As part of a writing assignment, I need to research people who did not start their careers in the profession at which they were ultimately successful. For example: I’ve already got George Washington Carver as a possibility, for being a laborer then a music student before turning to agricultural science.
Googling the phrase “famous career changers” has gotten me a few more leads, but what I’m really looking for is someone who fits the description, “He was a mediocre X for 15 years, but things really took off for him when he switched to Y.” Can any Dopers name me someone like that?
Please, no politicians or entertainers. That Google search gave me several hits for Jesse “The Body” Ventura, but I’d prefer to write about people with more ordinary, real-life jobs.
Ulyssess S. Grant tried all sorts of jobs, and was a failure at most of them, until the Civil War when he went back into the Army and found his métier.
I know you said you didn’t want politicians, but I’d also mention Pierre-Marc Johnson, a former Premier of Quebec. He trained as a doctor, working in an e.r. Then he went to law school and eventually became the Attorney General of Quebec, before ultimately succeeding to the Premiership when Lévesque retired.
Don’t forget that the Wright brothers were bicycle mecahnics before becoming the first aviators. They also later went on to make more planes, teach others how to fly them and travel in Europe taking dignitaries for their first plane flights.
Do you want cases where people changed to jobs that they never even thought of before, or do you want cases where they took some job because it kept them alive while they tried to make it in their dream job? Among the people already mentioned, Harrison Ford only worked as a carpenter because he needed to have something to fall back on in his early days as an actor because the acting jobs didn’t pay the bills. Stephen King only worked as a teacher because it took years of writing before he could make a living at it. He had planned to become a writer since childhood.
Maria Montessori was a medical doctor - the first female doctor in Italy, actually. But then she had a job working with mentally handicapped children in an institution, and found she could teach them more than was thought possible at the time. That led her to switch careers, and she ultimately became famous as the founder of the Montessori method of education.
This might not be exactly what you’re looking for, though - she didn’t switch because she was a failure at medicine, but because she stumbled on something else that interested her more.
Fidel Castro was never a baseball pitcher. He was at most a decent amateur player, and he never had any hope of becoming a professional. He was trained as a lawyer. The urban legend that he tried out for an American baseball team is wrong:
Tricky, since most famous people are politicians, entertainers, or artists.
The only person I can think of is British: Gordon Ramsay went from being a moderately successful professional football (soccer) player to being one of Britain’s top chefs and restauranteurs.
My favorite modern Renaissance man is Albert Schweitzer, who had four Ph.D. degrees in music, theology, philosophy, and medicine. He ultimately became most famous as a doctor in Africa, but that was after publishing books on theology and a major study of Johann Sebastian Bach that is still a classic. He played a mean church organ too. When you hear the Toccata and Fugue, think of Schweitzer in the African jungle.
The only one I could think of is Kinky Friedman, who was a ountry western singer with a cult following before becoming a mystery writer with a cult following.
