32 women who became really successful later in life

From directing an Oscar-winning film at 60 to reaching social media stardom at 90, these women prove that success can be achieved at any age.

Success means different things to different people, but in the world of film, television, business, sport, and literature, some key roles and awards signal someone has reached a pinnacle of achievement. 

These women all reached this pinnacle in their late 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond. Some worked in the respective industry for decades before making it big, while others had a change of career at a pivotal moment in their life, which led to their success. 

Dame Judi Dench

Dame Judy Dench had a hugely successful career with the Royal Shakespeare Company spanning 30 years before she landed her biggest film role. Her career turned towards Hollywood when she landed the role of M in the James Bond franchise in the 90s. She was in her early 60s. 

She also starred as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love in the same decade, a role for which she won her first Oscar - despite only appearing in the film for eight minutes. 

£11.97 at Amazon

And Furthermore by Dame Judi Dench | £11.97 at Amazon 

With a career spanning seven decades across TV, stage and film roles, it's safe to say that Dame Judi Dench has a few stories to tell. And that's exactly what she does in this candid autobiography that charts her remarkable career with refreshing honesty and humour.

View Deal

Ava Du Vernay

Ava Marie DuVernay is a filmmaker, producer, and screenwriter. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards and a BAFTA Film Award for her work on Netflix's 13th, and the recipient of two NAACP Image Awards, among many others.

Yet, while many started making their way in the film industry in their 20s, DuVernay only started learning about filmmaking in her 30s. Before that, she had worked as a publicist in the industry.  

Dame Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Mirren achieved much success in London's West End, but her film career reached a new height when she won her first Academy Award at 62 for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. 

She was 52 years old when she was nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category at the Academy Awards for her role in The Madness of King George. 

Wally Funk

We're used to seeing those in film hit their biggest milestones later in their career, but what about astronauts? Wally Funk officially became the oldest woman to go to space after her NS-16 mission in July 2021. She was 82. 

Funk set the groundwork for this mission decades before, however. She qualified as a pilot and flight instructor and then, in 1961, she passed a test to show that women were just as capable as men to go space - but was rejected due to her gender.

Tracee Ellis Ross

Tracee Ellis Ross has been famous her entire life some would say, given that her mother is iconic singer and performer Diana Ross, and she's had her own acting pursuits since her 20s. However, Ross has said many times that her 40s have been her best decade yet where her career is concerned. 

Ross played the head of the family, anaesthetist Rainbow “Bow” Johnson, in the multi-award-winning television show Black-ish, which ran for eight seasons before ending in 2022 and counted Barack and Michelle Obama as fans.

Vera Wang

While Vera Wang has had a long, successful career - first as an editor at Vogue and accessories designer at Ralph Lauren - it wasn't until she turned 40 that she started working on the bridal line she's most famous for. 

Today, Wang works across fashion, both in bridal designs and haute couture, and A-listers like Victoria Beckham, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, and Kim Kardashian have worn her dresses, among many others. In 2020, she was reportedly worth over $270 million. 

Kris Jenner

Kris Jenner was 52 years old when the first season of reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians aired. While the Kardashian clan, with Kris at the helm, were well known before this it was in 2007 when the show aired for the first time that they truly became a household name.

Arianna Huffington

Ariana Huffington founded the Huffington Post, an American media company, in 2005 when she was in her mid-50s. When she sold the company in March 2011 for $315 million, she also became editor-in-chief. 

Just under a decade later, Huffington wrote her 14th book and founded Thrive Global - a health and wellness media company focused on ending burnout. 

Octavia Spencer

Octavia Spencer, best known for roles in films such as Hidden Figures, The Help, and Ma, is another excellent example of a woman who became really successful in her 40s. While Spencer landed her first on-screen role in 1995, she told The Guardian that "finding fame in my 40s allowed me an adult perspective on my career. I truly understood that you have to enjoy it - and appreciate it."

Viola Davis

Much like Dame Judy Dench and Dame Helen Mirren, Viola Davis has been a successful actor her whole career - but it was in her 40s that she reached true stardom and became a household name.

At the age of 43, Davis starred in the film Doubt alongside Meryl Streep and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the performance. She also won Best Actress for her role in The Help.

At the age of 51, Davis took the lead role in How To Get Away With Murder - perhaps the performance she's most known for - and won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, becoming the first African-American actress to do so. 

Edie Falco

You may recognise Edie Falco from her roles in The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie, and Avatar. She's a multi-award-winning actress across film, television, and Broadway, and won three awards in 2003 - a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a SAG Award - becoming only one of four to do so pre-2008. In 2003, Edie Falco was 40 years old.

She was 36 when she landed a key role in The Sopranos, the series for which she won these three awards. 

Julia Child

Julia Child is one of the most famous American chefs - yet she only tasted French food for the first time in her late 30s, before going on to train in Paris, and then publishing her first cookbook. The cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was published in 1961 when Child was 49 and contained more than 520 recipes, spanning over 700 pages. Her show, The French Chef, started when Child was in her 50s. 

Chloe Zhao

Chloe Zhao made history in 2021 when she became only the second woman, and the very first woman of colour, to win an Academy Award in the Best Director category. Her film, Nomadland, also won Best Picture in the same year.  

Zhao was 38 when the film was released. 

Jane Lynch

Jane Lynch landed the role of tough cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester in Ryan Murphy's iconic show Glee at 51 years old. While it wasn't her first acting role, it is the one she's perhaps most widely known for. 

Before this, she had roles in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Best in Show, and Criminal Minds, but she didn't have these roles until she was in her 40s.

Kathy Bates

Kathy Bates didn't land her biggest role until 1990, when she was 42, playing Annie Wilkes in the adaption of Stephen King's Misery. From there, she went onto play many other iconic roles in films like Titanic and as a regular cast member on the American Horror Story series.

She has won an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as being nominated for a Tony Award and two BAFTA Awards.

Laverne Cox

In 2013, at the age of 41, Laverne Cox became one of the stars of Netflix's Orange Is The New Black, where she played prisoner Sophia Burset. While she'd held acting roles before, this was undoubtedly her breakthrough one. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for the role in 2014 and a Daytime Emmy for her work as a producer on the show a year later.

Since then, Cox has appeared on the cover of Time magazine and Cosmopolitan. 

Leslie Jones

In 2013, Leslie Jones auditioned for (and landed) a role on Saturday Night Live, after a recommendation by fellow comedian Chris Rock. She was 46 years old at the time and just one year later, Jones became the oldest person to join the show as a cast member.

She was one of the most famous cast members on SNL and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for her work in 2017 and 2018, before leaving the show in its 44th season. 

Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow is a director most famous for her work on The Hurt Locker, which premiered in 2008 in Venice. Though she had directed a few films before this, The Hurt Locker is perhaps her most famous project. In 2010, the film won an Academy Award for Best Picture and Bigelow personally won Best Achievement in Directing. Other members of cast and crew also won Oscars for their roles in the film. 

Bigelow was 57 years old when she directed the film. 

Sharmistha Dubey

You probably haven't heard of Sharmistha Dubey - but you've probably heard of Tinder, OkCupid, Match.com, and Hinge. Sharmistha Dubey is in her 50s and was the CEO of Match Group, the company that owns and operates these dating apps, until 2022.

For over a decade, Sharmistha worked her way up through the company and led innovation across the apps - including the launch of Tinder Gold, a members-only service on the dating app, when she was in her late 40s.

Kerry Washington

Kerry Washington started acting in school and graduated from university with a degree in Performance Studies. She had her first film debut in 2000 at the age of 23, but it wasn't until 12 years later that she became a recurring name on television. 

In 2012, at the age of 35, Washington landed the role of Olivia Pope in Scandal.

Brene Brown

If you're a fan of the best podcasts for relationships, you'll be familiar with Dr Brené Brown. But while Dr Brown has been studying relationship science for decades, her work didn't hit the mainstream until she was in her mid-40s, when her TED Talk went viral. "The Power of Vulnerability" has been viewed over 65 million times since 2010.

In the last 14 years, Dr Brown has written six New York Times bestselling books, developed a podcast and a docuseries with HBOMax.

Oprah

Famously, Oprah was fired from her first television gig - reportedly for getting too emotionally invested in the stories she reported. These days, she's perhaps one of the biggest household names in America, worth a reported $3 billion, and had her own titular show for 25 years. The programme was the highest-rated television talk show in the US and had won several Emmy Awards by the time it ended in 2011. 

In 1986, when the show was syndicated, Oprah was 33. 

Lori Locust

Lori Locust is one woman who became really successful in sport after becoming a semi-professional women's football player at 40. She took up coaching when an injury forced her out of the game, while continuing to work full-time and raise two children. 

First she coached a high school team, then a semi-professional team. Less than a decade later, she was working in the NFL and a few years after that in 2019, Locust became only the third woman to hold a full-time coaching position in the history of the NFL. 

Rea Ann Silver

Rea Ann Silva is a famous businesswoman you may not have heard of - but you've definitely heard of her product- The BeautyBlender. In her 40s, make-up artist Silva was working on hit television show Girlfriends and working with cover stars for magazines worldwide. She developed The BeautyBlender and started selling it. 11 years later, it was stocked at Sephora. 

Now in her 60s, Silva is the CEO of the BeautyBlender Company, which is worth hundreds of millions.

Lucille Ball

We think of Lucille Ball as one of the most prominent faces in 1960s Hollywood - and for good reason. Ball was a pioneer in the industry, launching a comedy television series with her husband in 1951. It was the first time a visibly pregnant woman had appeared on television. 

The show also led the way in technical advancements by using multiple camera, a set, and a live audience. 

When it launched, Lucille Ball was 40 years old. 

Sofia Vergara

Sofia Vergara was 37 years old when she landed the role of Gloria Pritchett on Modern Family - a role that would rocket her acting career, make her one of the highest-paid actors on television and put her on Hollywood's radar. 

Over a decade later, she appeared on Netflix's Griselda and cemented her role on Hollywood's A-list with the show racking up an impressive 20 million views in its first two weeks on the streaming service. 

Tiffany Haddish

Tiffany Haddish is another excellent actress who reached the height of her fame in her late 30s. She was 38 when she landed the leading role in Girls Trip, a comedy that won two Critics' Choice nominations. 

Her performance was also included in a round-up of the best film performances of the 21st Century in The New Yorker.

Angeline Boulley

The Firekeeper's Daughter became a New York Times bestseller after it was published in 2021 and won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel in 2022.

This was the first novel by author Angeline Boulley, who was 55 when she wrote it. 

The book was successful before it was even published, with several publishing houses and film studies entering a bidding war - including Higher Ground, Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, which eventually won. 

Iris Apfel

Despite working on several restoration projects at the White House spanning nine presidencies and advising on everything from interior design to events hosted in the space, Iris Apfel was perhaps best known for her personal taste in fashion. 

She arguably shot to wold fame in her 90s with the mantra of "more is more, and less is a bore", a slogan that she embodied while attending fashion shows and posting on social media until her death at 102 years old. 

In 2005, her jewellery was the star of the show at an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York called Entitled Rara Avis (Rare Bird): The Irreverent Iris Apfel. It was the first time the MET had exhibited the collection of a living woman who wasn't a designer.

Toni Morrison

We think of Toni Morrison as one of the most famous authors  - ever. Yet, the first book she wrote to reach critical acclaim was The Bluest Eye, published when she was 39. 

Morrison wrote over 40 books before she died in 2019, won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (at 56 years old) and became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature (at 62 years old). 

Betty White

Betty White may have beeen one of the most famous faces in Hollywood, but she didn't land her top role - as Rose Nyland on The Golden Girls - until she was 63. 

Even then, White's career only took off when she was in her late 30s after appearing on various game shows and hosting her own television talk show, The Betty White Talk Show. 

Kathryn Joosten

Kathryn Joosten became an actress in her 40s, after two decades working as a nurse, when she divorced her husband and decided to pursue her dream. She moved in California in 1995 with her children and landed a succession of supporting roles in television shows like Family Matters, The West Wing, and Desperate Housewives - for which she is perhaps most famous. 

Her role on Desperate Housewives as Karen McCluskey won her two Primetime Emmy Awards.