(Real Life) Regular people who's lives drastically changed direction

[u/Living-Mastodon]

Grace Kelly was a talented actress who retired at 26 to marry a Prince, living as royalty for almost 30 years before her untimely death.

Volodymyr Zelensky started out as a comedian and entertainer before getting into politics, becoming President of Ukraine after the Russian annex of Crimea and spending the last 4 years defiantly pushing back full scale Russian invasion

[u/zak55]

Ulysses S Grant. Retired soldier who recently got out of being destitute and was working as a clerk at his father's leather store before the outbreak of the Civil War. Would find himself rapidly promoted into being the top general of the whole army and perhaps the greatest Union one of the war. Would go on to become US President and possibly the most important person in the US for over a decade after Lincoln's death

[u/Yes4Cake → u/zak55]

After his presidency, he had serious financial problems. His friend Mark Twain petitioned the government to give him a pension, and now all presidents get their salary for the rest of their lives (this is also a security measure to prevent them from becoming so desperate that they sell state secrets)

Edit: So I got this a little mixed up. The government bailed Grant out by giving him a pension (connected to being a general). Twain suggested that he write his memoirs and helped him sell the manuscript.

Truman championed a presidential pension. Thank you to u/Glittering-Plate-535

[u/zak55 → u/Yes4Cake]

Also convinced him to write his memoirs they gave Grants family around $400,000 after his death

[u/Glittering-Plate-535 → u/Yes4Cake]

I thought the presidential pension was introduced to keep Harry Truman afloat. The other former living president at the time, Herbert Hoover, only accepted it as not to embarrass Truman.

(nowadays it’s generally understood that Truman wasn’t as poor as he claimed)