His big roles of the past where either B movie starring or A movie supporting. Nothing he did had the massive level of viewership the his roles in LotR and the Star Wars Prequels did. So I agree with you that he is probably bigger than ever now, but to any Sci-Fi, Horror or Bond fan, he was very well known in the 60s through the 80s at least.
Sydney Greenstreet made his debut film in The Maltese Falcon at the age of 62. He had been a stage actor in Britain since 1902.
He made 20 more films in the next eight years, including Casablanca and Passage to Marseille.
Bragging rights to the first person who posts-in with his musical guest!
Meat Loaf of course.
He’s exactly whom I was going to name. For those of you he rings a bell with, but you can’t quite place him, he was nominated for an Oscar for his starring role in The Straight Story (1999). It would have been wonderful if he’d won at the 2000 Oscars ceremony. Unbeknownst to all but his doctor and family at the time, he was suffering from terminal cancer and committed suicide later that year at his New Mexico ranch, because of the pain.
His imdb entry is here. It mentions he appears uncredited in The Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races (1937). I happen to know he was one of the horse jockeys in the races.
Wow, I so rarely hear anyone mention Harve! Do you know him, by any chance? I am a distant relative by marriage… He gave the iconic Lincoln speech in Saving Private Ryan, which was great fun, and there was talk for a while that he might be the new Lincoln in a non-animatronic Disney’s “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” because of it, but I don’t think anything ever came of it. He also was on Broadway and toured extensively as Daddy Warbucks in Annie and Annie Warbucks, a sequel to Annie that never quite took off.
Olympia Dukakis found real fame in Moonstruck when she was 56.
ETA- Ironically, Harve Presnell won the Golden Globe for “Most Promising Newcomer” in 1965, an award he shared with Topol & George Segal. 
As far back as I can remember, Christopher Lee has been an iconic figure in cinema. Perhaps I couldnt make an exhaustive list of what films he was in, but there is no doubt that myself and many others knew exactly who he was and why he was famous.
It may be that LOTR was the most successfull film he appeared in, but it was certainly not the reason for his fame.
That’s cool. I don’t know him, but got interested in the course of his career when I rented “Molly Brown” after seeing him in “Fargo” and “The Pretender” and realizing it was the same guy.
I’m sure he must have worked in Hollywood (or tv?) before but **Morgan Freeman ** seemed to hit his major successes relatively late in life. “Driving Miss Daisy” is the earliest big role I can think of and he must have been in his 50s. Since then, he doesn’t seem to have looked back.
Robert Downey Jr. just barely qualifies at 43 for this thread: moderately famous before his drug arrests, and now a hot new commodity after his comeback.
Michael Emerson was in minor cameo and supporting roles before he landed Lost–at 52 years old. In the same boat, Terry O’Quinn was doing guest spots on Alias and JAG before Lost (also at 52, oddly enough).
A few come to mind:
-Boris Karloff: made the bulk of his money after the age of 40, continued acting into his 70’s.
-Buddy Ebson: all though a minor actor as a young man, he continued acting, and was a TV actor well into his 70’s
-Basil Rathbone: his famous portrayal of Sherlock Holmes came late in life.
Dare I say. . . William Shatner? For a long time, he had the fame, but not the fortune. After “Star Trek,” he was pretty much relegated to “special guest star” roles and made-for-TV movies.
The “Star Trek” movie gave his career a major re-invigoration, and he did get some steady work after that (“T.J. Hooker,” “Rescue 911.”). I think he said once, though, that he had made more money from his involvement with priceline.com than he had as an actor–although that might not be the case anymore.
Also George Foreman. He had the fame, but most successful boxers don’t end up with a lot of money. Foreman said that he’s made more selling grills than he ever did as a boxer.
He’ll always be “Easy Reader” to me.
I don’t think I can buy this. He was pretty well known as Captain Kirk before he was 40 and the huge increase of fame that followed the early years of syndication showed he was clearly close to being a household name. He is without doubt more successful now, late in life, but he was already a star before he was 40.
My parents were without question, not Star Trek fans, but from the fact they had two sons that were big fans of the show, they knew who Shatner was when he was doing those cheesy Promise commercials in the 1970s.
Foreman was a household name from his big boxing matches in the 70s. Maybe **Sampiro ** can further clarify what he is looking for.
For all I know, everybody in Great Britain has known who Ian McKellen is for decades, but I’d never heard of him before he did “Cold Comfort Farm,” when he was 56 or so. Now, of course…
Thus my saying that they had the fame, but not the fortune. That’s from their own accounts. Now if you’re saying it doesn’t match the OP, I can understand that. The title implies either/or, but the post says “and.”
ETA: Foreman probably became a household word when he raised that American flag accepting the gold in Mexico City (1968), years before the big fights.
Me too!
:: runs off to check some dates on IMDb.com ::
Wilford Brimley was an actor for quite a while, but didn’t hit the big time until his scene-stealing turn as a gruff Justice Department official at the conclusion of Absence of Malice, when he was 47 (but looked much older).
Likewise the gaunt William Hickey, who looked near death’s door as the mob boss in Prizzi’s Honor, but was only 58 at the time.
I don’t think Gloria Stuart ever had a bigger hit than Titanic, released when she was 87.
Blossom Rock. She was pretty much just an extra in her movie career (as Marie Blake), but reentered acting after the death of her husband and became a household name as Grandmama in The Addams Family
If you define “coming late” as how close to the end it came, I don’t think anyone can top John Cazale.
According to IMDb, he was in 6 movies (I’m not counting the mini-series re-edit of The Godfather films). Five of those came in the last 6 years of his life, and all five were nominated for multiple Oscars.