Famous 96 Years Old

Regarded by many as the father of modern linguistics, Noam Chomsky has authored over 100 books on varied topics, such as politics, linguistics, and war. A multi-talented personality, Noam Chomsky is considered a popular figure in analytic philosophy. Apart from influencing a wide array of academic fields, he has also contributed to the development of cognitivism.

Mohamed Al-Fayed is a businessman whose son Dodi Fayed's death in a car crash alongside Diana, Princess of Wales became international news. Apart from being one of the richest businessmen in the world, Al-Fayed is also a humanitarian. In 1987, he established the Al Fayed Charitable Foundation, which aims at helping children living in poverty and children with life-limiting conditions.

Pilar Pallete is a Peruvian actress whose professional career has been greatly overshadowed by her personal life, including her high-profile marriage to legendary American actor John Wayne. Through her marriage with John Wayne, Pallete was blessed with many grandchildren, including actress and musician Jennifer Wayne of Runaway June fame.

Chilean-French filmmaker and artist, Alejandro Jodorowsky, is best known for his avant-garde films. A multifaceted personality, he is also a novelist, poet, musician, composer, and spiritual guru. His films are filled with surreal images and mysticism. A much-revered figure in international cinema, he is the recipient of the Jack Smith Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF).

Mangosuthu Buthelezi is a South African politician who is credited with founding the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). He was widely regarded as one of the most important black leaders during the apartheid era. From 1994 to 2004, he served as South Africa's minister of home affairs. He has also won many awards, such as Nadaraja Award and Magna Award.

Nicolas Roeg was an English cinematographer and film director. He is best remembered for directing films like Performance, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Don't Look Now, and The Witches. A highly influential filmmaker, Nicolas Roeg is credited with inspiring other prominent directors like Christopher Nolan, Steven Soderbergh, and Danny Boyle.

Peter Higgs is a British theoretical physicist. He studied at King's College London and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1954. He went on to have a brilliant academic career and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1983. In 2013, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Belgian physicist François Englert.  

Former US Air Force pilot Joseph Kittinger made many high-altitude balloon records and scripted history as the first person to complete a solo balloon flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He served as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War and had been part of the US high-altitude military projects Project Manhigh and Project Excelsior.

Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish-American sculptor recognized for his public art installations. Many of his artworks, which were co-designed by his wife Coosje van Bruggen until 2009, feature everyday objects. One of the most celebrated sculptors of his generation, Claes Oldenburg has been honored with many prestigious awards like the National Medal of Arts and the Wolf Prize in Arts.  

Robert Indiana was an American artist best remembered for his association with the pop art movement. He is credited with creating the popular Love sculpture. The sculpture, which is situated at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA), was the basis for the 1973 US Postal Service LOVE stamp. Indiana's works are preserved in numerous museums, including the McNay Art Museum.  

Scottish-American philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre is noted for his contributions to moral and political philosophy. His major writings include Whose Justice? Which Rationality? and After Virtue. The latter is considered to be a significant work of Anglophone moral and political philosophy and an important text in the contemporary revival of virtue theory.  

A former naval officer, Jean Vanier began working for intellectually disabled people after he met some of them in Paris, eventually founding L'Arche in order to provide them with shelter and support network. Later, he also cofounded Faith and Light to help those with learning disability.  A prolific author; after his death, he was accused of sexually exploiting six women.

Tunisian-born French artist Micheline Roquebrune is best known as legendary actor Sean Connery’s second wife. Roquebrune had met Connery in Morocco in the 1970s. They mostly lived in their resort in Marbella and in the Bahamas. Connery was her third husband, and following his death, she revealed he had dementia.

Len Deighton is an author whose works have inspired several movies and TV shows. Many of his novels, such as Funeral in Berlin, The Ipcress File, Spy Story, and Billion Dollar Brain, have been adapted into films. His works have influenced other popular personalities like Aung San Suu Kyi. Anthony Burgess mentioned Deighton's novel Bomber in his work Ninety-nine Novels.

Daughter of prominent Cuban politician Rafael José Díaz-Balart, Mirta Díaz-Balart had first met revolutionary Fidel Castro at the University of Havana. After a 7-year marriage, she divorced Fidel while he was in prison following an attempted attack on the Moncada Barracks to oust Fulgencio Batista. They had a son together.

James Lawson is an American professor and activist. A prominent tactician and theoretician of nonviolence, Lawson played a major role during the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1960s, Lawson doubled up as a mentor to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as well as the Nashville Student Movement. James Lawson also served as a pastor for 25 years.

Torben Ulrich is a Danish former professional tennis player turned writer, musician, and filmmaker. As a tennis player, he was the top-ranked senior player in the world in the mid-1970s. He became a writer after retirement and primarily wrote on music, film, athletics, and culture. He eventually founded a New Orleans-type jazz band and made films as well. 

Werner Arber is a Swiss geneticist and microbiologist whose discovery of restriction endonucleases earned him the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978; he shared the award with Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Smith. Arber's work alongside Nathans and Smith led to the progression of recombinant DNA technology. Werner Arber is also credited with co-founding the World Cultural Council.

Mochtar Riady is an Indonesian financial magnate. He is best known as the founder of Lippo Group where he is currently serving as Chairman Emeritus. Lippo Group, a multinational conglomerate company, was founded by Mochtar Riady in 1950. The company has a collective presence across North America and Asia. 

John Charles Polanyi is a Hungarian-Canadian scientist, who won the Noble Prize in Chemistry for his contribution to the dynamics of chemical reaction. He developed a technique called infrared chemiluminescence, which helped him to study the exchange of chemical bonds and detail how the excess energy is removed during chemical reactions.

After fleeing to Chile with his family during the Nazi regime, Otto F. Kernberg studied medicine and then psychiatry. He eventually moved to the U.S. on a Rockefeller fellowship and grew up to be one of the finest psychoanalysts of the country. He now teaches at the Weill Cornell Medicine.

Jim Whittaker was a US mountaineer and mountain guide who is known for his legendary 1963 Mount Everest expedition, which was led by Norman Dyhrenfurth. He scripted history as the first American to reach the Mount Everest summit. He was later bestowed with the Hubbard Medal by John F. Kennedy.

Nobel Prize-winning Japanese organic chemist and marine biologist Osamu Shimomura is remembered for discovering the green fluorescent protein, or GFP. He was also associated with Princeton University and the Marine Biological Laboratory as a researcher and faculty member. He was named to the US National Academy of Sciences, too.