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The first thing I noticed when Fred Richman appeared on my screen was that he did not look 99 years old. At all. He looked maybe 72—sharp eyes, perfect posture, a casual-but-chic outfit, and a metropolitan bearing. He was the kind of man you’d expect to find opining about architecture at a museum gala in Manhattan, which makes sense as he is an acclaimed sculptor and artist.
As he settled into his chair, in a room filled with friends at the YMCA, the second thing I noticed was that he had many thoughts he was ready to share. He didn’t even need me to start with questions.
One of my favorites? “Please don’t tell me ‘you should act your age’,” Fred says dryly, “If you act your age, you’re going to die in a year, maybe a year and a half.”
As someone who also very much does not like to act my age, I was delighted to hear this.
Another fun fact about Fred: He’s the reason you never leave Walgreens with just the one thing you came for. Fred invented the brightly lit, colorful drugstore makeup wall that captivates so many of us (and our wallets).
How he changed the way we shop
Fred was born in the Bronx in 1926, the child of immigrant parents in a neighborhood where almost everyone in the previous generation was an immigrant. His earliest memory was drawing and he grew up carving things—first soap, then stone, then wood. At 14 years old, he entered a national soap sculpture contest run by Procter & Gamble, ultimately pocketing $500—and that $500 paid his first year of college tuition. I’ll let that price sink in for a minute.
He then joined the workforce doing industrial design. After decades as a freelance designer, Fred spent the latter half of his career at Revlon. One of the first things he did was pop into a store. He immediately noticed that women had to ask a salesclerk for every single lipstick instead of being able to browse and compare freely. And he thought that was wrong. (I agree!)
“The counter was a barrier between the product and the customer,” he says. So Fred sketched a series of towers, a brass structure with gravity-fed slots that let shoppers touch, test, and choose from dozens of shades at once. When his company installed five of them in an Illinois department store, sales jumped 60%. The concept was so successful that it helped revolutionize the way makeup is sold even today in America. It’s the lit-up cosmetics wall you’ve walked past a thousand times.
Infusing art into everyday life is one of the many things that has kept Fred young over the years—something we all strive to do. The best way to learn how Fred’s reached nearly 100 years old in glowing health is from his own words at his 90th birthday party a decade ago.
Fred’s seven rules of life that you can borrow
Nearly 10 years ago, Fred stood up and told a room packed with loved ones exactly how he’d made it to 90. He called the list his seven rules of life, and while some are familiar longevity wisdom, a few may surprise you.
1. Know your genes and what they mean
Fred leads with the one item on his list he can’t control—none of us can, actually. “You can’t predict that you have something or you don’t,” he says with a shrug. So information about your genes and family history is useful in that it can help you make proactive decisions for your health. But worrying about it, not so much. It’s about knowledge, not fear.
2. Find the right life partner
His wife Marion Richman is rule #2 all on her own. His second marriage, they met on the beach in Connecticut (romantic!) after he retired. She’s been, in his words, “essential” in his life ever since. And, I may add, she looks beautiful and every bit as youthful as he does. She works out alongside Fred even though he notes that they’re “10, 20, 30 or more years older than anybody else in our group.” A partner who keeps pace with you is a beautiful type of love story.
3. Get moving
Fred has worked out at the Valley Shore YMCA in Westbrook, Connecticut, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 30 years—with essentially the same group he started with in 1994. Everyone has nicknames and they call him “Rocky,” a nod to his strength and dedication to his workouts, much like the boxer.
“He often talks about the physical and social going hand in hand,” his YMCA team told me. In other words, rule #3 isn’t just exercise. It opens the door to the next three rules.
4. Be social
“If you don’t have friends and relatives with whom you are social for the rest of your life, you’re not a full person,” Fred says. The room full of his loved ones attests to the power of community.
5. Find your creativity
Fred is emphatic that this rule has nothing to do with him being an acclaimed artist with his work on display at several local venues. He explains that his work is all figurative, documenting what he calls “the art of the human condition.” He has about 70 pieces now and he is still working on more.
“Everybody is born with creativity,” he elaborates. His proof: the carpenter who lived across the street from his Connecticut home. Every time Fred asked him to do something, the man would go quiet, study the problem, and find the most efficient, elegant solution. “He didn’t know how to draw, he didn’t know how to paint, he didn’t play a fiddle,” Fred says with a laugh. “But that was creativity.” The people who age fastest, in Fred’s view, are the ones who stop solving problems and looking for creative solutions.
6. Lean into momentum
This is Fred’s main point in our interview, and where the “act your age” warning comes from. Momentum means staying in motion—not just physically, but existentially.
“If your way of life has brought you this far, then why stop? Keep going. It’s exciting!” Fred says. Once you decide that who you’ve been is all you’ll ever be, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and the life clock accelerates.
7. Plan for the future
This is the one rule Fred considers absolutely non-negotiable.
He tells the story of a sales executive who retired the same year he did. The man was successful, well-off, and the kind of person who’d spent his career directing 40 or 50 people. In theory, he had everything to live for and the means to do it. But on the bus home from Manhattan one evening, the man admitted he had no idea what he’d do in retirement. He just knew he didn’t want to work anymore.
Fred, by contrast, knew exactly what he wanted: to sculpt by a wood-burning fireplace in his Connecticut studio in the middle of the woods. The man was directionless while Fred was purposeful.
“I heard he died a year and a half later,” Fred says quietly. “He had no plan.”
Why the “will to live” matters
That’s Fred’s ultimate “secret” to living to be almost 100: Create beauty, love powerfully, find purpose, and then, whatever you do, keep that momentum going. Fred’s life kept moving when he retired at 66, moved to Connecticut, met Marion on the beach, and built a studio. He was going to sculpt for the rest of his life—yes, by a wood-burning fireplace in the woods.
But being excited about the future isn’t just Fred’s personal philosophy; it’s backed by decades of research. A landmark study out of Yale University found that people who hold a positive forward-thinking view of their own aging live longer—on average, 7.5 years longer than those who view it negatively. That effect was larger than the benefit of low cholesterol, low blood pressure, not smoking, or regular exercise.
Researchers found the effect is partly due to something called “will to live.” Too many people organize their lives around simply not wanting to die—it’s passive. Will to live is notably different, and Fred is the perfect model. If you want to live a long life, you need something to live for.
The science behind looking young
My initial surprise when I saw Fred on my screen and thought, He cannot possibly be nearly 100 may also have a scientific basis. Research published in The BMJ found that perceived age (how old someone looks) is a reliable marker of biological aging. In a study of 1,826 twins 70 years or older, the twin who looked older was much more likely to die first, especially if the twin looked significantly older than the other.
In other words, Fred’s sharp, not-even-close-to-100 appearance may not be purely genetic luck. It may be evidence that his approach to aging is working at a cellular level. Fred looks young because his biological age likely is younger than his chronological age.
“Please don’t tell me you’re going to act your age,” he says again as our call was wrapping up.
“Never!” I respond. Later, as I’m putting in hair bows that match my glittery miniskirt and head out to teach my adult dance classes, I smile. Fred would approve.
The Healthy is producing The 100 Years Strong Project in partnership with the YMCA of the USA to celebrate their 175th anniversary and amplify the voices of remarkable men and women sharing their secrets to longer and healthier lives. To learn more about the Y’s history, mission, or 175th anniversary, click here.
