The Woman Who Outlived Everyone
Jeanne Calment remains the only human being ever documented to have reached the age of 122. Born in 1875 in Arles, France, she lived through a staggering amount of history, including the invention of the lightbulb, two world wars, and the moon landing.
Because she came from a wealthy family, she never had to work a day in her life, which allowed her to focus on hobbies like fencing, swimming, and cycling well into her centenarian years.
A Grumpy Encounter
When she was 13, Calment met the painter Vincent van Gogh in her father’s shop. She was not a fan of the legendary artist, later describing him as dirty, badly dressed, and generally unpleasant to be around.
Decades later, her longevity turned her into a bit of a celebrity herself. At the age of 114, she secured a spot in the history books not just for her age, but for becoming the oldest person to ever appear in a motion picture when she had a role in a film about Van Gogh.
The Apartment Gamble
One of the most famous stories about her life involves a real estate deal gone wrong for the buyer. At age 90, Calment had no heirs, so she signed a contract with a 47-year-old lawyer named André-François Raffray.
He agreed to pay her a monthly fee for the rest of her life in exchange for ownership of her apartment after she died. He likely expected the deal to last a few years, but Calment lived for another 32 years.
Raffray actually died of old age before she did, and his widow had to continue making the payments until Calment finally passed away at 122.
This situation became the real-world inspiration for the 2014 film My Old Lady, starring Maggie Smith and Kevin Kline. In the movie, an American man inherits a Parisian apartment only to find a 92-year-old woman living there under the same type of “life annuity” contract. The character in the film is stuck paying a monthly stipend to a woman who refuses to die.
Chocolate and Cigarettes
Calment’s health habits were famously relaxed. She consumed nearly two pounds of chocolate every week and enjoyed a glass of port wine regularly.
She also used olive oil as a staple in her diet and rubbed it onto her skin to maintain her complexion.
Perhaps most surprisingly, she smoked from the age of 21 until she was 117. She only gave up the habit because her eyesight had failed to the point where she could no longer see well enough to light her own cigarettes and felt embarrassed asking her caregivers for help.
Proving the Record
In recent years, a few researchers sparked a global debate by suggesting that Calment’s daughter, Yvonne, had actually taken her mother’s place in 1934 to avoid inheritance taxes.
This theory claimed the real Jeanne died much earlier and the daughter lived out the rest of the record-breaking years.
However, most experts who specialize in aging have debunked this, pointing to vast amounts of census data, city records, and interviews that confirm her identity.
She remained mentally sharp until her death in 1997, solidifying her place as the oldest human to ever live.