We haven’t forgotten Morgan Freeman have we?
Born in 37 his career didn’t really begin to take off until Driving Miss Daisy in 89 did it?
I think he falls under the category of “established actors who became more famous when they got older” thus not qualifying for the thread. I still remember him as the guy from The Electric Company.
Lee Strasberg had a brief acting career in the 30s or so. Then he was an acting coach. His acting career didn’t take off until Godfather 2 when he was 72 years old.
Anne Ramsey, best know from Throw Momma From the Train. She got her first film role at age 42.
Chico Marx was 42 and Harpo was 41 when they made The Cocoanuts (they had made a short silent film three years earlier, but it had had only one public screening, so it shouldn’t count). Of course, The Marx Brothers were big Broadway stars at the time.
Harry Langdon was 40 when he made his first film.
Harold Gould was an acting teacher before going into acting at age 38.
Rodney Dangerfield was 50 when he got his first role; 59 when he got his first big role.
Estelle Getty: born 1923, film debut (Team-Mates) 1978, making her about 55 at the time. IMDB says:
*That was in 1982. So, if you look the other way when it comes to her stage experience when she younger, she fits the OP pretty well.
Dennis Farina’s first acting gig was at 37, maybe too far from 40 to qualify, but at least an honorable mention?
Hmmmm Maybe, maybe not. I’d call the Electric Company for Freeman being a working actor rather than an established actor. The thread title is actors who were discovered in their 40s. Going from a children’s educational show to major motion pictures and being recognized by the audience and your peers as being a talented serious actor strikes me as being discovered.
YMMV and I can’t be certain what the OP intended but IMO being discovered doesn’t mean you never worked as in acting. It can mean that your big break that propelled you from bit player to box office draw came after 40.
He wasn’t a big star, but everyone’s favorite bad mother fucker had a lot of small rolls in some pretty big films prior to Pulp Fiction.
Kathy Bates was not well known until she did Misery in 1990, she was 42 at the time.
Fyvush Finkel’s first role in maintream TV or movies was at age 55 (he appeared in one Yiddish film earlier, and was a big star in the Yiddish theater).
Another Picket Fences alumnus was Zelda Rubenstein, who first appeared in films at 47.
Ray Walston was 40 at the time of his first TV appearance, but had been successful on Broadway previously.
780 episodes of a TV show, even a kids show, seems to be pretty established. He was an actor who was working very steadily in his younger years who became a star later. Not that I have anything invested in the thread so I can’t get to worked up about it.
George “Gabby” Hayes had been a baseball player, circus performer, and vaudeville star before retiring in 1928 at the age of 43 (he had invested his money well). Then he lost a lot of money in the 1929 crash and had to go back to work. His wife suggested they go to Los Angeles and try to make a living in the movies. Hayes met a producer who thought he had a good look to play sidekicks in westerns. Hayes learned to ride a horse and went on the make 190 movies before he retired a second time.
Although he doesn’t technically meet the OP’s requirements, I think John Cazale deserves some special mention here. His first major role was at 38 (imdb just lists another role as “Beatnik” in a short released ten years earlier), and he had major roles in four more theater-released films before dying at age 44.
All five of his movies either won or were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: **The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, **and The Deer Hunter.
R. Lee Ermey was 43 when he did Full Metal Jacket (although he did have two or three roles before that).
Leo G. Carroll’s first film role was at the age 48. He worked steadily as a character actor (he appeared in more Hitchcock films than anyone other than Hitchcock himself), but first became a star with “Topper” at age 68.
Marie Dressler was 46 at the time of her first film role – the star of Tillie’s Punctured Romance. She was a big Broadway star previously.
Morgan Freeman was a late bloomer, but he was pretty well known before Driving Miss Daisy. His break through role was as a pimp in Street Smart (1987) with Christopher Reeve. By 1989, he was already getting an “above the line” credit in Lean on Me.
That the same Richard Farnsworth the OP specifically mentions?
His record is now six for six. Footage of Cazale was used in The Godfather Part III, which was also nominated for best picture.
I give you Sydney Greenstreet. Born in 1879, and for his first film role as Kaspar Guttman in 1941 in The Maltese Falcon he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 62.
He did have a stage career in both England and the US prior to that, but I don’t know how well known that made him.
Michael Clarke Duncan qualifies, more or less.
IMDB credits him with a bunch of small roles as a bouncer or security guy going back to the mid-90’s, but nothing of note prior to The Green Mile in 1999. Apparently his early roles wouldn’t have been much of a stretch… prior to getting into acting, he worked as a bodyguard.
He may not qualify simply because he hasn’t done much of note since then (though I see his body of work this year includes a role in Kung Fu Panda, which clearly will do well during next year’s award season)