It's never too late! From Vera Wang to Morgan Freeman and even Charles Darwin, the inspiring individuals landed their big break later in life

So it turns out you don't have to have it all figured out by 30 - as these seven inspirational individuals have shown us.

Consider the fact that Morgan Freeman was still struggling to break into Hollywood in his late forties, while Charles Darwin didn't write On the Origins of Species until he was 50.

And note how Vera Wang was both a figure skater and a journalist before she designed dresses, while much-loved television chef Julia Child was once known to be a terrible cook.

So if you haven't yet found your life calling, just take a look at these great names from the worlds of science, Hollywood and fashion - to name just a few - and remember: It's never too late.

Vera Wang 

She's now considered one of the most famous wedding gown designers in the world, but at the age of 40 Vera Wang still hadn't even opened her first bridal boutique.

It was after retiring from competitive figure skating that Wang, now 66, went back to college to study Art History and Theater at Sarah Lawrence, before entering the fashion industry with a job at Vogue.

Talented: Vera Wang, pictured at the 2015 Glamour Women Of The Year Awards earlier this month, had a career as a figure skater and then a journalist before she began designing bridal wear

Talented: Vera Wang, pictured at the 2015 Glamour Women Of The Year Awards earlier this month, had a career as a figure skater and then a journalist before she began designing bridal wear

But it was only in 1989, when she was preparing for her own wedding, that Wang entertained the idea of designing bridal wear.

Frustrated at being unable to find the perfect gown from the limited selection available, Wang set about fashioning her own dress.

 I think I brought a certain freedom, and maybe a rule-breaking kind of without even knowing it.
Vera Wang 

She went on to open her first bridal boutique in 1990 and now, 25 years later, the designer boasts a fashion empire that spans wedding dresses, lingerie, purses, home products, cosmetics, eyeglasses, fragrances and jewelry.

Her wedding gowns are admired the world-over, and celebrities including the likes of Uma Thurman, Ivanka Trump, Victoria Beckham and Chelsea Clinton have all worn her creations.

Speaking to CBS News in 2013, the mother-of-two described how entering the industry later in life with no prior knowledge gave her a certain freedom in her evolution from journalist to businesswoman.

'I came in with no knowledge - I came in with knowledge of fashion - but I had no knowledge of bridal per se.

'So I think I brought a certain freedom, and maybe a rule-breaking kind of without even knowing it. And it was just sort of instinctive. It was whatever I felt.

'And what I thought girls should want to wear or be available to them if they wanted to and with that freedom and that fashion edge. I think that really changed the industry.'

Julia Child

Versatile: Chef and author Julia Child served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War Two, before turning her energies to haute cuisine

Versatile: Chef and author Julia Child served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War Two, before turning her energies to haute cuisine

She was to become one of America's most beloved television chefs, but Julia Child didn't release her first cookbook until she was 50 – and didn't even learn to cook until her mid-thirties.

In fact, Child had a completely different career before she discovered haute cuisine, one which involved guarding top-secret information for the U.S. government.

She originally moved to Manhattan in 1935 to pursue aspirations of becoming a writer when she was in her early twenties.

But Child returned to her hometown of Pasadena, California, shortly after, where she wrote for local publications and worked in advertising.

Then during World War II, she transferred to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) – an early version of the CIA – to help with the war effort, where she worked her way up the ranks with postings in both Sri Lanka and China.

It was only in 1945 when she was in her mid-thirties and engaged to Paul Child that Julia enrolled in a Los Angeles cooking school to prepare for married life – nearly two decades before her most notable program The French Chef made its U.S. television debut in 1963.

But her early attempts in the kitchen proved disastrous, with Paul Child famously quoted as saying: 'I was willing to put up with that awful cooking to get Julia.'

Child went on to become one of the most beloved television chefs of all time. 

Her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking became an international bestseller, winning the attention of a new generation when housewife Julie Powell blogged about cooking her way through all 524 recipes in one year.

The feat was chronicled in the hit film Julie & Julia - starring Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep - released in 2009, five years after Child died of kidney failure just before her 92nd birthday.

Nina and Tim Zagat

Famed restaurant guide founders Nina and Tim Zagat both started out as corporate lawyers, before publishing their first guide in 1982 when they were in their early forties.

The couple met at Yale Law School and married in 1965, nearly 15 years before they came up with the idea for the famous guides - which were to become a leading culinary authority in cities across the globe. 

From corporate to cuisine: Tim and Nina Zagat, pictured at an event in New York earlier this year, both started out as corporate lawyers before they published their first guide in 1982 when they were in their early forties

From corporate to cuisine: Tim and Nina Zagat, pictured at an event in New York earlier this year, both started out as corporate lawyers before they published their first guide in 1982 when they were in their early forties

Nina and Tim, now aged 73 and 75 respectively, started Zagat as a hobby in 1979, after a dinner party with friends, during which one of the guests started complaining about the restaurant reviews in a major newspaper.

Everyone at the table agreed that the paper's reviews were unreliable, at which point Tim suggested taking a survey of their friends.

This led to 200 amateur critics rating and reviewing 100 top New York restaurants based on their food, decor, service and cost, and the results quickly circulated among groups of other young professionals.

Although the surveys were popular, when the Zagats approached major publishers in the 1980s, they were repeatedly turned down, and the couple decided to publish the first guide themselves.

Speaking to Forbes in 2009, Nina described this failure as the key to their biggest success.

'We wouldn't have a business today if any publisher had decided to publish our guides; the publisher would have taken 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the revenue,' she said.

'Being turned down left us with 100 per cent of the revenue. Also, since we had both practiced law for many years before we started the survey, we weren't restricted by the traditional thinking of publishers. We created a new model for our business.'

The guide, which continues to rely on consumer ratings and reviews, is now one of the leading authorities on restaurants and other leisure activities in the world, and in 2011 it was sold to Google for a reported $125million. 

Charles Darwin

Inspiring: Charles Darwin wrote a piece of  literature that was to forever change the way we look at the world- but it wasn't published until he was 50

Inspiring: Charles Darwin wrote a piece of literature that was to forever change the way we look at the world- but it wasn't published until he was 50

It was the piece of scientific literature that was to forever change the way we look at the world, but Charles Darwin didn’t write The Origin of the Species until he was 50.

The British naturalist kept his revolutionary ideas quiet for 20 years after returning from the voyage where he gathered the ideas that would result in the theory that humans shared a common ancestor with apes.

In 1825, Darwin began studying medicine at Edinburgh University in Scotland, but he left shortly after to train as a clergyman at Cambridge University. 

During this time he pursued his passion for biology on the side, becoming an avid collector of beetles.

He graduated in 1831, but rather than taking a job as a minister he was invited on a voyage around the world. 

Over the next few years Darwin collected specimens of extinct species and studied the local geology across five continents.

On returning home, he began writing up his ideas, but it was still to be more than another two decades before On the Origin of Species was published.

By 1858, Darwin had written a quarter of a million words in ten and a half chapters but had published none. 

However, he then received a letter from the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who had made similar observations about evolution .

The next year Darwin publicized the theory of evolution in The Origin of Species by Natural Selection, which was to become one of the most important books ever written.

Morgan Freeman

Although he had worked in off-Broadway theater and played supporting roles in film and television, it wasn't until his early fifties that Morgan Freeman began to make it big in Hollywood.

The much-loved actor, now 78, served a five-year stint in the Air Force from 1955 to 1959, before moving to Los Angles to pursue his acting ambitions.

Patient: Morgan Freeman, pictured  at a celebrity golf tournament in China last year, was in his early fifties when he started to get noticed in Hollywood, but went on to become one of the best-loved actors of all time

Patient: Morgan Freeman, pictured at a celebrity golf tournament in China last year, was in his early fifties when he started to get noticed in Hollywood, but went on to become one of the best-loved actors of all time

However it would be nearly three decades before Freeman was to land his big break in movies.

Hollywood began to sit up and take notice when the actor played a New York pimp in 1987 crime drama Street Smart, earning himself an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

Take your time, learn what you're doing, keep moving forward, keep plugging on.
Morgan Freeman 

This was closely followed by a second Oscar nomination – this time for Best Actor in a Leading Role - for his portrayal of an African-American chauffeur in 1940s Atlanta in the 1989 adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning play Driving Miss Daisy.

Freeman went on to star in a string of successful films including The Shawshank Redemption, Se7en, Bruce Almighty, The Dark Knight and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Following his fourth Academy Award nomination (he landed a fifth for Invictus in 2009), the father-of-four finally won an Oscar for his role alongside Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood in 2004 drama Million Dollar Baby.

At the American Film Institute in 2011, while discussing how he broke into the industry aged 50, Freeman spoke about the importance of patience. He said: 'Don't sit down and say you can't, because you can.

'Take your time, learn what you're doing, keep moving forward, keep plugging on.' 

Toni Morrison

Later-starter: Toni Morrison, pictured in New York earlier this year, only began writing novels at 39

Later-starter: Toni Morrison, pictured in New York earlier this year, only began writing novels at 39

Renowned author Toni Morrison, 84, is widely considered one of America’s greatest living novelists, with a multitude of prestigious literary awards to her name.

But she didn’t even start writing her first book until she was 39.

Morrison worked on the novel – The Bluest Eye – in her spare time, while raising her two children as a single mother and working as an editor at Random House.

She joined the publishing house in the mid-60s when she was practically the only black woman in the industry, after spending several years teaching at her Alma mater Howard University.

While there she published books by Muhammad Ali, Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton and Toni Cade Bambara, among others.

Both The Bluest Eye and her second novel, Sula, received a warm reception from critics, but it was only after the publication of Song of Solomon in 1977 - when she was 46 - that Morrison began to receive national attention.

In the following two decades, she rose to the very top of the literary world.

Morrison won a National Book Critics Circle for Song of Solomon and a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Beloved, before becoming the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

Now well into her eighties, she continues to be a force in the literary world, and her most recent novel God Help the Child, which she began in 2008, was published earlier this year.

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