85 Years Old Females

Lily Tomlin is an American comedian, actress, singer, and writer. Tomlin has earned several award nominations for her performance in films and TV series, such as Nashville and Grace and Frankie. An openly lesbian actress, Lily Tomlin serves as an inspiration to the LGBTQ community.

A veteran actress with a career spanning over half a century, Ali MacGraw first came to prominence in the 1970s after acting in many popular action and romantic films. She was also active on the stage and in TV shows. Besides acting, she has been an animal rights advocate throughout her life.

Claudette Colvin is an American retired nurse aide and pioneer of the civil rights movement during the 1950s. She was arrested at age 15, when she refused to give up her seat in a crowded bus to a white woman. This occurred several months before the more renowned Rosa Parks incident, which helped spark the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.

Norwegian actress-film director Liv Ullmann is counted among the greatest European actresses. She is best-known for her roles in films like The Emigrants and Face to Face, both of which earned her Oscar nomination, and the former won her a Golden Globe She received an Honorary Academy Award. Her second directorial feature-film Faithless was nominated for Palme d'Or in 2000.

Liberian politician, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, served as the 24th President of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. She was the first elected female head of state in Africa. An alumnus of the Harvard University, she began her political career in the 1970s and rose through the ranks with time. She is the recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

Lola Van Wagenen is an American historian who is credited with co-founding non-profit educational organizations like Consumer Action Now (CAN) and Clio Visualizing History, Inc. Consumer Action Now went on to establish several environmental education and consumer-oriented programs in an attempt to raise awareness about the effects of consumers' buying habits on the environment.

Juliet Hulme, better known as Anne Perry, is the bestselling author of the widely popular William Monk and Thomas Pitt series of novels. She changed her name after a 5-year sentence for killing her friend’s mother at age 15. She has also worked as a flight attendant.

Australian author and feminist Germaine Greer made headlines with her first book, The Female Eunuch, which focused on female sexuality. Greer’s career boasts of a PhD in literature, and she has also taught at the University of Warwick and other institutes. She was later named an Australian National Living Treasure.

The daughter of actor Thora Hird, Janette Scott began her career as a child artist. She later appeared in films such as The Day of the Triffids. She penned her memoir at 14 and was the youngest actor to portray Peter Pan. She quit her career after marrying Mel Tormé.

English author Margaret Drabble mostly writes about women protagonists and their experiences through marriage, motherhood, and intellectual development. Her novels such as The Gates of Ivory and A Summer Bird-Cage have earned her honors such as the DBE. She is the younger sister of novelist A.S. Byatt.

Ada Yonath is an Israeli crystallographer. She is best known for her work on the structure of the ribosome, for which she received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz. The first Israeli woman to win the Nobel Prize, she occupies the Martin S. and Helen Kimmel Professorial Chair at the Weizmann Institute.  

Tessa Kennedy is a British interior designer who works for prominent hotels, restaurants, multi-national corporations, clubs, celebrities, and royalty. She is credited with establishing her own company Tessa Kennedy Design, Ltd., which has received many design accolades. Tessa Kennedy made headlines in 1957 when she eloped with English portrait painter Bede Evelyn Dominick Elwes.

Michèle Mercier is a French actress best known for playing Angélique Sancé de Monteloup in the 1964 historical romance film Angélique, Marquise des Anges. Over the course of her illustrious career, Mercier has worked with prominent directors like Dino Risi, François Truffaut, Mario Monicelli, and Ken Annakin. She has also appeared alongside popular actors like Marcello Mastroianni and Charles Bronson.

Beate Klarsfeld is a Franco-German journalist best known for her work as a Nazi hunter. Beate and her husband Serge Klarsfeld achieved popularity for their documentation of many Nazi war criminals, including Alois Brunner, Kurt Lischka, Klaus Barbie, and Kurt Asche. Over the years, Beate Klarsfeld has been honored with numerous prestigious awards, including National Jewish Book Award.

Adrienne Clarkson is a Hong Kong-born Canadian political leader and journalist. She is best known for her service as the Governor General of Canada from 7 October 1999 to 27 September 2005. Over the course of her career, Adrienne Clarkson has won many prestigious medals and awards such as the Canadian Centennial Medal and the Vimy Award.

Internationally renowned children’s book author and illustrator Lena Anderson began working in the publishing industry at age 16 and first gained fame with her book Linnea in Monet's Garden, which was one of her many collaborations with author Christina Björk. She is known for creating her much-loved character Maja.

Palestinian doctor of medicine, author and academic Ghada Karmi is associated with the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter as research fellow and lecturer. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Karmi has penned several articles on Palestinian issues in Wayback Machine and in newspapers and magazines like Journal of Palestine Studies and The Guardian.

Mary Peters is a Northern Irish former athlete who specialized in the pentathlon and shot put. She was athletic from a young age and received encouragement from her father to pursue her passion. She represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the Summer Olympics in 1972 and won the gold medal in the women's pentathlon.