Do you know when you hear from someone that they have achieved something in their senior years, so you wonder how? The answer is very simple. Age, as we all know, is just a number. By that we mean career! Every man in his life slowly explores his limits and possibilities. Each of us knows exactly what we like and what we don’t. But a few of us failed to find that something in time, which is perfectly fine. Most people in the old days could easily figure out what the point was! Read more about age and people who became stars in their old days and who knows, maybe something will move you in a different direction!
If you want to learn more, check out our article below.
The term age is very subjective. If you would like proof that age has no influence on talent or creativity, then read on … This article provides an overview of personalities from various circles who have achieved remarkable feats after their 50th birthday and still in old age.
For some, the 50th birthday was the beginning of an important period in life. The Comtesse Sophie de Ségur, a French writer of Russian origin, began writing for her grandchildren at the age of 55, the same age actor Raimu filmed The Baker’s Wife. Sarah Bernhardt was 56 when she played L’Aiglon … who is 19 in the play by Edmond Rostand. At 57, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote the book Critique of Pure Reason (1724), which was also the age of George Washington when he was elected the first President of the United States of America in 1789, and Edith Cresson when she was appointed the first female Prime Minister of France in 1991. French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre and Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev were both 59 when they received the Nobel Prize for Literature (1964) and the Nobel Peace Prize (1990) respectively. At the same age, French general and astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien flew into space aboard the American space shuttle Atlantis in 1997.
The triumphant sixties
When Les Misérables was published in 1862, Victor Hugo was 60 years old. The same age as Yves Montand in 1981, when he successfully appeared on stage at L’Olympia for three months. In 1885, at the age of 63, the French chemist Louis Pasteur administered the rabies vaccination to the first child. In 1993, at the age of 63, the singer Barbara celebrated success on the stage of the Théâtre du Châtelet; Clint Eastwood, also at 63, was elected “American with the greatest sex appeal in 1993”; in 1981, at 65, François Mitterrand became President of the French Republic; in 1980, the sailor Phil Weld won the English Transatlantic Regatta for single-handed sailors at the age of 66, and his colleague Eric Tabarly set sail again in a two-man team for the Transatlantic Transat Jacques Vabre. French politician and writer François Deniau crossed the Atlantic alone in 1996 at the age of 68 despite a serious illness.
Charles Perrault was 69 when he published Les Contes de ma Mère l’Oye in 1697, as was Jerry Lewis, who first appeared on stage for a musical in 1995 at the same age-
The seventies, a rich and useful decade
If we take the painter and engraver Marc Chagall as an example, who designed the new ceiling of the Paris Opera in 1963 at the age of 76, even talent does not dull with age. Four years later, violinist and conductor Charles Munch founded and conducted the Orchestre de Paris, also at the age of 76. In 1998, American astronaut John Glenn agreed to return to space at the age of 77 for a ten-day mission to learn more about human ageing. The French laundress Jeanne Denis, who became known as “La Mère Denis”, became famous in 1972 at the age of 79 through a commercial for a detergent brand.
The Eighties: the decade when dreams come true
On 18 July 1998, his 80th birthday, the South African politician Nelson Mandela married his third wife Graça (aged 52). Before him, Pablo Picasso married the then 36-year-old Jacqueline in 1961 at the same age. In 1993, the singer Charles Trenet gave a concert at the Opéra Bastille on his 80th birthday and then sang for several weeks at the Palais des Congrès. The American politician Benjamin Franklin wrote the Constitution of the United States in 1787 at the age of 81. The French poet Louis Aragon, unable to come to terms with his age, appeared on television in 1979 wearing a white mask to conceal the traces of his 82 years of life. The effects of age were no obstacle for the American choreographer Ruth Saint Denis, however; she was still dancing at 83 in 1962 in The Incense, one of her most famous works. The same is true for the Chinese pensioner Wu Kili, who at the same age covered 6000 kilometres by bicycle across China and planned a three-year journey in 1984.
Gustave Eiffel, who never lacked inspiration, developed a fighter plane in 1917 at the age of 85, while French fashion designer Coco Chanel was still planning her next collections in 1970 at the age of 87. Numerous artists published new books or performed on stage between the ages of 80 and 89. A particularly astonishing example, however, is Helen Tew, who sailed across the Atlantic in 2000 at the age of 89.
And after that?
You thought nothing or almost nothing is possible at 90? Wrong thought! At that age, the Spanish violinist Pablo Casals was still giving public concerts in 1966 and numerous writers were publishing books, for example Germaine Acremant, Bertrand Russel and Théodore Monod. The researcher Alexandra David-Neel had her passport renewed in 1969, the year of her 100th birthday. The most unusual case, however, is that of the French explorer Jean-Frédéric Waldeck. At the age of 94, he decided to sell the state documents on his research in the land of the Maya. The minister in charge was convinced he was making a good deal and granted him an annual pension … but he did not die until 1860 at the age of 109!
