Fountain of Youth 11: Centenarian Youth

Zsa Zsa at the height of her career.

Age brings wisdom - sometimes - about aging.  Earlier this month, news broke that Zsa Zsa Gabor's 67-year-old husband planned to make her a mother again at the age of 94 through the wonders of modern science.  This started a row with her daughter:

Prince Frederic von Anhalt, the 94-year-old former star's ninth husband, said he went to a Beverly Hills clinic this week and gave sperm and blood samples.

Anhalt, who hopes a surrogate mother will give birth using a donated egg, said the couple had always wanted a baby and discussed the matter again when his Hungarian-born wife had her leg partially amputated in January.

"We talked about it, saying 'Remember, we always wanted a baby, and now it's too late.' And I said to her, 'Well maybe its not too late,'" he told AFP, adding that the whole whole process should cost about $100,000.

"Now my wife is in bad shape. I don't know how long she's going to be with me... I would like her to see the baby, I would like her to hear the baby screaming, to touch the baby's hair.

"If she dies before me, then I've nothing to live for," he added.

But Gabor's only child Francesca Hilton, the product of her second marriage to hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, issued a statement hours later via her publicist denouncing the baby plans as a publicity stunt.

Of course, it's a publicity stunt that appeals to our fascination with Millennial boundaries, in this case ageing and death, and bending or breaking the rules around them. On the same day, another news item reported that the world's oldest man, Walter Breuning, had died at the age of 114.  People are always curious to hear what centenarians have to say and what their secrets are for longevity.  These were Breuning's:

• Embrace change, even when the change slaps you in the face. ("Every change is good.")

• Eat two meals a day ("That's all you need.")

• Work as long as you can ("That money's going to come in handy.")

• Help others ("The more you do for others, the better shape you're in.")

• Then there's the hardest part. It's a lesson Breuning said he learned from his grandfather: Accept death. "We're going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you're born to die," he said.

Ironic, isn't it, that the elixir of life is the acceptance of death?  Besse Cooper of Monroe, Georgia, USA is currently the world's oldest person, aged 114. (Thanks to J.)

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