Glove will tear us apart

As a rule of thumb, it’s good to be wary of ideologues, dismissive of mantras and pernickety about philosophies. But if you have to believe in something, if you crave a meta-narrative to join the dots and make sense of it all, then might I direct you toward the Rocky; Ultimate Edition DVD box-set.

Propelled by an elegant moral code, the Rockyverse celebrates the indomitability of the human spirit with comforting parables and a superb line in improving slogans. Remember people, ‘it’s not how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward’ and so on.
The world may have moved on since Sylvester Stallone first essayed his most famous creation but the peculiar charm of the good-hearted slugger persists. Rocky Balboa, the sixth and final installment in the pugilistic franchise has, against all expectations, attracted rave notices.
With stern, high-minded critics getting behind the Italian Stallion, it’s not too surprising that the buzz has crossed the Atlantic. Still, when I turn onto Leceister Square, where the film’s glittering British premiere is taking place, I’m astonished by the general euphoria.
It gets curiouser and curiouser. The following day at the press conference, one normally cynical hack stands up to testify how Rocky got them through two liver transplants. More serious cultural commentators are heard humming Bill Conti’s indelible theme and swooning over Stallone.
“He’s just sooo nice,” they all say.
By golly, they’re right. When I’m finally ushered in to meet the 60-year-old actor, I discover an absolute gent. Polite, honest and wittier than many might suppose, he does a delightful impersonation of Ted Kennedy (“He introduced me to the Senate saying, ‘I’d like to welcome Rocky Balboa’”) and maintains a wicked line in self-deprecating wisecracks.
“You gotta be patient with me,” he smiles. “I’m just a dumb guy.”
Hmm. I’m not sure I can take him at his word. Sylvester Stallone, in common with his boxing alter ego, has been down but not out more times than dumb luck could possibly allow for. A wildly successful multi-tasker, he has made a name for himself as a painter, writer, director and actor.
In Rambo and Rocky, he has created two of cinema’s most enduring and instantly recognisable icons. Oh, and nobody can outdo him for unlikely comebacks. Whatever it takes to pull himself up by the bootstraps, Sly will overcome. He always has done.

Born on July 6, 1946 in Hell’s Kitchen, the odds seemed stacked against young Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone. His father, a Scicilian immigrant was constantly at war with his astrologer mother. A forceps mishap during his birth severed a facial nerve, leaving Stallone with parts of his lip, tongue, and chin paralyzed. The accident would leave him with a crooked left eye and his speech, acquired slowly and painfully, would always retain a slightly slurred aspect.
A poorly child who, with his younger brother Frank, was bounced between foster homes and schools, he suffered from rickets and was constantly picked on by his peers.
At 15, having been expelled from twelve schools, he moved to Philadelphia with his mother and her second husband. There, Sylvester was enrolled in Devereaux High, a facility for emotionally disturbed children. Even in this rowdy environment, he stood out as a troubled teen. On two separate occasions, his classmates voted him ‘most likely to end up in the electric chair’.
Remarkably, he turned things around. He began fencing and lifting weights. The elaborate heroic fantasies he concocted to protect himself from what were harsh, friendless circumstances now found expression in school plays. After graduation, he was awarded an athletics scholarship and began coaching at a girl’s school in Switzerland.
During his tenure he starred in a school production of Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman, an experience that left him determined to become an actor. He enrolled in the University of Miami drama department on his return Stateside but his voice counted against him at acting auditions. He resorted to bit parts in films such as Woody Allen’s Bananas and took a leading role in the porn film Party At Kitty’s And Studs, later repackaged as the soft skin flick Italian Stallion. (The excised hardcore scenes have, happily for Sly, been lost to the ether.)
Once again, he was struggling, but a decision to move into writing would quickly pay off. His scored a minor success when he wrote the screenplay and co-starred in the Lords Of Flatbush (1974) with Henry Winkler. He had arrived if nothing else.
“I was lucky,” he tells me. “I found an outlet. It was like divine intervention. I couldn’t make it as an actor so I decided I could either sit there and implode or maybe start writing. And I knew I wanted to write my thoughts, about what it’s like not to have friends, not to be appreciated, which is Rocky’s story. And it went boom. So if I had even been lightly successful I never would have written it. Some things just work out. I think people have to take setbacks as an opportunity to move ahead. Believe it or not, that’s how it works.”
As soon as he wrote the screenplay for Rocky, the studios were banging on his door. He wisely insisted that he would star and receive a share of the profits. Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff accepted his terms and never looked back.
Released in 1976, Rocky went on to become one of the biggest movie hits of all time. It won several Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director for John Avildson and a Best Actor nomination for Stallone. Writing at the time, Roger Ebert predicted that Stallone would become the next Marlon Brando.
But in the following three decades, only Copland (1997) would earn him acclaim as an actor. This would not, however, prevent him from becoming a global star. One of the first actors to earn $20 million a movie, he made four sequels to Rocky, wrote three Rambo films (First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Rambo 3),Cobra, Cliffhanger, Driven and Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever.
“I do regret doing all those sequels,” he says now. “I’m not trying to be contrary or nothing. But when I look back on the Rocky films for example, they became too focused on the fight and manipulative in a crass way. Some of the montages and the music – once it got away from the original Bill Conti score and starting trying to be trendy...yikes. They had some emotional content but it wasn’t like the first film which was really simplistic and character driven. Maybe 90 percent of that film was non-action. Looking back I wasn’t focused when I was writing. I thought I was but that’s part of the reason my career got into trouble.”
Well, that and the inevitable trappings of success. By the mid-80s, his 10 year marriage to actress Sasha Czack was in serious trouble. Seargeoh, the couple’s second son, had been diagnosed with autism in 1982 putting tremendous strain on the family. Brigitte Nielsen, his Swedish co-star from Rocky V would prove the straw that broke the camel’s back.
This second marriage would end in an expensive and ridiculously public divorce less than 18 months later. A string of relationships with models including Susan Anton, Angie Everhart, Pamela Anderson, Naomi Campbell and Janice Dickinson would follow, making Stallone a permanent fixture on the pages of the National Enquirer. He was a joke and his career, now blighted with duds such as Paradise Alley, Rhinestone, Oscar, Judge Dredd and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot gave critics plenty of cause for merriment.
“It was like being a kid in a candy store and I made a lot of mistakes,” he admits. “At that time people would say ‘yes’ when I was completely wrong and I found myself becoming more and more corrupted and morally weakened. But you know, when you’re young all you want to do is make your mark on the world. And the people you love and you’re closest to are often casualties. I was gone nine months of the year when my boys were growing up. I’d arrive home as a stranger. The strained relationship between Rocky Balboa and his son that you see in the film is my relationship with my son. It’s sad but I don’t know if that bridge can ever be mended. I think there’ll always be a friction there.”
It is, in case you haven’t noticed, often difficult to determine where Rocky ends and Stallone begins. Both are personable fellows with an unshakable faith in human potential.
Though often labelled as a Republican, Stallone has far more faith in the individual than any clear cut political allegiances. He holds the dubious honour of being George W. Bush’s favourite actor and attended Bush The Younger’s inauguration as president in 2001. He supported Clinton throughout the impeachment process and has hosted Democratic fundraising events. He has written cheques supporting the likes of John Ashcroft on the right and Barbara Boxer on the left.
“I just want to do the right thing,” he says. “If I see somebody working hard for the American people then I don’t discriminate.”
Fair enough. If he isn’t quite Conservative with a big ‘C’, he’s certainly decent enough folk to keep America’s increasingly fearsome Christian contingent onside. Paul Lauer, the founder of Motive Entertainment, one of the family organisations that plugged The Chronicles Of Narnia last Christmas, has been keen to get behind Rocky Balboa in recent months. Other spiritual leaders quickly jumped the same bandwagon.
“It is a spiritual story,” Sly tells me. “I mean people often don’t remember that the first Rocky film starts out with a picture of Jesus above the rafters and then pans down to Rocky being pummelled. What I was trying to say there was that this man was being chosen for divine intervention. He is going to take a certain journey. He is going to be elevated from the lowest status. Over the films we’ve always harked back to his spiritual foundation and in this new film when he is being read scripture before the fight – and I didn’t want to hit anyone over the head with it – so it’s subtle, but he points up. It’s a signal that he’s going to end his life in the proper way. I’m an old man now. You think about these things.”
The cleanly drawn folk narrative of the new film, a perfect companion piece to the gritty poetry of Rocky I, signifies that Sylvester Stallone has once again pulled himself out of the mire.
He credits current wife Jennifer as providing his salvation. (“She’s just the greatest person ever,” he smiles.) The couple have been married for ten years and have three daughters. He admits, rather regretfully, that he’s a much better dad to Sophia Rose, Sistine Rose, and Scarlett Rose than he was first time around.
“Now I live for my children,” he coos. “They’re the first thing I see every morning and the last thing I see at night. It actually hurts to be away from them. Plus they’re all girls so they know how to press my buttons.”
His decision to resurrect Rocky was partly inspired by the girls.
“I really wanted them to see what I used to do,” he explains. “They thought I golfed for a living. When I asked them to guess again, they shrugged and told me that daddy’s job is to tidy the yard.”
It was still a huge gamble. Poor Jennifer Stallone actually burst into tears when he ventured the idea as a serious possibility.
“I knew it was a dumb idea,” he nods. “And she was really worried it was going to be an absolute embarrassment. It had all the potential. Plus she was losing a babysitter if I was out working. She likes me to be safe at home. So I knew as soon as I said it that I was in trouble, that every comedian on late night would unload on me. And hey, I can’t blame them. If I were laying at home and I saw Burt Reynolds say that he was doing another Smoky film or Bruce Willis announce he was doing Die Hard again, I’d say ‘come on’. But I just kept thinking that if I could have one more shot. If I could have Rocky going out feeling like I’m feeling now, jeez that would be great.”
Certainly the rather excellent new film is a much more satisfying bookend to the series than the grimy street brawl at the end of the unlovely Rocky V though it took seven years to convince the studios as much.
“The idea was passé and I was passé,” Sly admits. “It was suggested that maybe someone else should direct but I thought, well, if it doesn’t work then I’ll be responsible. If someone else directs and it doesn’t work there’s always the danger I might kill them. And my wife would have reminded me about it everyday. The irony is that first time out I was a complete unknown but it was an inexpensive film and they could take the chance. That doesn’t happen anymore. Marketing departments get to green light projects. So can we sell a 60-year-old has-been playing a 58-year-old has-been boxer? I don’t think so.”
I’m glad Sylvester Stallone has turned out to be such a nice guy. The idea of Rocky being a wanker would have simply been too much to bear. I’m equally glad the film has turned out so well. Can we expect John Rambo, the fourth Rambo film to be just as good? Hmmm.
“Well, I had signed on to do Rambo again before Rocky went ahead,” Sly explains. “I have no aspirations as an actor anymore. The best things have come and gone. So I’m going back to writing and directing as soon as Rambo wraps. It would have been nice to end with Rocky, but Rambo is an interesting character too. He’s my darkness and Rocky is the light. And I guess, with Rambo, he’s spent all of his life up to his neck in blood and nothing is solved, nothing has changed. I’d just like to give him some closure.”
If he can just make it work, there’ll be servings of humble pie all round.
Rocky Balboa is on general release.