One went into show business many, many years ago (5,3)
I believe the answer is:
stone age
'many years ago' is the definition.
I cannot understand how the remainder of the clue works.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for stone age that I've seen before include "Hard time" , "Earliest known period of human culture" , "Early period" , "before copper came in" , "Pre-historic era" .)