# oldest dead celebrity **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 28, 2005, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844 "2005-05-28T01:34:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/1 "2005-05-28T01:34:24Z")
Adolf Zukor, founder and head of Paramount Pictures for years, lived to be 103. Irving Berlin lived to 101. Charles Lane, one of the busiest actors in film, recently turned 100. Go, Charlie. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/2 "2005-05-28T01:49:50Z")
How do you define celebrity? Entertainment celebrties, public figures, what? I know the woman who directed all those Nazi propaganda films lived to 105. Many noted people have lived upward of 110 (can’t think of a single one at the moment, though!). There are sites out there of noted people who are pushing 100 or over 100 years of age. Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![Trillionaire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@Trillionaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trillionaire)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/3 "2005-05-28T01:54:50Z")
George Burns and the Queen Mother both hit triple figures didnt they? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/4 "2005-05-28T02:33:08Z")
Ragtime composer Eubie Blake and studio head Hal Roach both made it past 100, the former by only five days, but the latter by almost ten months. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/5 "2005-05-28T02:33:59Z")
> [@Sir Rhosis](#): > > I know the woman who directed all those Nazi propaganda films lived to 105. Leni Riefenstahl (I think that’s spelled right) is the woman you mean. George Burns was booked to play Ceaser’s Palace on his 100th birthday, but he didn’t quite make it. Bob Hope cracked a century, though. Eddie Albert of _Green Acres_ fame just died today at 99. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/6 "2005-05-28T02:36:49Z")
> [@Sir Rhosis](#): > > I know the woman who directed all those Nazi propaganda films lived to 105. [Leni Riefenstahl.](http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0726166/) But not quite 105: just a couple weeks past 101. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/7 "2005-05-28T02:42:28Z")
_Noooo!!!_ If I weren’t so tired, I would start a thread about Mr. Heimberger and that wonderful alternative rural universe he helped create. “Oh, for the love of…” > [@DesertGeezer](#): > > Eddie Albert of _Green Acres_ fame just died today at 99. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/8 "2005-05-28T02:58:00Z")
This depends on (as noted by **Sir Rhosis** ) how you define ‘celebrity’, but the legendary Delta blues musician Son House _may_ have been 102 when he died in 1988. Ira Gerswin lived to be 86 or 87 – I had thought he was much older. The very recently departed Thurl Ravenscroft (voice of The Grinch and Tony the Tiger) was 91 when he left us. IIRC, there was a pioneering mathematical statistician who cracked the 100-year barrier – one of my teachers found the professor still kicking while researching his work for a textbook he was working on in the early 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/9 "2005-05-28T03:10:39Z")
Marie Clement became a bit of a celebrity _because_ of her age. Back when she was about 80, some Parisian professional in his 30s made a deal with her that he would pay her rent for the rest of her life as long as he could take over her apartment when she died. He wanted it because it had been Vincent Van Gogh’s before it was hers. Fast forward forty years and the Parisian professional fellow is dead of heart disease or some such thing and Marie Clement, 120 years old and the oldest person _ever_, is, if not in the peak of health, at least coherent and cognizant and blessed with a sharp sense of humor. She recorded a rap song about being the “voice of time”, and said (presumably in French) that she only has one wrinkle and she’s sitting on it. She made it to 122, so if she qualifies as a celebrity she’s definitely the oldest. She’s the oldest person of anything that she can be categorized as, for that matter 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/10 "2005-05-28T04:56:32Z")
Noted playwright and philosopher George Bernard Shaw lived well past his 96th birthday – impressive as hell, if you consider he was born in 1850, when life expectancy was 1/3 of what it is now. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/11 "2005-05-28T05:06:56Z")
Her name was Jeanne Calment, not Marie Clement. The age numbers are wrong too. He was 47 and she was 90 when they signed the contract. He lived to be 77, so she was 120 when he died. I believe that it wasn’t an agreement to pay her rent. I think it was a reverse mortgage. He agreed to pay a certain amount each month so that he would acquire her house when she died. The average life expectancy has not tripled since 1850. It hasn’t even doubled. The average life expentancy was about 45 in 1850. It’s now about 76. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/12 "2005-05-28T05:44:02Z")
> [@F. U. Shakespeare](#): > > This depends on (as noted by **Sir Rhosis** ) how you define ‘celebrity’, but the legendary Delta blues musician Son House _may_ have been 102 when he died in 1988. Which means he was 80 when they filmed (barely) him slapping his dobro and the camera couldn’t keep up? The man was a GOD! ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/13 "2005-05-28T05:45:47Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Marie Clement… He wanted it because it had been Vincent Van Gogh’s before it was hers. I recalll her comment on when she met Van Gogh, “He smelled bad.” ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/14 "2005-05-28T12:14:32Z")
> [@KGS](#): > > Noted playwright and philosopher George Bernard Shaw lived well past his 96th birthday – impressive as hell, if you consider he was born in 1850, when life expectancy was 1/3 of what it is now. That’s a trifle misleading: _average_ life expectancy was lower, sure, but that was helped by a high infant mortality rate - if you made it past your childhood and weren’t a coal miner or a hatter, you had at least reasonable odds of making old bones. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/15 "2005-05-28T13:16:57Z")
There was an actor born in the late 18th century who supposedly lived to 122–even given for 10 or 15 years exaggeration, that’s pretty long. I’ll have to look him up in my _Variety Obits_ collection for details ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/16 "2005-05-28T13:26:26Z")
> [@DesertGeezer](#): > > George Burns was booked to play Ceaser’s Palace on his 100th birthday, but he didn’t quite make it. Bob Hope cracked a century, though. [Burns DID make 100, he just had to cancel the gig due to health reasons.](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0122675/) ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/17 "2005-05-28T16:09:47Z")
Playwright/director of stage and screen [George Abbott](http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=5770) lived to be 107, and stated active as a director until he was 95. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/18 "2005-05-28T17:42:59Z")
I don’t know if politicians count as “celebrities”, but [Alf Landon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alf_Landon) is another one who made it to 100 (and died a month later). ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/19 "2005-05-28T22:58:47Z")
Hmmmm, was Methusalah a “celebrity”? Not that I actually believe . . . ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844/20 "2005-05-28T23:17:06Z")
Again, don’t know if she quite qualifies, but Madame Chiang Kai-Shek died just last year at 106 (or just shy of it). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-dead-celebrity/305844.md?page=2)