Known as: An action movie star
Then: A politician
Arnold Schwarzenegger was (literally) one of the biggest film stars of the 1980s and 1990s. Even when the public's taste for one-man action films subsided, he was still commanding around $20m per film, but then he decided to run for the office of governor of California. He won in 2003 and was re-elected in 2006.He was dubbed 'The Governator'.
Schwarzenegger does not accept his governor's salary of $175,000 and even funds all of his own flight travel, but his larger than life fame hasn't completely left him. He's been known to call politicians "girlie men" and even wielded a huge knife in an office video to thank his supporters for their budget cut ideas.