Seriously,
is there ANYone who hasn't seen that iconic film "Rocky?"
In
my humble opinion, "Rocky" is one of the best American
movies ever made. All actors and actresses long for a role that
will be embraced, a character that resonates with the public and
transcends the realm of fiction and becomes a living, breathing part of
the culture. Such a character is Rocky Balboa, that working
class hero created by Sylvester Stallone, who rose from the depths yet
managed to maintain his good heart and humility.
Sly undoubtedly
created one of the most revered movie personas in history - a celluloid
hero who arguably spearheaded the massive fitness revolution of the
'80s.
M'man Sly was
born Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone
in New
York City in 1946 (1946!? That would make him... hmmm.
Geez, I guess we ALL get old, huh!?). Believe
it or not, his father was a hairdresser and beautician.
And did you ever wonder where he
got his trademark sneer?
Well, complications his
mother suffered during labor forced her obstetricians to use two pairs
of forceps
during his birth; misuse of these tools accidentally severed a nerve and
caused paralysis in parts of Stallone's face. As a result, the lower left side of his face is paralyzed
- including parts of his lip, tongue, and chin - an accident which has
given Stallone his snarling look and slightly slurred speech. Around the age of 4, Stallone was flat-footed and put in a tap dancing
school by his mother. When Stallone was 16, he scored poorly in school and his mother got
him a summer job at her beauty salon. (So far, with his
partially paralyzed face, speech impediment, and background in
tap-dancing and hair-dressing, it seems to me
that good 'ol Sly was not a prime candidate to be a Hollywood tough-guy
leading man, does it?)
To his everlasting
embarrassment, Stallone had his first
movie role in 1970 in the soft core pornography feature film The
Party at Kitty and Stud's. He was paid a whopping $200 for his
"starring" role. Now I'm certainly not advocating doing
porn if you need money - far from it! - but Stallone later explained that he had done
the film out of desperation after being evicted from his apartment and
finding himself homeless for several days. He has also said that
he slept three weeks in the Port Authority Bus Terminal prior to seeing
a casting notice for the film. In the actor's words, "it was
either do that movie or rob someone, because I was at the end - the
very end - of my rope."
Over the next five years
Sly barely kept the wolf from the door with various small parts in
several low budget movies, but big success finally came: On March 24, 1975, Stallone saw the
Muhammad
Ali-Chuck
Wepner fight. Wepner was TKO'd in the 15th round by Ali, but nobody
ever expected him to last as long as he did. Inspired, that night Stallone went home, and after three
days and 20 straight hours he had written the entire script for
"Rocky." It tells the rags
to riches American
Dream story of Rocky
Balboa, an uneducated but kind-hearted working
class Italian-American
boxer working as a debt collector for a loan
shark in the slums of Philadelphia.
Rocky starts out as a small-time club
fighter who later gets a shot at the world
heavyweight championship.
Stallone then attempted to sell the script
unsuccessfully to multiple studios, with the
intention of playing the lead role himself. Irwin Winkler and Robert
Chartoff became interested and offered Stallone $350,000 for the rights
to the script,
but had their own ideas for the lead role, including Robert
Redford and Burt
Reynolds. Stallone refused to sell unless he played the lead
character and eventually, after a substantial budget cut to compromise,
it was agreed he could be the star. And a "substantial budget
cut" is a dramatic understatement; in an age of big-budget,
MULTI-million dollar movies, "Rocky" was made for slightly
more than one million dollars, and was shot in a mere 28 days. It's rags-to-riches
story proved to be a hit with audiences: it earned $225 million in
global box office receipts becoming the highest
grossing film of 1976 and went on to be nominated for ten Oscars and
winning three,
including Best
Picture. (By-the-way, Rocky's carcass-punching scenes and Rocky running up
the steps of the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, as part of his training regime are based in fact;
they are taken from the
real-life exploits of heavy-weight boxing champion Joe Frazier.
"It's not me,
it's more of a...Rocky philosophy that some of them have been
affected by," Stallone says, trying to put words to the Rocky
phenomenon. "For instance, I went to the opening game of the
Philadelphia Eagles' new stadium. I came out for a moment just to wave
to the crowd. When the entire stadium erupted, I realized they weren't
erupting for Sylvester Stallone. Perish that thought. It's Rocky. [They
see Rocky] as representative of their city. 'We don't give up. We put
our head down and keep punching.' That's what I think Rocky symbolizes
to people."
"I try to keep
one of Rocky's philosophies in mind when life beats me down," says
Stallone, "and believe me I've had a LOT of beat-downs.
Rocky would say, 'It's not the knock-downs that define
us; it's the stand-ups.'"
"When we reach a
certain age, society says, 'You've had your moment.' But a lot of people
aren't ready to move on. They want to try something they've never done
before or go back to something they haven't finished. You may not
have the speed, but you still want to run the race. Think of George
Foreman winning the heavyweight title [at 45], or John
Glenn going into space [at 77]...your pursuits are what keep
you vital. Society may say 'step aside and let youth be served.' I
say they've got to move you out of the way first."
"Yo,
Adrian!"
