Sylvester Stallone (born July 6, 1946) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a Critics’ Choice Award, as well as nominations for three Academy Awards and two BAFTA Awards. Stallone is one of only two actors in history (alongside Harrison Ford) to have starred in a box-office No. 1 film across six consecutive decades.
Until 1969, Stallone appeared on the stage under the name Mike Stallone; in 1970, he started using the stage name Sylvester E. Stallone. While attending the University of Miami, Stallone had a role in the drama That Nice Boy (aka The Square Root), filmed in 1968. Moreover, he and John Herzfeld worked together in 1969 on a low-budget self-produced film called “Horses”.
Stallone had his first starring role in the softcore pornography feature film The Party at Kitty and Stud’s (1970). He was paid US$200 for two days’ work. 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 in New York City 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.” The film was released several years later as Italian Stallion, in order to cash in on Stallone’s newfound fame. Stallone also starred in the erotic off-Broadway stage play Score which ran for 23 performances at the Martinique Theatre from October 28 to November 15, 1971, and was later made into the 1974 film Score by Radley Metzger.
After moving to New York City, Stallone shared an apartment with his girlfriend, Sasha Czack, an aspiring actress who supported them by working as a waitress. Stallone took odd jobs around this time, including being a cleaner at a zoo, and a theater usher; he was fired from the latter for scalping tickets. He furthered his writing skills by frequenting a local library, and became interested in the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
In 1972, Stallone was on the verge of giving up on having an acting career; in what he later described as a low point, he tried and failed to get a job as an extra in The Godfather. Instead, he was relegated to a background role in another Hollywood hit, What’s Up, Doc?, starring Barbra Streisand. Stallone is hardly visible in his two appearances.
Stallone happened to be acting in a play that a friend invited him to partake in, and an agent in attendance thought that Stallone fit the role of Stanley, a main character in The Lords of Flatbush, which had a start-stop schedule from 1972 to 1974 over budget issues. Stallone, around mid-1973, achieved his first proper starring role, in the independent film No Place to Hide, playing a man who is associated with a New York–based urban terrorist movement, with a jewelry-seller as his love interest. The film was re-cut and retitled Rebel years later, this second version featuring Stallone as its star.
Stallone’s other first few film roles were minor, and included brief uncredited appearances in MASH (1970), as a soldier sitting at a table; Pigeons (1970), as a party guest; Woody Allen’s Bananas (1971), as a subway thug; in the psychological thriller Klute (1971), as an extra dancing in a club; and in the Jack Lemmon film The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), as a youth. In the latter film, Jack Lemmon’s character chases, tackles, and mugs Stallone, thinking that Stallone’s character is a pickpocket. He had his second starring role in 1974, in The Lords of Flatbush. In 1975, he played supporting roles in Farewell, My Lovely; Capone; and Death Race 2000. He made guest appearances on the TV series Police Story and Kojak. He is also supposedly in Mandingo. It is often said that his scene was deleted.
Stallone gained worldwide fame with his starring role in the smash hit Rocky (1976), a sports drama about a struggling boxer, Rocky Balboa, taking on heavyweight champion Apollo Creed. On March 24, 1975, Stallone saw the Muhammad Ali vs. Chuck Wepner fight. That night Stallone went home, and after three days he had completed the first draft of Rocky. Stallone subsequently denied that Wepner provided any inspiration for the script; however, Wepner filed a lawsuit which was eventually settled with Stallone for an undisclosed amount. Other possible inspirations for the film may have included Rocky Graziano’s autobiography Somebody Up There Likes Me, and the film of the same name. Stallone attempted to sell the script to multiple studios, with the intention of playing the lead role himself. Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff became interested and offered Stallone US$350,000 for the rights, but they had their own casting 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. Upon its release, critic Roger Ebert stated that Stallone could become the next Marlon Brando.
In 1977, at the 49th Academy Awards, Rocky was nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay nominations for Stallone. The film went on to win the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Directing, and Best Film Editing. Rocky has since been inducted into the National Film Registry and had its props placed in the Smithsonian Museum. Stallone’s use of the front entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the Rocky series led the area to be nicknamed the Rocky Steps, and the city has a statue of the Rocky character placed permanently near the museum. The character was also voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
0 comments:
Post a Comment