The former Manchester United legend has made the jump from green pitch to silver screen as effortlessly as his leap over the crowd barrier for that infamous tete-a-tete with a Crystal Palace fan back in his glory days.

The charismatic Frenchman was in Cannes last month to promote his latest role as himself in Ken Loach's comedy "Looking For Eric."

Cantona is not the only footballer to hotfoot it to Hollywood for former Wales international and Wimbledon star Vinnie Jones has also found a new home in cinema.

The hardman, who once grabbed Paul Gascoigne's testicles, has capitalized on his tough intimidating persona, making his screen debut in Guy Richie's gangster movie, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."

Martina Navratilova cannot lay claim to the big screen success of Cantona and Jones but the nine-time Wimbledon winner has appeared as one of the contestants on the hit British reality television show "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here."

"Of course I'm competitive, nobody goes on the court saying 'I want to lose'," she said before heading off to the jungle.

Other tennis greats such as John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Boris Becker have also turned to the small screen as commentators, while Ivan Lendl spends most of his waking hours on the golf course either playing or caddying for his two golfing prodigy daughters.

"Golf was a great vehicle for me to get the competition out of myself. I get nervous before I play. I get the same buzz as when I was playing tennis. I love it," he told The Sunday Times.

Swedish Grand Slam king Bjorn Borg though found retirement a difficult concept to handle. In 1991, seven years after bowing out, Borg was back on court, wooden racket in hand, for what was to prove a fruitless attempt at reliving old glories.

A host of football celebrities, including at one stage Sir Alex Ferguson, have found themselves behind bars, but not one of the United manager's former prodigies, Norman Whiteside.

At 18, the youngest player to score in an FA Cup final, Whiteside became a household name with his silky ball skills before injury cut short his playing career at the premature age of 26. With the bulk of his life before him the former Northern Ireland international reinvented himself as a chiropodist, combining his job tackling carbuncles with a career as an accomplished after-dinner speaker.

Like Whiteside, Mick Channon spends his life feeling feet - not human though but equine in his capacity as one of England's top racehorse trainers.

The former England international has proved as adept at mastering the sport of kings as he was a striker for the likes of Southampton.

Channon has sent out 11 Group One winners since taking out his trainer's license in 1990.

Aside from Southampton he also had a spell with Manchester City where a couple of years before him Francis Lee had lit up the club's forward line. On retirement Lee turned his astute eye from goal to business, earning his first million as a toilet paper manufacturer to lend credence to the aphorism where there's muck there's brass.

Not all sports luminaries have found peace and contentment in retirement.

Lester Piggott was probably the greatest flat jockey ever to sit in a saddle but the nine-time Epsom Derby legend was not quite as adept at filling in tax forms, a handicap that resulted in The Long Fellow feeling the long arm of the law and a three year prison spell in the 1990s.

And former England cricketer Chris Lewis is just days into a 13 year sentence for smuggling cocaine into Britain. Unlike Lewis one man more than any other has shown that sport can be a stepping stone to greater things - step forward Sir Anthony Joseph Francis O'Reilly.

Tony O'Reilly as he is more commonly known cut a dash on the wing playing for Ireland before he established his media empire and became boss of Heinz foods to emerge as Ireland's first billionaire businessmen.

Heavyweight champion George Foreman and former Chelsea midfielder Gavin Peacock may feel they have reached an altogether higher plain in their second comings as men of god. Peacock told the Times: "Scoring is momentary, but life with god is everlasting."