In the thread about actors aging gracefully, I suggested Paul Newman as an actor who aged extremely well. But that reminded me about another thing regarding Newman - he was a great race car driver. Not just ‘great for a Hollywood guy’, but great, period.
His racing achievements:
Winner of four SCCA national championships.
Came in second at Le Mans in 1979, when he was 54 years old.
Oldest driver in history to be part of a winning team, when his team won Daytona in 1995, when he was 70!
Inducted into the SCCA hall of fame.
This for a guy entering the sport when he was 44 years old, after training to race for a movie. I think that’s an absolutely astounding achievement.
So I’m thinking mostly of actors who achieved great things after being actors first. So Schwarzenegger wouldn’t count as a a body builder. I’d also leave out achievements that are made easier because of fame, such as Arnie becoming governor or Reagan becoming President. I’m thinking more along the lines of achievements in sports, or art, or science.
Some other candidates:
Brian May (guitarist for Queen) becoming a respected astrophysicist.
Geena Davis almost qualifying for the Olympic archery team.
John Travolta being type-rated to fly a 747 and becoming a (temporary) 747 pilot for Qantas airlines.
Hedy Lamarr - inventing the first spread-spectrum transmission technology
Jimmy Stewart receiving numerous aviation medals in WWII, and eventually becoming a Brigadier General in the Air Force
Peter Weller (of Robocop and Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai fame) is also a PhD student in Roman and Renaissance Art – he’s been featured in a few History Channel documentaries on the Roman Empire as an expert commentator.
Greg Graffin, lead singer of the '80s punk band Bad Religion, has a Master’s in Geology and a PhD in zoology, and teaches evolutionary biology at Cornell.
Rob Riggle (comedian, former Daily Show correspondent) is a Lt. Colonel in the US Marines and served in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
Bruce Dickinson, best known as lead singer of Iron Maiden, is also a published novelist, an Olympic standard fencer, an airline pilot, and a broadcaster, and probably several other things I’ve forgotten.
Tom Scholz of the band Boston has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT, and founded his own electronic guitar effects company.
I could have sworn I read that Peter Quaife (bassist for the Kinks) went on to become an astronomy professor, but his Wikipedia entry doesn’t say anything about it. Maybe he was just an amateur astronomy enthusiast. I’m pretty sure I once saw a photo of him posing with a telescope.
Wayne Rogers of MAS*H fame is now a respected investment adviser who frequently appears on TV talk shows. But that could just mean he’s a mediocre investment adviser with a famous name and face.
Steely Dan / Doobie Brothers guitarist **Jeff “Skunk” Baxter **is a self-taught expert on missile defense systems. He has served as a consultant for defense contractors and has worked with congressional committees on the subject.
Midnight Oil’s frontman Peter Garrett has been actively involved in high-level Australian politics for some time now, furthering the activism he was promoting with the band.
Also, Viggo Mortensen is apparantly a fairly accomplished poet, composer and artist.
