Before taking over our Sunday nights, Monday morning Internet routines, and (yeah) the world, Jon Hamm was a broke actor, arriving in LA in 1995 with $150. After three years with an agent at William Morris, Hamm was dropped for failing to land gigs. He found work as a waiter and once spent a month as a set dresser on a porn shoot. Hamm began to find modest success on TV in his early 30s, but work was infrequent (though we'll always remember him as one of Lorelai Gilmore's forgotten dates in Gilmore Girls!). At 36 he landed the role of Don Draper—a part he almost didn't get because the show's creator, Matthew Weiner, thought he was too handsome.

Yes, Julia Child started out as a spy (OK, research assistant/spy) for the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA, during World War II. But her career as the most jovial knife-wielding public television host ever didn't get under way until she was 50.

The nation's favorite coach's wife/high-school principal/head of hair Connie Britton had a clear shot at early, ingenue-ish stardom until the blonder, even more ingenue-ish Renée Zellweger demonstrated her knack for looking dewy and sad while Bruce Springsteen music plays in the background. Yes, Britton lost the lead role in 1996's Jerry Maguire to Zellweger, but the fiery Southern lady inside her had bigger plans (and even bigger blond waves). Britton went on to play half of the best married couple on television opposite Kyle Chandler on NBC's Friday Night Lights. And now we hear she's doing something with country music...

America's entertainer and leading fussyperson has always been better than you. To supplement her income in college, Martha Stewart worked as a model, and even did a turn for Chanel. But she didn't plant the seeds for her media empire until the age of 41, when Stewart published her first cookbook, Entertaining, based on recipes from her catering business and her natural skill for throwing parties.

Folk-rock-country artist Lucinda Williams had been performing and making records since her mid-20s but didn't find much popular success until 41, when her crossover hit "Passionate Kisses" took two Grammys in 1994. Handily, the chorus lyric "paaaaaasssionate kisses from yoooooou" was in the perfect range for teen-girl voices and offered an easy template for subbing in the name of your friend's crush for loud singing at inopportune moments.