 70 or 47 year old woman?
See also: