There's nothing like adversity to awaken the entrepreneur within. These individuals were well into midlife when life dealt them an unexpected blow and they recovered by channeling their needs and resourcefulness into a business venture. Over time, hard work helped them or the enterprises they created become household names.
Lesson learned: "Probably the hardest question I get asked is 'How do I choose between passion and practicality?' I can't answer that. I had to do both. I was passionate about pursuing a career in financial services. But I was also passionate about feeding my child," Gardner told an audience at AARP's Life@50+ convention in 2011.
Second act: A trader turned general partner at Salomon Bros., Bloomberg was let go when he was 39, after the investment bank was bought. He used a $10 million severance to start a company selling financial data on dedicated computer terminals to other brokers, helping usher Wall Street into the digital age. By 2009, Bloomberg L.P. had sold more than 250,000 terminals worldwide and branched into publishing and TV. Bloomberg stepped down from running the company in 2001 after being elected mayor of New York City, but it continues to make him one of the country's richest men, worth $22 billion, according to Forbes.
Second act: The 35-year-old culinary school graduate already had overcome a privileged but tough childhood -- with an absent dad and an alcoholic mom -- to open a natural foods bakery when she was cast in Real Housewives of New York City in 2005. Buoyed by her new found reality TV celebrity status, she launched a string of self-help books and the Skinnygirl line of cocktail mixes, sold to Beam Global in 2011 for more than $100 million. Ellen DeGeneres produced the recent pilot for Frankel's Fox TV talk show, Bethenny.
Lesson learned: "After making funeral plans all weekend, I showed up for work at Columbia Sportswear on Monday morning, and I've been showing up ever since," Boyle told The Oregonian.
Second act: Wall Street's disgraced "Junk Bond King" spent close to two years in jail for securities-law violations in the late 1980s before reinventing himself, at 45, as an entrepreneurial-minded philanthropist. A battle with prostate cancer led him to fund cancer and other medical research. Through the Milken Institute and his other foundations, he's also invested millions in public-funded online charter schools and other education programs. In 2010, he and wife Lori joined fellow Giving Pledge billionaires vowing to leave their fortunes to the world instead of their heirs. Milken ranks 200th on Forbes' 2012 list of richest Americans, worth $2.3 billion.
Lesson learned: "Philanthropy is far more than just writing checks. It takes an entrepreneurial approach that seeks out best practices and empowers people to change the world," Milken wrote in his Giving Pledge letter.