Known today as a former co-host on The View, Behar was a high school English teacher who didn't launch her show business career until after age 40.
Wang was first known as an accomplished figure skater and a fashion editor before deciding before her 1989 wedding, at age 40, that she wanted to be a designer. She commissioned her own wedding dress for $10,000 and opened her first bridal boutique the following year.
This husband and wife team had each turned 42 before they gave up their legal careers to write their first restaurant guides. Their eponymous company is part of Google now.
The founder and former CEO of Zipcar had left her 40th birthday in the rearview mirror and was taking time off from work to be with her children when she and a friend, Antje Danielson, came up with the idea for the car-sharing company in 2000.
Sanders was "a failure who got fired from a dozen jobs before starting his restaurant, and then failed at that when he went out of business and found himself broke at the age of 65," according to one account. But then things worked out when he sold the first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in 1952.
The late, great comedic actor was best known for his roles in 1980s movies like Caddyshack and Back to School, but he was 46 before he got his first big break--on the Ed Sullivan Show.
At age 55, he wrote his first food and hotel guides (including one that mentioned Sanders Court and Caf, the original restaurant owned by Harlan Sanders, above). At age 73, licensed the right to use his name to the company that developed Duncan Hines cake mixes; unfortunately he died six years later.
Jackson 46 years old (and in recovery from addiction to cocaine and heroin) before he starred alongside John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.
At age 41, after a series of entrepreneurial ventures, Fisher and his wife Doris Fisher founded The Gap. It's now a $16 billion a year company with more than 3,200 locations worldwide.
Kroc had passed his 50th birthday before he bought the first McDonald's in 1961, which he ultimately expanded into a worldwide conglomerate.
Although he'd owned a small chain of discount stores, Walton opened the first true Wal-Mart in 1962, when he was 44.
Her first cookbook was published when she was 39; she made her television debut in The French Chef at age 51.