Centenarians

E. Hamilton Lee, who was flying planes just 13 years after the Wright Brothers took flight at Kitty Hawk, celebrated his 100th birthday Saturday by flying as co-pilot on a DC-3 from Ontario to Van Nuys Airport. "Good, good, good," but "a little rough," said Lee, known in aviation circles as the dean of airline pilots, as he emerged from the plane, his trademark cigar dangling from his mouth. Lee, the first civilian pilot to fly the U.S.

Spilt Milk A Novel Chico Buarque Translated from the Portuguese by Alison Entrekin Grove Press: 178 pp., $23 Eulálio d'Assumpção is on his deathbed. A century old, born into the Brazilian aristocracy, he has watched his world change, or crumble, and still he lingers. "As the future narrows," he tells us early in Chico Buarque's deft and moving "Spilt Milk," "younger people have to pile up any which way in some corner of my mind. For the past, however, I have an increasingly spacious drawing room.

This country is surveying the health and "sociological state" of people aged 100 or more to discover the secrets of longevity, the official Hungarian news agency MTI said Wednesday. On top of genetic factors, Budapest's Semmelweis Medical University is paying particular attention to environment, life style, the earlier occupation and present activity of the people concerned. There are estimated to more than 200 centenarians among Hungary's population of 10.6 million, MTI said.

There is good and bad news for women. They still face various forms of discrimination including earning less than their male counterparts, but they will have some measure of revenge by having a better chance to live longer, according to the Census Bureau. In a report released Monday, the Census Bureau notes that for every 100 women who live to be at least 100 years old, there are just 20.7 men who have reached the same goal. The figures are based on the 2010 Census that counted 53,364 people ages 100 and older in the United States.

It all started with the case of Sogen Kato. At 111 years old, Kato was thought to be one of the oldest people in a country that venerates the elderly and boasts a life expectancy that is among the highest in the world. But in late July, police found Kato's mummified corpse in a bed at the home where he died — more than three decades ago. His 81-year-old daughter hadn't reported his death, and allegedly had pocketed more than $100,000 in pension payments, authorities said.

Ruth Hochmuth knew exactly what she wanted to do to celebrate her 100th birthday this weekend. She and a dozen of her fellow residents at Beverly Nursing and Rehabilitation Center trooped over to Lanark Park on Friday morning to clean it up for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. "I'll do anything to give pleasure to anybody else," said the spry woman who will become a centenarian Sunday.

China has 3,765 people who are at least 100 years old among its population of 1 billion, the official New China News Agency said Tuesday. The report said there are 228 Chinese between the ages of 110 and 119 and 36 who are older than 120. It said 2,657 of the centenarians are women.

Harry Waks is looking forward to going where few have gone before. Waks, a retired real estate broker and longtime San Fernando Valley resident who was born on Aug. 12, 1896, in St. Louis, would like to be among the few people to have lived in three centuries. Waks quietly celebrated his 100th birthday Monday at the Royal Bellingham retirement home after a weekend fete that attracted relatives and friends from around the country.

The way Charles Ford sees it, nothing is going to stop him from driving his brand new Chevy Cavalier. So what if gas prices are high? So what if he has more traffic tickets than he can remember? So what if he's 102? He's still got a good eye for the road; he swears by it. After all, he has been driving since Woodrow Wilson was in the White House, back when some people were still getting around by mule. The latest ticket wasn't so hard to explain.

When the Census Bureau reported last month that the Midwest has more than its share of the amazingly long-lived, local papers trumpeted the news with headlines like "Midwest Corners Centenarian Market" and "Midwest Has Best Odds for Living to 100." Maybe it was the clean air, folks speculated. Or the friendly neighbors. Maybe it was all those farm-fresh vegetables. Or the less-stressful pace.

Manoel de Oliveira, the director of "The Strange Case of Angelica" (out on DVD this week from Cinema Guild), is himself -- to say the least -- something of a strange case. He turns 103 this December and, having gotten his start in the age of silent cinema, has had a career trajectory unlike any other. "The Strange Case of Angelica," a critical hit at last year's Cannes Film Festival, is a film that the Portuguese director had planned to make half a century ago. Written in 1952, it would have been his second feature, but the Antonio Salazar dictatorship, which he staunchly opposed, derailed his career.

It all started with the case of Sogen Kato. At 111 years old, Kato was thought to be one of the oldest people in a country that venerates the elderly and boasts a life expectancy that is among the highest in the world. But in late July, police found Kato's mummified corpse in a bed at the home where he died — more than three decades ago. His 81-year-old daughter hadn't reported his death, and allegedly had pocketed more than $100,000 in pension payments, authorities said.

Once a screen legend, always a screen legend. Luise Rainer, who turned 100 in January, is not only the oldest living performer to win an Academy Award, she was the first to win back-to-back Oscars for best actress for 1936's "The Great Ziegfeld" and a year later for "The Good Earth." The German-born actress' stint in Hollywood, though, was short-lived. She chafed under the strict contract system at MGM and was at loggerheads with famed studio boss Louis B. Mayer. Her subsequent handful of films for MGM after her second Oscar didn't impress critics or audiences.

On her first day as the oldest person on Earth, 114-year-old Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles, spent Saturday resting under the covers in her pajamas -- unfazed and most likely unaware of her new world status. "She has a little cold," said her social worker, Linda Bell, after making her morning rounds at Western Convalescent Hospital west of USC. "I don't think anyone has told her the news, and she hasn't mentioned it all day."

As China held the biggest coming-out party of the century last week, one of its citizens had quite a celebration of his own. Lu Xiangwu turned 100 the day the Olympics began, and he had one wish for his centennial: to come to Beijing to watch the Games. The great-great-grandfather with a wispy white beard and barely a wrinkle did make it to Beijing, after riding 20 hours on a train from central China.

By the time Bill Hargrove was recognized last year as the nation's oldest league bowler, his eyesight had deteriorated so much that he could hardly see the pins. But he kept at it, armed with a mental image of them. He was still bowling last week, just before he was hospitalized with pneumonia at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, Ga. Hargrove died of congestive heart failure Monday -- four days shy of turning 107. A native of Eatonton, Ga.

Like many Angelenos, Cornelious Alphonso Murdock considers driving a metaphor for life. Murdock's road, however, has been longer than most. At 100 years old, he's still driving. On his birthday Tuesday, friends and officials of the state Department of Motor Vehicles gathered at Murdock's Crenshaw district home to wish the retired postal worker well as he rounded the century mark.

After more than a century on Earth, you can be excused for detecting a certain monotony about life. At a luncheon Sunday honoring local centenarians, Dwight Chenault was asked for some words of wisdom. What thoughts did he have about the days of his life? "They come and they go," said Chenault, 100, a retired architect who walks with a cane. "None of them stay with me." Chenault was one of 11 honorees at the luncheon, sponsored by the Burbank-based American Centenarian Committee.

Maybe it was a lifetime of chores on the family farm that account for Edna Parker's long life. Or maybe just good genes explain why the world's oldest known person will turn 115 on Sunday, defying staggering odds. During an early celebration of the event, Parker laughed and smiled as relatives and guests released 115 balloons into sunny skies outside her nursing home in Shelbyville. Scientists who study longevity hope Parker and others who live to 110 or beyond can help uncover the mystery of extreme longevity.

In the courtyard of a low-slung convalescent hospital west of USC, Gertrude Baines was inaugurated Sunday into one of the world's most exclusive sororities. She turned 114 years old. There was cake. Singing. Proclamations. Superlatives. Because only two other people in the world are 114. There is no one older.