Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, a particularly astonishing feat given his intense battle with cancer at age 25 in 1996. When he was first diagnosed, Armstrong had to take a break from cycling (he had won several big races, like the Tour DuPont and La Fleche Wallone), but he did not hang up his helmet. He did announce an official retirement, however, in 2005—saying he wanted more time to promote his Livestrong campaign—but it only lasted three years. In September 2008, Armstrong announced that he had “decided to return to professional cycling in order to raise awareness of the global cancer burden.” He competed in the Tour de France this year for the Astana team, and finished an impressive third, behind his much younger teammate Alberto Contador. And Armstrong has already announced that he will be back for the 2010 Tour.
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Ten years ago, Garth Brooks hung up his cowboy hat for life as a family man and husband (he married Trisha Yearwood), claiming that he was done with country music (and his brief, flameout pop career under the name Chris Gaines) forever. Turns out he is now singing a different tune—last week, Brooks announced he will be coming out of retirement to start a residency as the headliner at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. Brooks has sold out Vegas before—in 1998, his four-show stint on the Strip sold more than 72,000 tickets in less than an hour. It’s hard to imagine that the tickets will be less popular now that his fans have waited almost a decade.
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In 2003, rapper Jay-Z declared to the press that The Black Album would be his final album…ever. “I believed it, yeah. I believed it for two years,” he told MSNBC about his retirement. And for a while, he seemed to be pursuing other endeavors. He became the CEO of Def Jam records, opened the 40/40 Club, bought an ownership stake in the New Jersey Nets, continued promoting his fashion line Rocawear, and went public with his relationship with Beyoncé Knowles (they married last year). But he just couldn’t stay out of the studio. “Something, when you love it, is always tugging at you and itching, and I was putting it off and putting it off. I started fumbling around to see if it felt good,” he said, and then in 2006, he released Kingdom Come, officially ending what Hova himself called “the worst retirement in history.” Now, the 40-year-old is really back—his latest, September’s The Blueprint 3, was Jay’s 11th album to hit No. 1—surpassing Elvis’ record for the most hit records of all time. Famous wife, mogul status, nonstop hits—why quit when you’re ahead?
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So many problems could have been avoided had Nixon’s 1962 retirement from politics stuck—but it didn’t. Nixon, who lost the California gubernatorial race in 1962 to Pat Brown, announced his departure with no small amount of vitriol: “For 16 years… you've had a lot of fun," he said. "Just think how much you're going to be missing. You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore." The 49-year-old Nixon was worn out, having narrowly lost the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy (he had been the vice president under Eisenhower and was anxious to win), dropping flop sweat all over television in the famous televised debates. After losing the governor's race, he decided to give it all up, retreat to the California wilderness, and write a book, the bestseller, Six Crises. He then moved to New York and worked at a law firm, where he could have stayed—but he ran again for president in 1968, reigniting his political career during the tumultuous Vietnam era. And then, in a blaze of glory, Watergate and the resignation happened. There is perhaps no better cautionary tale for the fake retirement community.
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How could La Streisand ever stay away from the spotlight, when she will draw a crowd of devoted and rabid fans wherever she goes? Obviously, her 2000 retirement could never hold. Now, Barbra is back on top—her September 29 album, Love Is the Answer, her 61st, topped the charts during its first week out. This No. 1 spot made Streisand the first recording artist to have No. 1 records in five different decades—the woman is a legend, and she knows it. That’s why, in 2006, she announced that she was coming back to tour again—and just like that, her arena show made a ridiculous $92 million, with single tickets often going for over $1,000. At 67, she is still music’s top female (and thankfully, there’s no second retirement on the horizon).
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Michael Jordan shocked the sports world in 1993 when, at the pinnacle of his career, he announced that he was walking away from the NBA to play minor league baseball. (He would later claim that his father’s murder that year and his lack of desire to be in the spotlight during his time of grief led to the decision.) Jordan wasn’t much of a baseball player, of course, and realizing that he would honor his father’s legacy better as a basketball all-star, he returned to the NBA in March 1995, issuing the most succinct press release ever: “I’m back.” In his second run with the Bulls, he delivered another championship threepeat—and retired again in 1999. But this didn’t hold, either. He returned to pro ball with the Washington Wizards in 2001, and after a knee injury, bowed out of the sport for a third and final time in 2003. This time, he seems to be serious. Jordan, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer, is a part owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. Most recently, he served as an assistant coach for the U.S. golf team during the President’s Cup, and landed in the press for smoking cigars illegally on the putting green.
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Shortly after defending teenage murderers Leopold and Loeb—the University of Chicago students who killed 14-year-old Bobby Franksin 1924 and were sentenced to life in prison—Clarence Darrow announced his retirement from the legal profession. (During the trial, Darrow convinced the boys to plead guilty and helped them avoid capital punishment, and he received a great deal of criticism from the American press for it.) But within a year, Darrow was back in the courtroom for the famed Scopes trial of 1925, defending John Scopes for teaching evolution in his classroom. Darrow lost the case, but it was eventually overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court.
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Perhaps the key to coming out of retirement is Beyoncé—Jay-Z ended his when they started dating, and Tina Turner decided to make a comeback in 2008 to perform alongside Knowles at the Grammy Awards. She did perform a private charity gig at the London National History Museum in 2007, but the Grammys show was America’s first real glimpse of Tina after she dropped out of the industry in 2000. Her farewell tour, called “Twenty Four Seven,” earned more than $100 million—making Turner the highest grossing concert performer of all time. Perhaps she did it for the money, perhaps for the sparkly dresses, perhaps to show young performers that she still has the best legs in the business.
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Ali may be the greatest, but his late rounds weren’t so pretty. Having endured a forced retirement early in his career for refusing to be drafted in the Army in 1967, Ali returned to boxing and won back his heavyweight championship. Then, after the “Rumble in the Jungle,” and “Thrilla in Manila,” Ali lost to Leon Spinks in 1978, won his title back later that year, then decided to hang up his gloves. And then, in 1980 he was back in the ring boxing Larry Holmes for the heavyweight title. He lost. Badly. In 1981, after taking several beatings, he left the sport for good.
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In 1971, after a unparalleled career as an entertainer, Frank Sinatra announced he was retiring. His sales had dwindled and popular music had moved away from his crooning, so the Chairman of the Board bid his fans farewell. But not for long—in 1973, Sinatra started recording again (with an album and television special appropriately titled, Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back), and scored one of his biggest hits with “New York, New York” in 1980. Sinatra performed until 1994 and went to that big saloon in the sky four years later.
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Brett Favre is the Hamlet of the NFL. Will he or won’t he? Every year. The current quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings (legendary for his career with the Green Bay Packers), has been dealing with retirement drama since 2006. It all started when Favre told ESPN that he wasn’t sure he would return to the Packers for a 16th season. Then, he did. Then in September, he told HBO he might want to quit again, and remained noncommittal for the 17th season. After losing to the New York Giants in 2008 in the NFC Championship Game, Favre officially retired, stating he has “nothing left to give.” A month later, he had “second thoughts” and told Dave Letterman he would make a comeback. Favre unretired, but after all this back and forth, the Packers got fed up and traded him to the Jets. In February 2009, Favre retired again, calling it “the real deal.” And in August, he joined the Vikings. Who are 6-0 with their 40-year-old quarterback.
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If she could turn back time, perhaps Cher might never have retired—she gave a farewell tour in 2005, ending an era of outrageous costumes and surprisingly great movie roles. But the farewell was temporary. In 2008, 61-year-old Cher went on Good Morning America to announce her comeback, a Vegas residency at Caesars Palace. She then joined the pantheon of great fake retirers when an ESPN anchor used her comeback as an example to explain Brett Favre’s career waffling: “Remember 2002? The Grand Diva was retiring and decided to stage a farewell tour. Except she liked the attention so much she kept extending the tour for three years. Then at the end, she un-retired. This is now what we have with Favre."
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Artist Marcel Duchamp was known for causing trouble (his readymades—like a urinal posing as a sculpture—rocked the art world in the 1910s), so it seemed fitting when he decided to give up his career to become a professional chess player. What was surprising was that during his “chess years” Duchamp was secretly making art, working on a new piece from 1946-1966—only his wife knew Etant Donnés existed. In 1969, a year after Duchamp’s death, the work—which is a pastoral image of a naked woman as viewed through a peephole in a door—was unveiled to the public, a shock to those who thought that Duchamp was somewhere moving pawns around the whole time. View The Daily Beast’s coverage of Duchamp’s secret masterpiece, here.
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Having learned form the great divas before her—Barbra, Tina, Cher—Celine Dion gave an in-name-only farewell tour in 1999, announcing that she would retire to spend time with her husband during his battle with cancer (and later to raise her first child). But like any power chanteuse, Dion quickly realized that she was too big to fade away, and in 2002 returned to performing, signing a three-year headlining contract in Vegas (note the theme here: When staging a comeback, always do it in Vegas) and releasing A New Day Has Come.
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective of the 1880s-1900s is in a way having his second comeback this year—two big Hollywood movies are in the works. But back in 1901, Conan Doyle was forced to bring Holmes back from the dead. In an 1893 story entitled “The Final Problem,” Doyle killed Holmes (he fell off a cliff during a tussle with archnemesis Professor Moriarty). Doyle wanted more time to devote to historical novels, and frankly he was sick of Holmes. But fans wanted more, and eight years later, Conan Doyle wrote a Holmes “prequel,” The Hound of the Baskervilles. Still, fans could not bear to see Holmes dead, and finally Doyle caved to publisher pressure, reviving Holmes and explaining away his death in a novel in 1903. Later on, Doyle would explain he was never the same after coming back from retirement, and that he continued with the stories for the money. Which, as comebacks go, is elementary.
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