In the land
of opportunity, everyone loves a success story.
And Rocky, voted Best Film in last month's Oscar
ceremony, isn't just a story of a boxer who punches his
way to the top. It's a tangible tribute to the
gift and determination of the writer/actor who fought to
get the story on the screen, against odds that even
Rocky would have found daunting - thirty year-old
Sylvester Stallone.
But the rebel kid from Hell's Kitchen was determined
to succeed. He had been an academic failure
("I wandered through fourteen high schools and five
colleges without getting a degree. I was really
not meant for school."), taken and lost a dozen
part-time jobs, from zoo attendant to pizza
demonstrator, most memorably as a theatre usher with the
powerful Walter Reade organization. One evening,
Stallone approached a man queuing to see M*A*S*H
and offered him a front row seat.
"It'll cost you ten dollars," said
Stallone.
"It'll cost you your job," said Walter
Reade.
After which experience, Stallone decided that making
movies might be more fun than selling tickets for them.
We first spotted him as the gangster waiting in the
wings for the main chance in Roger Corman's production
of Capone. He had a minute role in the Neil
Simon comedy The Prisoner of Second Avenue.
He was the psychotic Machine Gun Viterbo in Paul
Bartel's black comedy Death Race 2000. Then
came a leading role in The Lords of Flatbush,
critically acclaimed but doomed to go the rounds as a
second failure.
Stallone ("Sly" to his friends) couldn't
see himself as the matinee idol of the '70s, so he
diversified into writing. Having contributed
substantially to the script of The Lords of Flatbush,
he turned his hand with some success to writing for
television. The scripts sold, but Stallone wanted
one more crack at movie stardom. "With The
Lords of Flatbush under my belt, I found a manager
and went to Hollywood. I imagined I'd get offered
scripts by the dozen. All I got was a tan."
Deciding to write himself the star part that nobody
else was itching to offer him, Stallone sat down and
produced Rocky in three days and three nights.
Immediately the offers poured in. Robert Chartoff
and Irwin Winkler were the producers with the fiercest
determination to see the script filmed. But they
were horrified at the idea of their writer taking the
title role. They suggested James Caan.
Stallone suggested himself. They suggested Burt
Reynolds. Stallone suggested himself.
They offered Stallone a quarter of a million dollars
to go away and leave the casting to them. He
offered to do the part for nothing.
"As far as I was concerned, this was the only
shot I'd get. There was no way that it could turn
out badly, I had to be good," he says.
Eventually the producers and director John G. Avildsen
relented under Stallone's steamrolling. The actor
shed the excess weight he had put on for The Lords of
Flatbush, screened every boxing movie ever made,
started working out in a gym and watched videotapes of
fighters like Rocky Marciano. "I had to teach
myself to be a flat-footed steam engine who took ten
punches to give one."
As a reward for his determination, Stallone won two
Oscar nominations - as best actor and best scriptwriter.
Although he won in neither category, he had the pleasure
of seeing Rocky punch its way through, not only
to being a box-office champion, but also to being the
Academy's choice as Best Film.
