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.

Retired actress Vera Miles is best known for her role in the classic 1960 film Psycho and its sequel. Crowned Miss Kansas in 1948, she ended up becoming the third runner-up in the Miss America contest. She started acting soon after and formed a close professional relationship with Alfred Hitchcock, appearing in many of his films.

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.

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).

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.  

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.  

The only woman to ever serve as the president of Nicaragua, Violeta Chamorro, was born to an affluent cattle rancher and was mostly educated in the U.S. She was married to La Prensa heir Pedro Joaquim Chamorro Cardenal and later took over the operations of the paper.

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.

Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist Eric Kandel is known for his research on the role of synapses in memory and learning. An Austrian Jew, he left his country with his family and moved to the U.S. in the wake of anti-Semitism. A doctor, specializing in psychiatry, he later taught at Columbia University.

Born to a popular politician father and a socialite mother, John Julius Norwich was educated at Eton and later served the navy. A diplomat, historian, and traveler, he is known for his books such as Absolute Monarchs and for hosting documentaries such as Maestro and the BBC radio show My Word!

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.

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.

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.

German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas is counted among the most influential philosophers across the world and is identified with the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He influenced many disciplines through his work which addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere, and includes topics starting from social-political theory to aesthetics, language to philosophy of religion, and epistemology.

Albert Azaryan is a Soviet Armenian former artistic gymnast best known for winning two gold medals at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. In the next Olympic Games in Rome, Azaryan won a gold medal and a silver medal. Albert Azaryan is the first gymnast to win two Olympic gold medals on the still rings.

Ivar Giaever is a Norwegian-American physicist and engineer whose discovery of the tunnelling phenomena in solids earned him the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973. Over the course of his illustrious career, Ivar Giaever has also received several other awards, such as the Oliver E. Buckley Prize, Golden Plate Award, and Zworykin Award. 

Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi is a Saudi Arabian billionaire and corporate figure. Counted among the country's wealthiest non-royals, the Al Rajhi family has also been among the leading philanthropists in the world. In 2012, Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi was honored with the prestigious King Faisal International Prize for pledging half his fortune to charity.

Canadian avant-garde artist Michael Snow has also been associated with the development of the artistic scene in the US. Part of the structural film movement, he is best remembered for his experimental film Wavelength, which was a 45-minute movie on the events taking place in a room.

Lady Pamela Hicks is a British aristocrat best known as the daughter of Edwina Mountbatten and Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Lady Pamela Hicks' memoirs of her time in India during the Indian Independence revealed important details surrounding the event, including her mother's extra-marital relationship with the future Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.