As Sylvester Stallone describes the punishing brain-training sessions he puts his three young daughters through every morning, I scrutinize him for any sign that he is joking.

But Botox and the scalpel appear to have joined forces to make his square, wrinkle-free face as expressive as granite, a tight smile curling around the edge of his lips and his eyes doing the talking from behind a wood-stain tan mask.

In his gravelly New York-Sicilian drawl, he tells me: "I get them up early in the morning and we have 40 minutes. They play piano for 10 minutes, then recite for 10 minutes, shoot billiards for 10 minutes, swing a golf club for 10 minutes, then punch mitts for 10 minutes."

As that makes 50 minutes, he might want to leave maths to the teachers. "Even the youngest?" I ask him - his fifth-born, Scarlett Rose, turns three this week. "Oh, yeah, all of them," he says.

"Some people might consider it extreme, but neurologists say by the time you are 10 or 11 you have formed a lot of habits. The more you open them up at a young age, the more stimulated their neurons become. I think it's great for a woman to play billiards, don't you?"

For the same reason, they are only allowed to watch TV in Spanish. He is being deadly serious. No time for fun.

"I just want to give them what my parents couldn't give me," he explains. "Options." However, he fears the hothouse training may be to no avail. "Unfortunately, I think they are going to go into the theatre, which is a shallow existence," he complains, shaking his head.

Acting has certainly worked for him, despite his limited repertoire, largely because of his admirable grit, determination and hard work.

Stallone is always quick to boast that it took him three days to write Rocky, the 1976 Oscar winner that made him an instant star.

He once said: "I'm astounded by people who take 18 years to write something. That's how long it took that guy to write Madame Bovary, and was that ever on the best-seller list?"

With a little dramatic license, Stallone was writing his own life story: emotionally scarred working class kid overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to become an all-American hero.

He was born into adversity. His familiar drawl and drooping eyes are due to the partial facial paralysis he suffered in a traumatic forceps delivery. He is still sensitive about it, insisting he is photographed from his "good" side.

His dad Frank, a hairdresser, was a bully, who Stallone says left him with a lingering sense of inadequacy that might help explain his tunnel-vision drive to be the best.

As he moved between Frank, his chorus girl mum Jackie and foster homes, destiny appeared to have dealt him a losing hand.

He was expelled from 14 schools, and at 15 his classmates at a school for troubled boys voted him the one "most likely to end up in the electric chair".

But he won a scholarship to study drama in Switzerland and worked as a jobbing actor, including a porn movie that saw him dubbed The Italian Stallion.

Then he hit the big time as Rocky Balboa. He insisted on playing the role himself despite pressure from studios who wanted to cast an established star. Thirty years later, he has returned to boxing for his successful foray into reality TV, The Contender, which reached its dramatic finale last night when two real-life Rockys fought for £1million at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.

The £1 million-an-episode series - shown several weeks behind on ITV2 - aims to wring every last drop of drama from the sport. But the suicide of a contender brought the kind of headlines its makers didn't want.

Najai Turpin, 23, shot himself after a row with his girlfriend. He had just lost a match in the show. The producers and his family decided to keep him in the prerecorded programme. Stallone, a pall-bearer at his funeral, says: "He's a real mystery. He was not killed by his defeat - he just had real emotional problems."

As the star walks into the training room at Caesars, the show's promoters breathe a collective sigh of relief. He has occasionally failed to turn up to these events.

One insider says: "He is a law unto himself. He is a full-grade A-lister and acts like one. But he's in a good mood today."

He is leaner and shorter than his movie persona suggests - and self-conscious about his 5ft 7" height, for his shoes are artfully fitted with invisible stack heels.

Stallone, 60 next year, wants to bring The Contender idea to Europe. But he is also pushing a project even more dear to his heart: the resurrection of Rocky.

He is trying to interest MGM in bringing the world's most lucrative screen boxer out of retirement.

"They say he's too old," he says. "Well, of course he's older and well past his prime. But he's drawn back into the ring as a sort of publicity stunt, and out of what starts off a joke he pulls it off."

Stallone speaks as if Balboa lives and breathes. "Well, he does in a way," he says. "That's about as autobiographical as you can get.

"I have written it to show people life isn't over at 40 or 50. People want to move you out of the way, but I say you walk round me. I am in better shape now than when I did Rocky I."

He is also hoping to bring his other screen legend, John Rambo, back to life. This time, the Vietnam vet will be fighting to save his 10-year-old daughter.

"He's had this primeval rage that he's been suppressing for 15 years and now he is struggling to keep it down," he says. But Stallone, married to beautiful young third wife Jennifer Flavin, says he has let go of his own anger and anxiety.

"I am more optimistic at 59 than I was at 29," he says. "Having children has been healing." It has helped bring him closer to his mother, Jackie, who was barely around when he was growing up.

Her infamous performance on Celebrity Big Brother last year still makes him cringe.

"Oh yeah, I think she regrets that," he said. "She has a big dinosaur bone to pick with the programme makers. But you have to know what you are getting into. Like if you go on The Contender, you know you're going to get punched."

But he is happy that the evil twist that brought his ex-wife, Red Sonja actress Bridget Nielsen, into the house in a bid to stir up old resentment backfired, bringing the women together.

He laughs: "At first I thought I was hallucinating. When my mother came back, I said: 'Have you really struck up a meaningful relationship with Bridget?'

"She said: 'She is a lovely, lovely girl. I just didn't speak to her for 20 years.'  Unbelievable."