Jeanne Louise Calment, the world's longest living person

[jtuck004]

...
(who died at the age of 122) was born in Arles, France on February 21, 1875 and died on August 4, 1997 in a nursing home in Arles. She was born in the year Bizet’s “Carmen” was first staged and Tolstoy published Anna Karennina, and a year before Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. She also witnessed the aeroplane and the cinema. At the age of 13, she met Vincent Van Gogh in Arles and wasn’t impressed by him.

The Guinness Book of World Records had listed Calment as the oldest living person whose birth date could be authenticated by reliable records. Although blind, almost deaf and is confined to a wheelchair, Calment remained spirited and mentally sharp until the end. At age 121, she released her two CDs, one in French and another in English titled, Maitresse du Temps (Time’s Mistress), which featured Calment's reminiscing to a score of rap and other tunes. A VCR tape is also supposed to be available and at least five books about her have been released.
...

Calment’s Secret of Longevity

Jean Calment came from a bourgeois family and never has to work...
...
In later years, Calment lived mostly off the income from her apartment, which she sold cheaply to a lawyer when she was 90. Andre-Francois Raffray, who apparently relied on the actuarial table, signed a contingency contract with Calment and agreed to pay a life annuity of 2,500 francs ($500) a month under a deal to make him the owner of Calment's flat when she dies. Yet, he died at 77 and his family was still paying for more than a year unitl she died. Altogether, they paid more than 900,000 francs ($180,000), three times the value of the house.
...

More here...

AND


There were a few warning signs of what went wrong: Jeanne's mother had lived to 86, her father to 93 and her brother to 96, while Jeanne herself was unusually active, taking up goddamn fencing lessons at the age of 85. When most people stop controlling their bowels, she was just starting to learn swordplay.

One of 5 worst deals...

[wtmusic]

1. Secret: butter, red wine, and sex nt

[Warpy]

2. One of my grand aunts took boxing lessons at 91

She only made it to 99, though. If she hadn't been enormously overweight and mostly sedentary, she might have given Calment some competition. They were born in the same year.