A cinematic centurion: the oldest person ever to appear in a movie
Acting doesn’t treat retirement in the same way as the majority of other professions, with thespians able to keep performing for as long as they see fit. The industry is full of distinguished veterans, but one person took that to the next level by making their cinema debut as its oldest-ever contributor.
Age is but a number in the film business, and there are plenty of examples to prove it. Anthony Hopkins became the oldest winner of an Academy Award for acting when The Father saw him land his second ‘Best Picture’ prize at the age of 83, while Dick Van Dyke still hasn’t officially called it quits despite edging closer to turning 100 years old.
Clint Eastwood’s Juror No. 2 will be released the same year the icon of the industry turned 94. Rosemary Harris popped up in two episodes of the dark comedy series Search Party when she was just shy of her 95th birthday. Rita Moreno decided that being into her 90s was the ideal time to make her blockbuster debut in the tenth instalment of the Fast & Furious franchise, and his youthful exuberance makes it very easy to forget William Shatner was born in 1931.
However, none of them can hold a candle to a French-Canadian fantasy drama released in 1990, which follows a young girl’s obsession with Vincent Van Gogh. Spending her free time recreating the artist’s most famous paintings, when a stranger purchases her pieces and sells them for millions on the black market, Nina Petronzio’s Jo sets out to reclaim her artwork with the help of the man himself, thanks to some otherworldly shenanigans.
With Vincent and Me premiering a century after Van Gogh’s death in 1890, it would be ridiculous to expect filmmaker Michael Rubbo to enlist somebody who’d actually met him for a cameo appearance, right? Wrong, because after playing herself based on her remembrance of encountering the famed artist when she was a youngster herself, 114-year-old Jeanne Calment set a record as the oldest person to ever play a part in a movie.
Was Calment done breaking records there? Of course, she wasn’t, with the Frenchwoman going down in history as the only person to have been verified reaching 120 years of age. Born in February 1875, the supercentenarian is the oldest person to have ever been recorded with tangible proof backing the length of their lifespan, which stretched for 122 years and 164 days before her passing in August 1997.
Calment was born in Arles, where Van Gogh spent the last year of his life, so even though there isn’t any tangible proof she’d come face-to-face with the one-eared maverick, it’s hardly a tall tale to imagine that she had when they lived in the same place at the same time.
