Rarely does the hackneyed rags-to-riches story fit as well as it does for birthday boy Sylvester Stallone. Except that today's world star, who turns 80 on July 6th, was pretty much everything except a dishwasher. He helped out in his father's hair salon, cleaned lion cages at the zoo... and proved his stamina long before Rocky as the title star in the adult film Kitty & Studs - Der italienische Deckhengst. But every beginning is difficult, and who would know that better than the man who had to endure his first tragic injury at birth? Here are the most exciting facts about the life and work of the tireless action grandpa.
Difficult Birth
When son Michael Sylvester Gardenzio of Frank and Jacqueline Stallone was born on July 6, 1946, his career path as an actor seemed already over. Complications during birth led to him being delivered with the help of forceps. In the process, the doctor accidentally severed a nerve in Stallone's head; the left side of his face has been paralyzed ever since due to the accident. His ability to speak is also impaired by the paralysis, Stallone always seems to mumble. But what others would have seen as a disability, he simply made his trademark.
Gone to the Dogs
Stallone landed his first major role in 1970 in the aforementioned risqué film Kitty & Studs - Der italienische Deckhengst - out of desperation, as the actor later explained in a Playboy interview. He urgently needed the mere 200 dollars in pay because he had recently been evicted from his apartment and temporarily even had to sleep on the street or at the bus station. Despite several larger appearances in films and on TV, nothing changed about his chronic poverty over the next five years - on the contrary. Stallone even had to sell his dog, with whom he had been through thick and thin, for a measly 50 dollars because he needed every penny. Just a few days later, however, he had plenty of cash and bought his dog back - for 3,000 dollars.
Thank You, Rocky
In just three days, according to legend, Stallone wrote the screenplay for Rocky. He also quickly found a buyer for the underdog story with heart, but they didn't have the unknown no-name actor in mind for the lead role, but rather glamorous names like Robert Redford or Burt Reynolds. But Stallone remained stubborn and with the compromise of significantly reducing the film's budget downward, the film studio finally agreed. The first paycheck didn't go toward a big party or a fancy sports car, but to getting his dog back, who can also be seen in the first parts of the boxing drama.
Among the Greats
The rest is history: Stallone became a world star overnight in 1976, the film Rocky was nominated for a total of ten Oscars, of which it won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Editing. Stallone was also nominated for Best Actor and Best Screenplay - a combination that had previously only been achieved by the two legends Orson Welles and Charlie Chaplin.
Hollywood's Not Always Accurate All-Purpose Weapon
Now the Stallone era had truly begun - an era that is still not over. In the years from 1978 to the present, he has appeared in almost 50 major Hollywood productions. In addition to numerous sequels to his boxing classic, it was especially the Rambo films that gave him another iconic role alongside Rocky Balboa. As a war-damaged killing machine, he blasted his way through cinemas for the last time in 2019 in Rambo: Last Blood, extremely successfully and incredibly violently. In 2023, the fourth installment of his brutal The Expendables series followed.
However, Stallone is not quite as accurate in choosing his roles as his action heroes are. Over the course of his career, he managed the feat of collecting a total of twelve Golden Raspberries - no other star in the world, not even Adam Sandler, can call so many anti-Oscars his own.
A Long Life and a Far Too Short One
That Sly could still have a long life ahead of him despite now being 80 years old was proven by his mother Jackie. She passed away in September 2020 at the age of 98. "This morning my brothers and I lost our mother Jackie Stallone," Stallone's brother Frank wrote on Instagram at the time. "My brother Sylvester took care of her throughout her entire life as if she were a queen."
But Stallone also had to endure a far too early death in his family. His first of a total of five children, son Sage, died in 2012 at only 36 years old from heart failure, as an autopsy later revealed. Like his brother Seargeoh (47), Sage came from Stallone's first marriage to Sasha Czack (75). His most glamorous marriage to actress Brigitte Nielsen (62) remained childless, while his third marriage to model Jennifer Flavin (57) produced three more kids. The two have been going through life as husband and wife since 1997, even though it got briefly rocky: in 2022 she actually filed for divorce. Just about a month later, however, the two announced that they had reconciled (and indeed remain together to this day).
The Double Handoff
Even though Stallone held up his two prestige brands Rambo and Rocky himself into old age - he has now been ready to pass the torch. In Creed from 2015, he slowly initiated the transition, and with Creed III (2023) it was complete.
Did Sly also slow down overall with that? Not at all! In the comic romp The Suicide Squad, he voiced the admittedly rather monosyllabic shark man King Shark. In the film Samaritan, at 75 years old, he even became a superhero himself. And since 2022, he has ruled with an iron fist as Tulsa King. Who, if not Sly?
