Jeanne Louise Calment

Portrait of Jeanne Calment
Photo by N'geen Tien-Gamma Liasion

A very complete set of references and pictures of Jeanne Calment produced by Stéphane Sivori for the IPSEN Foundation may be found at www.centenaire.com (in French and in English).

Jeanne Louise Calment was born in Arles, France on February 21, 1875 and died August 4, 1997 at the age of 122. At the time of hear death, she was blind, almost deaf and is confined to a wheelchair. She once met Vincent Van Gogh in her father's shop. Her genes may have contributed to her longevity as her father lived to the age of 94 and her mother to the age of 86. She married a distant cousin at the age of 21. Her only grandson died in 1963. She rode a bicycle to the age of 100.

In October of 1995, much press coverage announced that Jeanne had exceeded the lifespan of Shigechiyo (Chigechiyo) Izumi, who until then had held the claim to the longest lived human. In fact, work by John Wilmoth indicates that Izumi may have only been 105 when he died, meaning that Jeanne may have outlived Izumi in 1980. If that is accurate, Jeanne would have become the longest lived human in 1991 when she exceeded the longevity of Carrie White, who died at the age of 116. The moral of the story: Don't believe everything you read in the popular press.

Quotes attributed to Jeanne Calment:

Jean Calment, according to the papers, has published two CDs, one in French and another in English titled, Maitresse du Temps. A VCR tape is also supposed to be available. Aeiveos does not know the sources for these.

At the time of the first writing of this document (February 1996), the Aces & Eights Society had ongoing betting pool that Jeanne will not make it another year.  Betting against that would have won the bet (though not by much).

Information Sources which refer to Jeanne Calment

Undated Sources

Sources in Foreign Languages

Search Sources

Quote Sources

The quotes from Jeanne Calment are taken from the news sources listed as well as those below.

French Insult Pages

Jeanne Calment has perhaps the unique distinction of being included in pages which contain collections of insults about "Yo mamma..." or "Ta mère" in French. The insult would appear to be: Pages which may contain the insult include:

Unverified references to Jeanne Calment

Created: February, 1996
Last Updated: April, 1999
Author: Robert J. Bradbury