JP O'Malley
In the summer of 1969, while backpacking through Europe, Sylvester Stallone had his palm read. The 23-year-old longed to act but had little experience. A fortune-teller spoke about patience and persistence. She said that within seven years, dramatic changes would transpire. By 30, Stallone was a world-famous Hollywood icon. Thanks to Rocky (1976).
Stallone wrote the screenplay and played the lead role. The film tells the story of Rocky Balboa, a small-time Philadelphia boxer who takes on the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Apollo Creed. Rocky loses. In defeat, however, he discovers dignity and respect. In a new memoir, The Steps, Stallone, who recently turned 80, revisits those seven years he spent as a struggling actor, before his lucky break. We also read about his impoverished childhood.
Tyrone Gardenzio Stallone was born in 1946 in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. Later, his father, an Italian immigrant, changed his name to Sylvester. Home was a rat-infested hovel with no central heating or hot water. Stallone’s parents had grandiose ambitions for stardom, but neither had much luck. Frank Stallone was angry and violent; Jackie Stallone was a mean, narcissistic bully. Today, Stallone feels grateful for his tough upbringing. It helped him survive the petty violence and psychological turmoil he encountered in New York in the early 1970s, while working several underpaid menial jobs.
Culture offered hope and possibilities. In his spare time, Stallone regularly visited New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where he discovered the work of Van Gogh, Maillol, Bourdelle, and Rodin. In The New York Public Library, he befriended a security guard, who introduced him to the original manuscripts of Walt Whitman, Herman Melville and Edgar Allan Poe.
There were acting auditions too. The results were not good, though. Agents, directors and producers were cutting and cruel. They pointed to his slurred speech, droopy eyes, and deep voice. But the countless rejections made Stallone even more determined.
Are we reading a self-help guidebook? It feels like it. Occasionally, Stallone’s prose is mawkish and sentimental. But his raw honesty and vulnerability are compelling, and emotionally engaging. He is philosophical and poetic about the loneliness he endured. His remedy was not to seek out company but become comfortable in his own skin instead. “The love for myself became true,” he writes. “It became real, in a way that was important to my survival.”
Stallone’s ambitions to write always lingered, but he struggled to find a subject he could make his own. He wrote short plays. But they weren’t successful, or original, instead mimicking the likes of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Eugène Ionesco. Eventually, Stallone moved onto screenplays. His education in film was casual and informal; he worked as an usher at a Manhattan cinema . “You aren’t really seen as a person,” he writes. “To the wise guys in the audience, I was a meaningless thing in a monkey suit.”
That humiliation aside, the job presented an opportunity to study film. Watching Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider was a turning point. The low-budget independent film proved that if a creative idea had truth and passion, reaching a wide audience was possible.
Gradually, Stallone got some acting experience. But the gigs were not regular and provided no financial security. He appeared in Bananas (1971) The Lords of Flatbush (1974) and Capone (1974). He moved west to Hollywood. But he remained broke and despondent. “I felt like a failure,” he writes. “One of the steps I took to break the gravity’s hold was picking up a pen and starting to write.”
In 1975, Stallone wrote the script for Rocky in three days. The film’s message was about the power of love and going the distance, rather than winning, he explains: “The story is about any person who has ever dreamed of doing something special or unexpected with their lives but was never given a chance.”
When Stallone handed his agent the screenplay the reaction was positive – but there was derision and laughter when Stallone mentioned he wanted to play Rocky. He was met with similar responses when the script was shopped around among some of Tinseltown’s hottest producers. Initially, they offered Stallone a flat fee of $US350,000 ($505,000) in 2026 money) for the script, but on a strict condition: he could not play Rocky. The negotiations concluded with Stallone getting permission to star in the film, and a receiving a fee of more than $2 million ($2.87 million).
Rocky became the highest-grossing film of 1976, winning three Oscars the following year, including best picture. Stallone invited his mother Jackie to join him at the momentous occasion, but she declined.
The pain still lingers, Stallone admits. “Despite all the turmoil in my life, I’ve learned to live with this aspect of my past and to move on,” he concludes. “You can change the future, but not history.”
The Steps, by Sylvester Stallone (Seven Dials, $34.99) is available now.
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