Australian novelist Bryce Courtenay was born in 1933 but did not publish his first novel (The Power of One) until 1989.
Writer Billie Letts (bk4 the Oprah selection Where the Heart Is which became a movie with Natalie Portman) doesn’t give her age but it’s known she was married in 1958. Her first book was published in 1995, so even if she was a child bride she was in her fifties, more likely a couple of years one way or the other of sixty.
If you saw a tv show in the 1960s or 1970s, you almost certainly saw Burt Mustin at some point. He played a feisty cantankerous, energetic old man. His first movie credit came when he was 67 and he performed until he died at age 92.
Not quite sure when Walter Huston, father or John and grandfather of Angelica, became famous. This good Canadian boy from York County, Ontario was born in 1883 and his first major role was probably in The Virginian in 1929 with Gary Cooper. He won an Academy Award for “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” when he was 66.
Samuel L Jackson was in his 40s still playing rolls like “Black Man” or “Stick-up Man”. He has some bit parts in some big movies but it wasn’t until Pulp Fiction when he became a household name at age 46
As an aside, one of the best status websites on the planet: Abe Vigoda.
Carrol O’Conner was a journeyman actor and bit player until his mid-40s, when he landed the role of Archie Bunker on All in the Family (He made the pilot when he was 44 and it got picked up by CBS two years later). He was a household name for the rest of his life.
George Bernard Shaw had modest success as a playwright in his late 30s and really hit his stride in his 50s and 60s.
Wow, I’d have guessed mid-thirties at the time of Pulp Fiction. I suppose they do say that “black don’t crack”.
Morgan Freeman was a bit-part actor whose career highlight prior to his 50th birthday was Easy Reader on The Electric Company (until 1977). In 1987, the year he turned 50, he got nominated for an Oscar in Street Smart. He started getting really good roles after that.
Steve Carell was 41 when Bruce Almighty came out in 2003. He had been working since the early 1990s, but didn’t really hit anything big until the Daily Show in 1999. I’ve heard him in interviews say he knows how lucky he is, he’s savoring everything, and knows it won’t last forever.
Giuseppe Verdi had his first success with ‘Nabucco’ in 1842, when he was 39. He referred to the next 10 years of his life as his ‘galley years’, turning out 14 operas between 1843 and 1853. It isn’t until 1851, when he wrote the opera Rigoletto, that he became the composer whom we revere today. His last completed opera was the comedic masterpiece Falstaff, premiered in 1893. Best known for tragedies, it was his first successful comedy - the early ‘Un Giorno di Regno’ was his only other comedy, and it was a flop. Verdi was 79 years old at the time of Falstaff.
Which gives me an excuse to say:
Study your libretto,
start with Rigoletto,
raise up your falsetto,
Sing Verdi very loud!
A fair number of writers don’t get started (or at least published) until 35 or later:
J. R. R. Tolkien was 35 or so when The Hobbit was published
Umberto Eco was 38 when The Name of the Rose was published
Science fiction writer Lois McMaster Bujold was 37 when her first novel was published
Gene Wolfe was 39 when his first novel was published (don’t know exactly when he started publishing short stories).
I’m increasingly convinced that there are few writers under 30 worth reading, now or in the past. Most young writers have a tendency to be very pretentious or “iconoclastic for the sake of being iconoclastic”. Certainly there are talented writers under 30 and sometimes you’ll read something written by somebody young that is brilliant, but more often even the ones who have “life experience” (never liked that term but you know what I mean) lack a certain je ne sais quois- perhaps it’s a sense of impermanence or perspective- that comes with age.
I also think it’s far better to be an Abe Vigoda who didn’t take off until 50 than an Orson Welles who was brilliant at 25 and a “living legend” who was constantly hustling for a buck the last 4 decades and rarely getting quality work. (Certainly in 50 years more people will know of Orson Welles than Abe Vigoda, but Vigoda was probably the happier life.)
Contemporary classical composer Henryk Gorecki was born in 1933 and for much of his life was little known. In 1992 a Nonesuch/Elecktra recording of his Symphony No 3, written in 1976, was released and was a world wide smash (for a classical composition), selling over a million copies.
Why is anybody’s guess as it is a slow serious work.
Tom Scud writes:
> J. R. R. Tolkien was 35 or so when The Hobbit was published
He was born in 1892, and The Hobbit was published in 1937, so he was 45.
The interesting example that I like using recently is Manoel de Oliveira:
He was born in late 1908. He directed his first film in 1931, so he wasn’t old at all when he started as a director. The interesting thing is how long it took him to hit his stride as a director. He directed five films in the 1930’s, two films in the 1940’s, three films in the 1950’s, four films in the 1960’s, three films in the 1970’s, eight films in the 1980’s, ten films in the 1990’s, fifteen films in the 2000’s, and two films so far in the 2010’s. That’s right. He’s 102, and he’s actually still speeding up his production.
Bonnie Raitt received props for her music when she was in her 20s, but didn’t really hit the big time until her 40s.
Burt Mustin became a character actor at the age of 67, and was instantly recognizable in movies and TV series in which he appeared.
Julia Child was almost 40 when she STARTED cooking school and 49 when her seminal book, Mastering The Art of French Cooking was published.
Ricky Gervais was almost 40 when the original The Office came out.
Patrick O’Brian was completely unknown into his 40’s, and he didn’t really break though on a larger scale until his 70’s (though he wrote many of the books that made him successful much earlier).