Top 10 Female Celebs Who Found Success After 30
These celebs might be late bloomers but it proves that age is just a number! For this list we're counting down our pick for the Top 10 Female Celebs Who Found Success After 30. We've included celebs like Anna Wintour, Viola Davis, Kathryn Bigelow, Kathy Bates, Julia Child, Judi Dench, J. K. Rowling, Oprah Winfrey , Leslie Jones and Jane Lynch.
#10: Leslie Jones
Leslie Jones has become a prominent comedian, serving as a performer and writer on “Saturday Night Live” and portraying Patty in the “Ghostbusters” reboot. That being said, being a comedian wasn’t always her career choice. Jones was accepted to Chapman University on a basketball scholarship and briefly considered a career as a basketball player. However, she soon discovered stand-up and became a regular at various clubs while working at UPS and Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles. Jones finally hit it big when she became a featured player on “Saturday Night Live” in 2014, and at 47, she became the oldest hire in the show’s history.
#9: Jane Lynch
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After receiving her MFA in theater from Cornell, Lynch acted in Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company and became a member of the improvisational comedy troupe The Second City. She worked there for over a decade before moving to California and trying her hand in movies. Audiences took some notice of her work in “Best in Show,” but it was her role in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” that made her a recognizable figure. Lynch finally hit it big when she was cast in “Glee,” which began airing in 2009, when Lynch was 49. Despite being a successful comedian for much of her younger years, she wasn’t a household name until she was nearly 50.
#8: Anna Wintour
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Anna Wintour has served as Vogue’s editor-in-chief since 1988, and her fashion sense and clamorous personality has made her quite a prolific figure throughout the years. She is even said to have inspired the character of Miranda Priestley in Lauren Weisberger’s “The Devil Wears Prada.” Gulp. While Wintour enjoyed a successful career in fashion journalism throughout her 20s and 30s, her first issue as head of U.S. Vogue was the November 1988 edition, the year Wintour turned 39 years old. It was under her leadership that Vogue turned itself around and became the powerhouse fashion icon it’s known as today.
#7: Viola Davis
Judging by her exceptional acting performances, you’d think that Viola Davis would have had a far more successful career in the early stages of her life. However, that certainly wasn’t the case. Davis graduated at 23 from Rhode Island College and later attended the prestigious Juilliard for four years. She was finally recognized for her work in the form of a Tony Award when she was 36. Davis became a household name ten years later with her Oscar-nominated role in 2011’s “The Help,” which premiered a few days before her 46th birthday. Happy birthday, indeed!
#6: Kathryn Bigelow
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Many aspiring filmmakers dream of winning the Academy Award. Some have to wait a little longer than others. Bigelow started her career in Hollywood relatively late, directing movies like “Point Break” and “K-19: The Widowmaker” when she was in her 40s and early 50s. She finally became a household name when she won the coveted Oscar for her directing work on “The Hurt Locker,” which was released in theatres when Bigelow was 57 years old. Since then, she has directed the acclaimed “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Detroit,” proving that it’s never too late to peak in your respective career.
#5: Kathy Bates
Believe it or not, Kathy Bates is NOT a psychotic kidnapper and murderer! You could have fooled audiences in 1990 when Bates portrayed the mentally unhinged Annie Wilkes in Stephen King’s “Misery.” While Bates enjoyed a fairly successful stage career before her appearance in “Misery,” it was this movie that made her a star, as critics and audiences alike couldn’t get enough of her psychotic ramblings and silly phrases. She won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe for her role in the movie, which was released when Bates was 42. You could say that she has been going strong ever since…
#4: Julia Child
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Julia Child was undoubtedly one of the most popular and respected chefs in the world throughout the 1960s. She is widely recognized for bringing French cuisine to America through her famous show, “The French Chef” while she was in her 50s. Child originally served as a researcher for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, and it wasn’t until after the war that she discovered her love of French food. After studying at Le Cordon Bleu, she published the first volume of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in 1961. She was 49 years old.
#3: Judi Dench
While it may seem like Judi Dench has been a mainstay in Hollywood for years, her career in movies is actually a fairly recent development. Dench was a prominent member of both the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company in her early career, and she achieved some semblance of fame by starring in the 80s British sitcom “A Fine Romance.” However, it wasn’t until she portrayed M in “GoldenEye” at 61 years old that she became a household name – at least in North America. While she did have a prosperous stage career throughout most of her life, she wasn’t a worldwide star until reaching what’s considered typical retirement age.
#2: J. K. Rowling
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J.K. Rowling is the definition of a rags to riches story, and without her, we wouldn’t have the absolute delight that is Harry Potter. By the early 1990s, Rowling was divorced, jobless, poor, depressed, and suicidal. However, her world changed forever upon the UK publication of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” on June 26, 1997. This was only one month before her 32nd birthday. Since that time, she has happily remarried, given birth to two more children, and has a net worth of about $650 million in 2017, as estimated by Forbes.. Now that’s what we call finding success after 30! Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. Lupita Nyong’o “12 Years a Slave” (2013) Toni Morrison “Beloved” (1998) Jessica Chastain “The Help” (2011)
#1: Oprah Winfrey
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It really doesn’t get much bigger than Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey had a bit of a difficult upbringing, as she claims that she was molested as a child and ran away from home when she was only 13 years old. At 14 she became pregnant and gave birth to a premature son, who died soon after. However, she soon found success in college, and throughout the 70s and 80s, she worked as a news anchor and talk show host. Her life changed forever in September 1986, when she was 32. That was the month that “The Oprah Winfrey Show” began airing, a series that has helped secure her a net worth of roughly $3 billion in 2017.
