Never say retire.

March 16, 2008 6:59 PM

Who are the oldest working professional people? After reading about Manoel de Oliveira, who appears to be the oldest working filmmaker, I wondered about the oldest working people in other fields, for instance, the oldest professor still writing papers, or the oldest lawyer still trying cases in court... all other professions or occupations welcome.

The only other example I've found that placed especial emphasis on the working was a Pravda profile of the artist Moisei Feigin.

posted by StrikeTheViol to grab bag (25 comments total)

Well, this man is the oldest runner at 101.

It doesn't say it in that article, but he works as a construction worker and I'd bet he is the oldest construction worker in the world. He was retired but started working again out of boredom.
posted by Becko at 7:10 PM on March 16, 2008

Oops, I was wrong.

It does say it in the article. This one though says he cleans vans for a plumbing company.
posted by Becko at 7:10 PM on March 16, 2008

Dorothy Kloss is supposedly the oldest ‘Still Performing’ showgirl in the world at 84.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 7:12 PM on March 16, 2008

I know a woman who, at 85, still works as a counselor with seriously mentally disturbed individuals; she has had certain clients for decades, and among the treasures in her desk is a shoe that has Satan in it (that a client asked her to keep so Satan wouldn't trouble her as much). Sadly, the shoe is a suede loafer.

All of her co-workers think that she is in her mid-sixties, and she does nothing to correct that assumption. Earlier in the year she was hospitalized for some time because of hip troubles, and when she returned to work her boss said, "Aren't you a little young for joint problems?"

She's my personal hero.
posted by arnicae at 7:12 PM on March 16, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Irving Kahn is 103, I believe, and still an active trader on Wall Street (or some other financial job like that; I may be mixing up terms).
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:21 PM on March 16, 2008

John Paul Stevens -- 87 years old with no sign of slowing down.

Here's a lawyer who died last year at age 103 -- he was still working.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 7:33 PM on March 16, 2008

Horton Foote is 91 and still writing important plays. I worked with him on the revival of "To Kill a Mockingbird" at Signature Theatre a couple of years ago, and I have to say he was one of the kindest, most interesting writers I've had the opportunity to interact with. (The late August Wilson and the prolific A.R. Gurney make that list as well).
posted by stagewhisper at 7:44 PM on March 16, 2008

Thomas C. Fleming was "the nation's oldest and longest-serving black journalist,"
still writing 2 columns a week in his nineties.

According to this 2005 article, John Reed was at that time the "oldest C.E.O. of any company listed on the NYSE" ; he was 93 and "worked three weeks out of every four."

Sidney Amber was famously a working maitre d' at a San Francisco restaurant until he died at, I think, 109, a couple of years ago.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:46 PM on March 16, 2008

Innovative cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey still sees patients and writes papers at age 99, even though he almost died two years ago. Ironically, he had a heart condition for which he had previously pioneered a procedure.

He recently talked to Esquire about what he's learned over the years.

I think he drinks milkshakes made of gumption for breakfast.
posted by the littlest brussels sprout at 8:00 PM on March 16, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Looking at a few names from this list of American centenarians, we find a number who were working quite late in life; here are a few, most of whom are now dead (not sure if you care more about the still-alive feature or the working-in-extreme-old-age)...

George Burns is an obvious one to mention; he worked up until his late 90s.

Bob Hope also an obvious one, worked up into his 90s.

Scholar Jacques Barzun wrote a massive book in his late 80s, and seems (from his wikipedia entry) to have been productive up to a couple of years ago - he's now over 100.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas was an environmentalist writer and activist who lived to 108 and was active in trying to curb development in the Everglades until the end of her life.

Mother Jones, social activist, worked into her late 80s or early 90s.

William Gould Dow was a scientist who worked a year or so past his 100th birthday.

Charles Hartshorne was a philosopher who published and lectured into his late 90s.

Strom Thurmond, of course, turned 100 while he was still serving as a senator.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:27 PM on March 16, 2008

Thanks LobsterMitten! I care more about the still-alive bit, but don't want to discourage people from answering in the other sense too.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 9:06 PM on March 16, 2008

I work with several octogenarians, all retired, who work on one Saturday a fortnight to give them a reason to get out of the house. Sure, they don't always do things at light speed, but they're (mostly) great fun to be around - and customers love them. One of the area supervisors left at the end of last year, and he was getting close to 90 and had been doing the job for 40 years.
posted by cholly at 9:18 PM on March 16, 2008

Well, I don't know if he is the absolute oldest mathematician, but Israel Gelfand is definitely up there, at 95. He is a prof at Rutgers now.
posted by number9dream at 10:04 PM on March 16, 2008

He may not be the oldest, but anthropologist Sidney Mintz (born 1922, which I guess makes him 86 or so) is still productive as hell. And last time I met him (about a decade ago) he was busily learning Chinese, which was like his 9th language.

Proves something about an active mind and all that.

My mom, at 72, still works 70 hour weeks as a hospice nurse and never even considers retirement. Pretty awesome too.
posted by fourcheesemac at 10:22 PM on March 16, 2008

Momoko Ishii is a highly acclaimed Japanese children's fiction writer and translator (her versions of Winnie-the-Pooh and Peter Rabbit are still being read in Japan) who turned 101 years old on March 10.

The prolific Japanese filmmaker Kon Ichikawa was 92 when he passed away in February this year. His most recent film was produced in 2006.

Shigeaki Hinohara is a 96-year-old working physician and author.

Katsusuke Yanagisawa currently holds the record for oldest man to climb Mt. Everest at 71 years old. Before he broke the record last March, the record was held by Yuichiro Miura, who is planning to climb the mountain again this year at the age of 75.

Interesting question!
posted by misozaki at 10:30 PM on March 16, 2008

I would be interested to learn of the oldest working doctors. DeBakey certainly raises the bar pretty high. Like nearly every other doctor who has ever trained, I have used DeBakeys (a type of tweezer-clamp) in the operating room (in my case, as a medical student.)

In 2002 I met a 95 year old psychiatrist who still was seeing patients. She had trained in France under, among others, Joseph Babinski, which to a neurologist is a bit like saying you took your seminary training under the personal instruction of God Almighty.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:35 PM on March 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Oh, and after posting, I remembered someone else. There's a woman who is fairly well-known in Japan named Aguri Yoshiyuki, who ran her own beauty salon and worked there as a beautician until 2005. According to the Japanese Wikipedia, she turned 100 years old last July. Her career is notable not only because there weren't too many career-oriented women in this country back in the day when she started her salon, but also because she raised three children by herself after her husband, a Japanese Dadaist poet named Eisuke Yoshiyuki, passed away when he was young. Her children all turned out to be artistically gifted; her eldest, Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, was a famous author, her second, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, is a well-known actress, and her youngest, Rie Yoshiyuki, was a poet. A well-made television drama based on her autobiography was aired in 1997 and made her famous.
posted by misozaki at 11:00 PM on March 16, 2008

This list is probably useful

I think the Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss is still active at age 100. Another Anthropologist died a couple of years ago and was definitely still going strong at 98: Frederica de Laguna.

It's a different league, so to speak, but Chris Chelios is still playing top-tier professional ice hockey at age 46.
posted by Rumple at 11:50 PM on March 16, 2008

John Maynard Smith, distinguished geneticist, died at the age of 84 while still an active academic. Allegedly he passed away while correcting a paper.
posted by outlier at 4:01 AM on March 17, 2008

Architect Oscar Niemeyer, best known as the designer of Brasilia, is still working in his 100th year.
posted by Bodd at 4:09 AM on March 17, 2008

Oscar Niemeyer has never retired I believe, and he's 101 this year.
posted by derMax at 4:12 AM on March 17, 2008

damn, 3 minutes!
posted by derMax at 4:12 AM on March 17, 2008

ikkyu2: I would be interested to learn of the oldest working doctors
Dr. Ellsworth Wareham is still performing open-heart surgery at 92.

He appeared on an episode of Horizon (BBC science documentary) called 'How to live to 101' last month. You can see an excerpt from his interview here. The full programme is available on Google Video.
posted by boosh at 5:54 AM on March 17, 2008

Elliott Carter is still composing his thorny academic music, and he'll turn 100 this year. Last time I saw him (last year) he was hard of hearing but otherwise pretty mobile and of course still all there mentally.
posted by allterrainbrain at 4:36 PM on March 17, 2008

Barbara Milner is still doing neuroscience at the Montreal Neuro at age 89.
posted by zadcat at 6:09 PM on March 31, 2008