Life Expectancy and the Oscars

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They'll be handing out the Academy Awards a week from tomorrow.

Ordinarily, I suppose, that would be a topic I would address at my Birth of a Notion blog. That's where I usually write about entertainment–related subjects.

But I want to write about it here because what I have in mind sort of transcends the entertainment boundary.

Last August, Katie Hafner had an intriguing piece in the New York Times about a University of Toronto researcher, Donald A. Redelmeier, who has done some fascinating work in the last couple of decades and has come to some thought–provoking conclusions ...

... One of which suggests that the winner of an Oscar is likely to live longer than the runnerup.

If you'll permit me to digress for a few moments ...

It all reminds me of a study I read once in Parade magazine, the Sunday supplement that was always included in the Arkansas Gazette when I was growing up.

Anyway, this study spoke of what a man killer the presidency was. It presented case history after case history of former presidents who died within a few years of leaving office. The stress of the job apparently was considered a leading culprit.

It was logical and reasonable. It made sense to me.

But language and history have always been my strengths, not science, and I failed to take into consideration (as did the researchers who wrote the article for Parade) that most of the presidents who had served up to that time (which would have been around 1970) lived when human life expectancy was not nearly what it is today.

Many scientific discoveries that have permitted people to live longer, more productive lives had not been made when John Adams or Thomas Jefferson or James Madison held the highest office in the land — and yet each lived to be well over 80 years old.

Two centuries later, average American longevity is at least five years behind the lifespans of those presidents.

I have discussed this with friends over the years, and a few have pointed out to me that the stress factor may have become more pronounced for later presidents when international pressures and tensions (world wars, natural resources, religious and regional conflicts, etc.) became more prominent considerations.

In the first half of the 20th century, only one–third of the men who were president lived past the age of 70 — and two–thirds of the presidents who did not die in office died within 10 years of leaving of office.

Most people probably expect (or, at least, hope) to live more than 10 years after they retire. I'm sure Teddy Roosevelt (who was the youngest man to take the oath of office) expected to live longer than that, but he died nearly 10 years after leaving the White House.

The trend seems to be changing. In the last half–century — with the present exceptions of the incumbent president and two of the living former presidents — Lyndon Johnson was the last ex–president who did not reach the age of 70. Richard Nixon was in his 80s when he died. Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were both in their 90s.

Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush are in their mid–80s and show no signs of decline.

The presidency doesn't really seem to be the man–killing job that Parade's researchers suggested. Sure, there are tensions and conflicts, but presidents also have access to state–of–the–art medical care. If a president so much as has a cold, he has a team of doctors seeing to his every need.

Thus, it seems likely to me that, even if a president serves only one term, he has had enough people monitoring his health factors that medical science will have all the information it needs to keep him going as long as possible.

(Redelmeier doesn't seem to have participated in any studies concerning presidential longevity, but he has done some research into the relationship between presidential elections and risk — and he came to the conclusion that more people die in car accidents on a presidential election day than usual — "which he attributes to increased traffic, rushed drivers and unfamiliar routes," writes Hafner.)

Of course, that doesn't mean an ex–president won't be afflicted with something deadly (and presently unpreventable). But recent evidence suggests that, if you or someone in your immediate family has been president, your health care is likely to be a lot better than just about anyone else's.

In that regard, people who are nominated for Oscars are more like the rest of us.

I don't really know what kind of health care plans actors or actresses or directors may have. My guess is that they have to provide their own health care coverage — for which they certainly have the resources, unlike millions of average Americans.

It's an individual choice so the quality of their health care coverage is sure to vary.

Redelmeier's reserch involving the Oscars apparently began around 2000 "when he was watching the Academy Awards and noticed that the celebrities on stage 'don't look anything like the patients I see in clinic,' " Hafner wrote. Redelmeier didn't think it had much to do with external things, like "the makeup and the plastic surgery and wardrobe.

"It's the way they move, it's their gestures. They seem so much more vivacious."

He found that Oscar winners live about three years longer than their runnersup.

That might go a long way toward explaining why Katharine Hepburn, a four–time Oscar winner, lived to be 96.

Of course, if nominations alone had been the determinant, he might well have reached the erroneous conclusion that, because Hepburn had been nominated 12 times for Best Actress, she was immortal.

Then again, that might be his conclusion about Meryl Streep, who has been nominated 13 times (16 if you count her three Best Supporting Actress nominations).

I'm still waiting for Redelmeier's conclusions on Oscar nominations.

Bush's Birthday

America has never had very many living ex–presidents at any given time.

In part, that's because most presidents have come to the job comparatively late in life. Today, we have a president who will just barely be in his 50s when his four–year term comes to an end, but most presidents have been in their mid–50s or even their 60s when they entered the Oval Office.

You can blame that, in part, on the Constitution, I guess, which states that, as one of the qualifications for serving as president, a person must be at least 35 years old. John F. Kennedy was the youngest man ever elected president. Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest to become president, but he did so after the duly elected president was assassinated.

When I was a teenager, I remember once, in a magazine supplement to a Sunday newspaper, I read a report about how the presidency was a "man–killing job" that was killing off ex–presidents before their time. It pointed out that most presidents who survived their terms in office lived less than 10 years after leaving the White House.

As I recall, the article only connected the dots but never offered any other evidence to support its conclusion.

At the time that I read the article, though, it made sense to me. Lyndon Johnson had just died a few years earlier at the age of 64. He had only been out of office for four years. Dwight Eisenhower lived into his late 70s, but he only lasted eight years after leaving office and died when I was in elementary school.

But that didn't explain why Herbert Hoover lived for more than three decades after leaving the White House or why Harry Truman — and, after the article was published, Richard Nixon — lived for nearly two decades as an ex–president.

Gerald Ford's post–presidency went on for nearly 30 years, but his presidency was unique. He wasn't subjected to a rigorous national campaign before taking office.

For that matter, Jimmy Carter has lived for 28 years as an ex–president. And, in spite of the fact that he was nearly 78 years old when he left the presidency, Ronald Reagan lived for more than 15 years as a private citizen.

In fact, when you look at the ages of most presidents when they died (excluding those who were assassinated), many lived lives that were easily in line with the life expectancies of others of their generation. Some lived even longer — four of the first six American presidents, all of whom were born in the 18th century, when life expectancies were much shorter than they are today, lived past the age of 80.

So, in hindsight, how can one conclude that the pressures of the presidency kill occupants of the Oval Office before their time — especially since Hoover, Truman, Nixon, Ford and Carter were vilified during their presidencies and, therefore, subjected to particularly high stress levels?

Anyway, what I've been leading up to — in my roundabout way — is that today is George Bush's birthday.

No, not that George Bush. His father, George H.W. Bush, is 85 years old today.

And, as a young man, "41," as he is called, to distinguish him from his son (aka "43"), was a naval aviator who once bailed out of a burning plane during World War II.

I was not one of President Bush's supporters, but I must commend him on many of the things he has done in his post–presidential life. He patched things up with Bill Clinton, the man who beat him in his bid for re–election in 1992, and worked with him on relief efforts for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami. The day before his 80th birthday, he delivered a touching eulogy to the man he served for eight years as vice president, Ronald Reagan.

And today, he marked the occasion of his 85th birthday by skydiving over the coast of Maine.

Obviously, not everyone who reaches that age is able to do something like that. But we'd all like to believe that age alone is not a barrier if we want to do something — whether it's a job or an extracurricular activity.

Whatever one may think of Bush's presidency, he is to be applauded for showing that age is not a barrier, only a number.