9. Danny Trejo
Trejo's first charge was at the age of 10, when he was charged with assault and battery after hitting a neighbour's girl with a bat during a game. During his youth, he was in a gang, and was repeatedly involved in shoot outs. He said he would go out looking for fights with other gangs, and robbed liquor stores with grenades. He also planned robberies and sold those plans to other criminals to commit. Trejo spent several stints in custody during the 1960s in California in Folsom, Soledad and San Quentin. He became the boxing champion for his weight in all three prisons. At one point Trejo spent eight months in solitary confinement. He even acted out the Wizard of Oz solo in order to keep himself from going insane, although I'm not sure that reciting the entire Wizard of Oz solo is the most perfect description of sane I've ever heard. Whilst in San Quentin, he found himself in the middle of the 1968 Cinco de Mayo riot he threw a rock at a bunch of other prisoners and hit a guard on the head. The guard wrote it up, but didn't name him personally. Trejo credited this as saving his life as the offence could have resulted in the death penalty. After he left prison in 1969, Trejo became a drugs councillor. He did odd jobs and the like, and in 1985 at the age of 40 he was hired as a boxing instructor for the film Runaway Train. He ended up appearing on screen, which resulted in his acting career all based on a skill that he learnt whilst in prison.