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The common thread among these notables, whose lives and achievements are celebrated in the inspirational new book Splendid Seniors: Great Lives, Great Deeds (Jack Adler, Pearlsong ) is a steadfast refusal to let age and health problems in their later years affect their willingness to work in their chosen fields—or even strike out in new endeavors.
As the nation's population ages, many seniors today are also continuing to work—and excel—in their chosen spheres, including Senator (and presidential aspirant) John McCain of Arizona, entertainers Carol Burnett and Eartha Kitt, and the Los Angeles Dodgers' Tommy LaSorda.
"Demographics clearly indicate that the number of people living and working beyond 65, or what the '65 marker' becomes in the future, will steadily increase," author Jack Adler says. "As diseases are arrested and conquered and life spans expand, we can help make the most of subsequent years by noting what others have done."
Splendid Seniors: Great Lives, Great Deeds captures the triumphs and vicissitudes of 52 men and women throughout the ages who withstood any disabilities of age to continue to contribute to society well past their 65th birthdays.
Adler chose 65 as the age denoting senior status because that year is a common marker in contemporary Western culture. Applying that criterion to personalities who lived in earlier centuries, when normal life spans were much shorter than today, makes their achievements even more significant, he notes.
Among the personalities—or role models—whose lives and achievements are depicted in Splendid Seniors are Sophocles, Michelangelo, Newton and Galileo from the distant past. Latterday figures include Benjamin Disraeli, Ignace Paderewski, Louis Pasteur, Susan B. Anthony, Henrik Ibsen, Alexander Graham Bell, Mary Baker Eddy, Sigmund Freud, George Bernard Shaw and Andrew Carnegie. Great leaders include Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Charles DeGaulle, David Ben-Gurion and Mother Teresa.
Enriching the annals of American history—and covering several fields—are such remarkable people as Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Robert Frost, Margaret Mead, Reinhold Niebuhr, Thurgood Marshall, John Muir, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Casey Stengel. Distinguished leaders in the world of art include Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinski, Charles Chaplin, Sarah Bernhardt, Andres Segovia, W. Somerset Maugham, Le Corbusier, Thomas Mann, and W.B. Yeats.
"Although only 52 personalities were selected—one for each week of the year—there are many more people whose lives and post-65 achievements merit great attention," Adler says.
Adler is an author, playwright and screenwriter in North Hollywood, California. Splendid Seniors is his sixth nonfiction book. His other books include Consumer's Guide to Travel; There's A Bullet Hole In Your Window; Southern India; Exploring Historic California; and Travel Safety (co-authored), as well as the novels Blackmail High and Parthian Retreat. The Library of Congress selected Travel Safety for translation into Braille.
Adler has had articles published in Shape, Let's Live, Home & Away, Journey, He has received a grant from the Yaddo Foundation as a playwright; seven of his one-act plays have been produced Off-Off Broadway, with one of the plays published. A co-authored screenplay was optioned for a feature film.
Adler is currently a columnist for Travel World International, an electronic magazine, and an instructor in nonfiction writing for the UCLA Extension and Writer's Digest School. He was a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times Travel section for almost 15 years, and has also written columns for Westways magazine.
Find Splendid Seniors at Pearlsong Press-www.pearlsong.com
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