Tim Allen was caught smuggling a cocaine onto a commercial plane in the 1970's

     On October 2, 1978, shortly after beginning his stand up comedian career while working at an advertising firm, Allen was caught by drug sniffing dogs at Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport transporting about 650 grams (1.4 pounds) of cocaine. In exchange for not having to go to prison for life, as was the maximum penalty that could have been leveled against him, Allen plead guilty and subsequently ratted out the other drug dealers he knew. This got his potential sentence reduced from life imprisonment to 3-7 years. He ended up only serving 28 months in a Federal Correctional Institution, specifically at Sandstone, in Sandstone Minnesota. When he was released, he was 29 years old and, being an ex-con, found it hard to find other work, so decided to go back into stand-up comedy, as he had been doing on the side while working in advertising, before being convicted. Fast forward about 15-20 years and Allen briefly turned himself into an A-list star known for doing family and kid-friendly entertainment, including winning the “Hall of Fame” award at the Kids Choice Awards in 1996 and making $1.25 million per episode in the final season of Home Improvement. Talk about turning around your life.