Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone struggled for years after moving to New York in 1969, scraping by in films like The Lords of Flatbush until 1976, when he wrote and starred in Rocky - a role that earned him simultaneous Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay, making him the third person in history to pull that double. He became John Rambo in First Blood in 1982, then spent the mid-'80s through late '90s as one of Hollywood's highest-paid stars in Cobra, Cliffhanger, Demolition Man, locked in public rivalry with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He returned to Rocky in 2006 and launched The Expendables franchise in 2010, but it was 2015's Creed - playing a retired Rocky mentoring Apollo's son - that brought him a Golden Globe and a third Oscar nomination, forty years after the first. He's also painted, collected art, written fitness books, and currently stars in the crime series Tulsa King.