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Long before he became the most famous cinematic fighter of all time, Sylvester Stallone had to fight his own battle to survive in New York. For example, he lived in places where he had pizza boxes for his mattress. “I did, yeah. It was very comfortable,” he said.
His jobs also included cleaning the lion cages in the Central Park Zoo. “That’s a rough one, because I felt so bad for those magnificent animals,” he said, “and then I felt bad because they smelled like, you know, going home.”
As a starving actor in the big city, his life was hard, but his upbringing wasn’t much easier. Born in Hell’s Kitchen in New York 80 years ago, Stallone says his parents sent him away to a boarding house at a very young age. He says he understood. “I almost didn’t blame them,” he said. “I was really tired.”
His parents were not the type to show respect. “No. I don’t think they knew how. There was no touching,” he said.
No hook? “Oh, no, no.”
Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
But Stallone says his tough childhood was good training for the uphill battle he would face trying to make his life’s passion project happen. His struggle was so great, they have made a movie about it: “I Play Rocky,” coming out this November, about how Stallone kept the faith when the only thing he was hearing was “No.” Stallone was not involved in the making of the film, but he says they fired him.
When asked how he was able to continue with doors slamming in his face, he replied, “Because I think there’s a process of elimination. Eventually they’re going to open the door.”
He made his own door. In a story that is now legendary, Stallone wrote the script for “Rocky,” with himself in mind for the title.
He wrote after 3½ days, and he believes in divine intervention: “I said, ‘Is this your plan, like, to torture me? To this and that to test me? Okay, I’ve come this far, I refuse to break.’ And I went back in and finished the last few pages of ‘Rocky.’ I really felt like something was guiding my hand, because I haven’t been able to do it since. So, that’s why I have to give credit to some kind of divine guidance. “
From “The Steps”; William Morrow
Stallone finished the “Rocky” script in March 1975, but the starving actor was now just a starving screenwriter; it was still broken flat. He ended up selling his dog because he couldn’t feed it. “This is the only thing I could sell. It was like that, it was,” he said.
In his new memoir, “The Steps” (to be released September 29 by William Morrow), Stallone tells how producers offered him thousands for his script, but only if they could cast someone else as Rocky Balboa. The bid went as high as $360,000. “I said, pass. I can’t do it,” he said. “I’ve literally been through every gutter in New York. I’ve slept in every subway. I’ve paid my dues, and I know this is it. I’ll never have this opportunity again. I don’t know if you believe in fate, but I think in some cases, it happens.”
William Morrow
The film went on to become a cultural phenomenon, with three Oscars (including best picture) and a monster box office. As Rocky, Stallone was unstoppable. He even bought his dog, named Butkus, and put him in the movie.
Stallone went on to star in another franchise, Rambo. But in the 1990s, that star began to decline. He said, “When you die artificially and nobody wants you, where do you go? You’re just like the 10th wheel going to parties, but you’re irrelevant. You’re not lost.”
He said that happened to him for about six years when he was technically dead. When asked how he got himself up, he replied, “The pen!”
But yes, the pen. In 2006, Stallone wrote the sixth Rocky script, and directed the film himself. It was a good move: “Rocky Balboa” was a box office and critical smash, and it put Stallone back at the top of the list of Hollywood heavyweights, usually playing the guy who beats the odds and somehow comes out on top.
He seems to have done that in his career as well; Stallone has appeared in at least one #1 box office movie in each of the past six decades. The only other actor who can say that is Harrison Ford.
And talk about crazy movie awards: the movie about he, “I Play Rocky,” is very much in the Oscar conversation this year.
Stallone has also taken his talents to streaming TV. Next month he will be in his fourth season of the series “Tulsa King” on Paramount + (owned by parent company CBS). He sometimes shares the screen with Scarlett Stallone, one of three daughters he has with his third wife, model Jennifer Flavin, to whom he has been married for nearly 30 years, despite a few bumps along the way.
Asked what he learned about marriage during that time, Stallone replied, “What did I learn from her? That I’ll never be as good as her. She’s just gorgeous, kept me alive. And it took me so long to turn my head and go, ‘Oh, the greatest gift in the world is here and you’re looking out there, idiot!’
Stallone met us at Carbone Restaurant in New York (he is a friend of the family there). It’s a long way from the New York he knew in the 1970s when things were grim, but the world belonged to him.
“It’s not like I have a love affair with New York,” he said. “New York was a battlefield for me, and it still is, you know what I mean? It’s beautiful, the shops and the culture, but I walked those streets, I looked at the cracks, I could see the dirt and whatever. this to some toilet? Do you know what I mean?”
And he did it. “Look at me now!” he laughed.
READ IN: “The Steps” by Sylvester Stallone
WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch extended interview with Sylvester Stallone (Video)
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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Carol Ross.
