85 Years Old Females

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet and novelist. Her works encompass themes, such as religion and myth, climate change, and gender and identity. An award-winning writer, many of Atwood's works have been made into films and television series; her work, The Handmaid's Tale, has had several adaptations. Perhaps, Margaret Atwood's most important contribution is her invention of the LongPen device.

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.

Katharine Ross is an American actress who became a prominent Hollywood personality in the late-1960s and early-1970s. She is known for her performance in popular films, such as The Graduate and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Much of her acting career was overshadowed by her highly publicized personal life and five marriages to popular personalities.

Grace Slick is a retired singer-songwriter. Slick played an important role in the psychedelic music scene that flourished in San Francisco during the mid-1960s. One of the earliest female rock stars, Slick played a key role in the development of rock music during the 1960s. She was named among the Greatest Women of Rock N Roll by VH1 in 1999.

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.

British-South African chef and culinary expert Prue Leith had begun her career with a lunch-supplying business. She later launched her Michelin-starred restaurant Leith's in Notting Hill and a culinary school. Best known as a judge on The Great British Menu, she is also associated with various charitable initiatives.

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.  

Spanish actor and TV presenter Concha Velasco initially trained in dance and performed in a revue with Celia Gámez. She later gained fame with films such as Tormento and was critically praised for her performance as Teresa of Ávila in the mini-series Teresa de Jesús.

Lepa Lukic is a Serbian folk singer best known for her hit song, My Heart is a Violin. Over the course of her illustrious career, Lukić has also performed many other popular songs such as From the Spring of Two Roads and Old Times Have Passed.

English track and field athlete Mary Denise Rand made history by becoming the first woman from her country to earn a track and field Olympic gold medal. The long jumper also has a Commonwealth gold to her credit and has been named a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

Edy Vessel is an Italian businesswoman and actress who has appeared in films like Guardatele ma non toccatele (1959), The Passionate Thief (1960), and Seven Seas to Calais (1962). Edy Vessel is also famous for her relationship and subsequent marriage with businessman Camillo Crociani.

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.