I'm 91 and the oldest working female comedian. Here's what I learned from starting a new career late in life.

This as-told-to interview is based on a conversation with D'yan Forest, 91, who is the Guinness World Record holder for oldest working female comedian, a title she has held since she was 87. Forest said she works to stay active physically and mentally, keeping her mind sharp and her life fulfilling. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I was born in 1934. When I was five years old, my mother couldn't stand me banging on the piano, so I got piano lessons. I learned classical piano, and then I wanted to do pantomime. I took drama lessons, then singing lessons. I had all these skills, but in 1958, my husband said to me, "You can't be an entertainer. They're all loose women." That stopped my show career. I got a divorce a couple of years later and said, "The heck with this."

I went to Paris in the 1960s, and I had a ball. It was so different from where I lived in Boston. I was sitting in a nightclub playing piano and singing, and I thought, "This is fun." I took more lessons, and then I started working in Boston as a pianist and vocalist working private parties.

In 1966, I came to New York, and immediately, I got into a union and started working. I became a French chanteuse — a female singer. After all these years of working in Paris, I came home with a French accent, and I couldn't lose it. I sang in nine languages. I couldn't get into commercials that easily because of the accent, so I took drama lessons to speak English properly.

I was playing all over in these nice places, including the Waldorf Astoria. I started doing cabaret and performed in the 1970s and 1980s. Whenever orchestra leaders needed to have a French evening or an Italian evening, I always kicked off. I would wander the tables with a keyboard.

During this time, I wasn't too worried about money.

I worked very hard. I also worked as a substitute teacher, but I never took a full-time job, because in the evenings I would be working in cocktail lounges. I also received an inheritance.

I started being in off-off-Broadway shows, being whatever characters they needed. I had two or three careers going with whoever called. In the meantime, I traveled to Europe and I spent the next couple of years as an international singer.

After 9/11, everybody in New York and the surrounding areas was very depressed, and the clubs didn't need entertainers anymore. There was no work for a while, but while playing golf with the owner of a comedy club, I asked her how to get into comedy. She got me in touch with a coach. I did my first comedy show, and I was petrified. By the third night, though, people were laughing, and I was hooked on comedy.

When you do piano bars, you're working six or seven hours at night, but here, within 10 minutes, I was getting people laughing.

I should've been stronger and not so shy earlier in my career.

People tried telling me I shouldn't do comedy, and I was too old. People thought I would get made fun of, or the shows would be too late for me. I didn't listen to anybody, and I just did it, and that's one of the huge lessons I learned.

My career has only gotten better and better. Even this summer, I was working almost every week doing my own comedy show. I did shows in Chicago and Wisconsin, and I recently did some in London. I am busier than ever, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm old. I got into the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest-working female comedian in the world.

Sometimes in show business, you're very busy, like I've been this summer. But sometimes, you don't do anything at all. I advise young people to always get another career because you never know what's going to happen, as well as save your money for the low times. You're always knowing that there will be a next job.

People always ask me why I'm not taking it easy and am still working at this age.

The problem is I'm still paying back my student loans — a joke — that's not it. Why I'm really doing it is to keep my brain busy. I'm 91, and a lot of my friends are in these assisted living places because they can't do things on their own. I'm positive and keep going because every day, I'm learning new lines, talking to new people, answering new questions, and working with young people all over the world.

A week in my life is a lot of answering phones and working with my manager to figure out what to do. I have a show maybe three or four times a month at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York, and I have to memorize new stuff. I don't like to do the same thing for months and months, as I get bored with myself. I try to develop new lines or a new shtick.

I have practically zero family left, so I have decided that the reason I love the career so much is because it's taking the place of a family and grandchildren. I have something to answer to, and it gives me a mission in life to be as good as I can become.

I wish I had children and grandchildren, but it never happened that way. I was married for a couple of years, and he wasn't the right one, and then I never met anybody that I really wanted to marry again. I've brought up other people's children, and some of them even think of me as a grandmother now.

I've had a lot of health problems.

I had cancer twice, once in my lung, and once in my breast. Then, I had some heart problems, and I wasn't recovering in France. When I came back to New York, I found out I had a heart attack. After a huge bout in the hospital, I finally got a pacemaker and a new valve. I'm on 12 pills a day for four different conditions.

My health at this point is very good. I go to physical therapy and many very good doctors. I try to swim every day, even in the winter, and I play golf a few days a month from April to October. I get a lot of walking in on the course, and I take lessons.

My future outlook is to keep working as much as possible. The problem for my manager and agent is to convince other venues that I do well with both a younger and older audience. I say that I'm younger than most people in my brain and my body. I'd like to think I'm universal, and I tell the truth in my story.

I realize at heart, I'm still a teacher. I'd like to educate people on what life has been like since 1934 and make them laugh. I recently did a one-woman show on antisemitism throughout my life and what I experienced. The audience loved it, and I want to do more of that.