In the film, a 75-year-old woman from Auvers-sur-Oise ( not Jeanne Calment, who lived in Arles several hundred km to the south ), who claims to have known Van Gogh when she was a young girl, meets star Kirk Douglas, and comments on how much he looks like the painter.

* May 31, 1998, Surpassed Lucy Hannah to become the oldest person ever from America and the second oldest person ever behind Jeanne Calment ().

Calment became especially well known from the age of 113, when the centenary of Vincent van Gogh's visit brought reporters to Arles.

Calment became the last living documented person born in the 1870s when the Japanese supercentenarian Tane Ikai ( born 1879 ) died on 12 July 1995, and was thence, from that date, more than five and a half years older than any other living human being until her death over two years later ; in total she outlived 329 undisputedly-verified supercentenarians.

Her father, Nicolas Calment ( 28 January 1831 – 22 January 1931 ), was a shipbuilder, and her mother, Marguerite Gilles ( 20 February 1838 – 18 September 1924 ), was from a family of millers.

Yvonne died at age 35 in 1934 from pneumonia, after which Calment raised Frédéric herself.

Calment also holds the record for being the oldest living person for the longest period of time, by far – with nearly nine years and seven months, counting from the death of Florence Knapp on 11 January 1988, to her own death on 4 August 1997.

* 12 July 1995: Tane Ikai dies ; Calment becomes the last living link from the 1870s.

* Image gallery of Jeanne Calment from aged 20 to aged 122

The oldest confirmed recorded age for any human is 122 years ( see Jeanne Calment ).

** Jeanne Calment, the oldest person ever, dies at age 122 years 164 days in Arles, France.

* October 17 – French woman Jeanne Calment reaches the confirmed age of 120 years and 238 days, making her the oldest person ever recorded.

Knauss was the second fully validated person in history to reach age 118 and 119 ( first being Calment in 1993 and 1994, respectively ).

* Jeanne Calment ( 1875 – 1997, 122 years, 164 days ): the oldest person in history whose age has been verified by modern documentation.

Jeanne Louise Calment (; 21 February 1875 – 4 August 1997 ) was a French supercentenarian who had the longest confirmed human lifespan in history, living to the age of.

Calment at age 20 in 1895

According to Calment, she met Vincent van Gogh at the age of 13, when he came into her uncle's shop in 1888.

In 1896, at the age of 21, she married her second cousin, Fernand Nicolas Calment ( their paternal grandfathers were brothers, hence the same surname, and their paternal grandmothers were also sisters ), a wealthy store owner.

Calment at age 22 in 1897

Calment at age 40 in 1915

In 1985, Calment moved into a nursing home, having lived on her own until age 110.

Both before and after Calment's death, there have been several claims to have surpassed her age, but none of them have been proven, and Calment therefore continues to hold the record for the oldest verified person ever.

After her 1988 interview, at age 113, Calment was given the Guinness title " world's oldest living person ".

Calment was believed to have been the first person verified to have reached 115 years of age, although Augusta Holtz has since been verified to have reached this age before her.

Calment broke the record for longest confirmed lifespan ( previously thought to have been held by Anna Eliza Williams, who died in 1987 at age 114 years, 208 days, subsequent research has proved that Augusta Holtz was the oldest ever person at this time, she died in 1985 at the age of 115 years, 79 days ) by over seven years.

* 21 February 1990: Calment becomes the second verified person documented to reach age 115.

* 21 February 1995: Calment becomes the only verified person documented to reach age 120.

* 4 August 1997: Jeanne Calment dies, aged 122 years 164 days ; Marie-Louise Meilleur, age 116, becomes the oldest living person.

However, Calment was still in good shape, and continued to walk until she fractured her femur during a fall at age 114 years 11 months ( January 1990 ), which required surgery.

* February 21 – Jeanne Calment, World's Longest Lived Person ( d. 1997 )

On 17 October 1995, Calment reached 120 years and 238 days to become the " oldest person ever " according to Guinness, surpassing Shigechiyo Izumi of Japan, whose claim ( 120 years 237 days old at the time of his death on 21 February 1986, Calment's 111th birthday ) has been discounted.

Shigechiyo Izumi ( June 29, 1865 – February 21, 1986 ) is the person with the second longest recorded human lifespan in history, after Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment.

Calment was also the first verified person to reach the ages of 117 to 122.

Their only child, a daughter named Yvonne Marie Nicolle Calment ( 1898 – 1934 ), produced a grandson, Frédéric Billiot ( 1926 – 1963 ), in 1926.

* August 4 – Jeanne Calment ( b. 1875 ), oldest person in confirmed history.

His wealth made it possible for Calment never to have to work ; instead she led a leisured lifestyle, pursuing hobbies such as tennis, cycling, swimming, rollerskating, piano and opera.

During all these years, Calment used to say to them that she " competed with Methuselah ".

Calment lived on her own until shortly before her 110th birthday, when it was decided that she needed to be moved to a nursing home after a cooking accident ( she was having complications with sight ) started a small fire in her house.

Calment ascribed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age to olive oil, which she said she poured on all her food and rubbed onto her skin, as well as a diet of port wine, and ate nearly one kilogram of chocolate every week.

* The age of Jeanne Calment when she died.

Hannah is also the oldest person never to have been the oldest living person, since she lived at the same time as Jeanne Calment, the oldest person ever to live.