122-Year-Old Woman Enjoyed Wine and Smoking Yet Lived a Long Life

Jeanne Louise Cal­ment is remem­bered as the longest-lived human being in record­ed his­to­ry whose age has been con­firmed beyond any seri­ous doubt. Her life, which extend­ed for more than twelve decades, con­tin­ues to intrigue sci­en­tists, his­to­ri­ans, and read­ers around the world because it chal­lenges con­ven­tion­al ideas about aging, health, and the lim­its of the human lifes­pan. What makes her sto­ry extra­or­di­nary is not only how long she lived, but how ful­ly she expe­ri­enced life across eras of dra­mat­ic glob­al change.

She was born on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1875, in Arles, a small and sun­lit town in south­ern France. At the time of her birth, the world was still shaped by horse-drawn trans­porta­tion, hand­writ­ten let­ters, and gas lamps. Elec­tric­i­ty was rare, med­i­cine was lim­it­ed, and the aver­age life expectan­cy was a frac­tion of what it would lat­er become. Jeanne Cal­ment entered a world that could scarce­ly imag­ine the tech­no­log­i­cal and social rev­o­lu­tions she would live to wit­ness. When she passed away on August 4, 1997, at the age of 122 years and 164 days, the world had entered the dig­i­tal age, defined by com­put­ers, glob­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and the ear­ly inter­net.

Her age has been ver­i­fied through one of the most rig­or­ous doc­u­men­ta­tion process­es ever applied to a super­cente­nar­i­an. Researchers exam­ined birth records, cen­sus doc­u­ments, mar­riage cer­tifi­cates, pho­tographs, legal papers, and numer­ous oth­er archival sources span­ning more than a cen­tu­ry. These mate­ri­als were reviewed repeat­ed­ly by demog­ra­phers and longevi­ty experts over sev­er­al decades. The con­clu­sion has remained con­sis­tent and unan­i­mous: Jeanne Cal­ment tru­ly lived longer than any oth­er ver­i­fied human being in his­to­ry. This recog­ni­tion earned her a per­ma­nent place in Guin­ness World Records and made her a cen­tral fig­ure in sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies of extreme longevi­ty. To this day, she remains the only ver­i­fied per­son to have lived beyond the age of 119, a mile­stone that places her in a cat­e­go­ry entire­ly her own.

The sheer his­tor­i­cal scope of her life is almost impos­si­ble to com­pre­hend. Jeanne Cal­ment lived through three cen­turies and wit­nessed events that reshaped the mod­ern world. She was alive when the Eif­fel Tow­er was built and lived long enough to see it become a glob­al sym­bol of France. She expe­ri­enced the inven­tion and spread of elec­tric light­ing, the tele­phone, auto­mo­biles, air­planes, radio, and tele­vi­sion. She lived through both World Wars, wit­ness­ing the dev­as­ta­tion they brought and the pro­found social and polit­i­cal changes that fol­lowed. She observed the fall of empires, the trans­for­ma­tion of Europe, and the rise of the Unit­ed States as a glob­al pow­er. By the end of her life, she had also seen the dawn of the inter­net, a devel­op­ment that rev­o­lu­tion­ized how peo­ple com­mu­ni­cate and share knowl­edge.

Despite liv­ing through wars, eco­nom­ic crises, and rapid tech­no­log­i­cal change, Jeanne Cal­ment main­tained a remark­able sense of con­ti­nu­ity in her dai­ly life. She remained root­ed in her home­town of Arles, sur­round­ed by famil­iar streets, neigh­bors, and rou­tines. This sta­bil­i­ty may have played an impor­tant role in pre­serv­ing her men­tal and emo­tion­al well­be­ing as the world around her trans­formed at an unprece­dent­ed pace.

What has fas­ci­nat­ed researchers and the pub­lic just as much as her age are her lifestyle choic­es, many of which appear to con­tra­dict mod­ern health advice. Unlike indi­vid­u­als who cred­it their long lives to strict diets, intense exer­cise reg­i­mens, or total absti­nence from indul­gence, Jeanne Cal­ment lived with mod­er­a­tion and plea­sure. She loved choco­late and report­ed­ly ate up to two pounds of it per week, enjoy­ing dessert with near­ly every meal. Wine, par­tic­u­lar­ly port wine, was part of her rou­tine, con­sumed calm­ly and with­out excess. Per­haps most sur­pris­ing­ly, she smoked cig­a­rettes for almost a cen­tu­ry, begin­ning at age 21 and con­tin­u­ing until she was 117 years old.

While smok­ing and high sug­ar con­sump­tion are wide­ly asso­ci­at­ed with seri­ous health risks, Jeanne Cal­ment seemed to avoid many of the dis­eases com­mon­ly linked to these habits. She did not suf­fer from can­cer or severe car­dio­vas­cu­lar ill­ness, and her over­all health remained rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble well into extreme old age. Her case sug­gests that longevi­ty can­not be explained by lifestyle alone and that genet­ic fac­tors may play a pow­er­ful role. Many sci­en­tists believe she may have pos­sessed rare genet­ic traits that enhanced her resis­tance to dis­ease, improved DNA repair, and reduced age-relat­ed inflam­ma­tion.

Despite her indul­gences, Jeanne Cal­ment remained phys­i­cal­ly active for most of her life. She rode a bicy­cle well into her nineties and con­tin­ued to walk inde­pen­dent­ly long after turn­ing 100. She man­aged her own affairs and main­tained an active pres­ence in her com­mu­ni­ty. One of the most famous anec­dotes from her lat­er life describes how, on her 100th birth­day, she walked from house to house in Arles to per­son­al­ly thank peo­ple for their con­grat­u­la­tions. This act was not only a demon­stra­tion of phys­i­cal strength but also of social engage­ment and emo­tion­al vital­i­ty.

Equal­ly remark­able was her men­tal clar­i­ty and sharp sense of humor, which she retained until the very end of her life. Even as her eye­sight and hear­ing declined, her wit remained intact. On her 120th birth­day, she joked that she could see bad­ly, hear bad­ly, and feel almost noth­ing, but that every­thing was fine. She often laughed about aging, once remark­ing that she had only one wrin­kle and was sit­ting on it. This light­heart­ed atti­tude reflect­ed a deep emo­tion­al resilience and an abil­i­ty to accept aging with­out fear or bit­ter­ness.

Mod­ern research increas­ing­ly empha­sizes the impor­tance of men­tal and emo­tion­al health in aging. Chron­ic stress is known to accel­er­ate bio­log­i­cal aging through inflam­ma­tion and oxida­tive dam­age, while pos­i­tive emo­tion­al states and laugh­ter can have pro­tec­tive effects on the body. Jeanne Cal­ment appeared to pos­sess an extra­or­di­nary resis­tance to stress. Accord­ing to researchers who stud­ied her life, she was calm, untrou­bled by minor prob­lems, and rarely anx­ious about things she could not con­trol. Her per­son­al phi­los­o­phy was sim­ple: if some­thing could not be changed, it was not worth wor­ry­ing about.

Social con­nec­tion also played a sig­nif­i­cant role in her life. Jeanne remained engaged with her com­mu­ni­ty, main­tained rela­tion­ships, and showed curios­i­ty about the world around her. Liv­ing in Arles, with its mild cli­mate, close-knit social struc­ture, and access to fresh food, may have fur­ther sup­port­ed her well­be­ing. Today, social engage­ment is rec­og­nized as a cru­cial fac­tor in both men­tal health and longevi­ty, and Jeanne Cal­ment embod­ied this prin­ci­ple nat­u­ral­ly through­out her life.

From a sci­en­tif­ic per­spec­tive, her longevi­ty high­lights the com­plex inter­ac­tion of many fac­tors rather than a sin­gle secret for­mu­la. Genet­ics, envi­ron­ment, lifestyle, emo­tion­al resilience, and social engage­ment like­ly com­bined to cre­ate the con­di­tions for her extra­or­di­nary lifes­pan. Researchers often cite her as a pow­er­ful exam­ple of how extreme longevi­ty is rarely the result of one habit or inter­ven­tion, but rather the con­ver­gence of mul­ti­ple pos­i­tive influ­ences over a life­time.

Beyond sci­ence, Jeanne Calment’s life has left a last­ing cul­tur­al impres­sion. Pho­tographs and inter­views from her lat­er years cap­ture not only her advanced age but also her humor, intel­li­gence, and warmth. She became a sym­bol of human adapt­abil­i­ty and resilience, demon­strat­ing that it is pos­si­ble to age with dig­ni­ty, curios­i­ty, and joy even as the body slows down.

In a world increas­ing­ly focused on anti-aging treat­ments, strict diets, and the fear of grow­ing old, Jeanne Calment’s sto­ry offers a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. Her life sug­gests that longevi­ty is not sole­ly about extend­ing years at any cost, but about liv­ing those years ful­ly, main­tain­ing bal­ance, and approach­ing life with accep­tance and humor. She reminds us that aging is a nat­ur­al process, and that a calm mind, social con­nec­tion, and a joy­ful out­look may be just as impor­tant as any med­ical advance­ment.

Jeanne Cal­ment did not sim­ply live a long life; she lived a rich one, span­ning eras, wit­ness­ing his­to­ry, and embrac­ing each stage of exis­tence with remark­able grace. Her sto­ry con­tin­ues to inspire and chal­lenge our under­stand­ing of what it tru­ly means to live well and age wise­ly.