TotallyStallone

Sylvester (Sly ) was born on 6 th July 1946 in New York, he weighed in at birth at 13 pounds, the birth was a difficult one and the unsupervised intern clamped forceps onto the babies face and pulled ... hard.

The surgical instrument severed a facial nerve, which created Stallones trademark drooping eyelid and lips and also a speach impediment which over the years has largely disappeared thanks to the services of a therapist.

Stallones mother had planned on naming him Tyrone, but his father went ahead and named him Sylvester Enzio after his paternal grandfather.He ended up being called 'Binky'.
Sylvester Stallone did not have a normal life. The gross encounter with the surgical pliers was just the beginning of a hellish childhood that would have turned a less resilient personality into a criminal or a disturbed adult at the very least.

Both his parents were career obsessed, as their son would eventually become himself.His mother was working at a nightclub as a dancer, she was far to busy to care for her son.

Sly says 'I was a sickly, hyperactive child, my mother didnt have the time or inclination needed to care for me properly'he also said 'Love was not forcoming , my parents had their difficilties, so there wasn't any time for me or my younger brother Frank'.

Most of the time the Stallones cold water flat was fairly tranquil because it was empty, From the age of 2 to 5, Sly and his brother Frank who was born in 1950, were boarded weekdays with a foster mother in Queens. The kids spent weekends with their parents,Stallone grew up in a non verbal fantasy world.Psychologists might say that his terse screenplays (Rambo has only 136 lines of dialogue) and their outlandish plots reflected both aspects of his emotional deprived, silent childhood.

But the abuse wasn't only emotional, and it didn't just involve depriavtion. While Jackies parenting consisted of benign neglect, Frank Sn took a more hands on approach to child rearing when the Stallones boys returned home on the weekends from silent foster care.

'His idea of discipline was very physical,' Stallone says about his father, 'There were times when i was in mortal fear of him'
His fathers favourite description of his sons brain ;dormaint'Indeed after the sucess of Rocky becoming the number one film of 1976 and a collection of Oscar tropies, the elder Stallones only comment was 'The fight scenes could have been better'

Stallone finds it painful to dicuss these years of abuse. In interview after interview over more than a quarter of a century, he typically offers a climpse of his traumatic upbringing, then backs off, leaving the luckless reporter with a dangling anecdote.A reporter from a US magazine once asked Stallone if he had embellished his modest background.The star conceded that he had- up to a point. 'It is true. I mean everyone likes to embellish their image, but the records show i was born in Hells Kitchen in New York, 50th and Tenth Avenue.

My father was trying to make his way, my mother was working in a nightclub.My father used to have to walk down the centre of the street at night, cause if you walked on the sidewalks you might just disappear from the face of the earth.'

But eventually they pulled themselves out of that situation, by the time Stallone was 11 they were doing quite well.
Now living in Silver Springs, Stallone remained a difficult child and still acted up.

At 11 he decided that like his superhereos, (superboy ) he could fly, and jumped off a second floor of his Maryland home using an umbrella as a ineffective parachute.He broke his collar bone he would have been killed if his father hadnt been mixing cement for a backyard barbecue pit. The trough provided a cushion for his landing. When his mother came rushing out of the house after hearing the splash, her husbands only response to the injured child was ' You've given birth to a idiot'

Finally his mother sent him to psychotherapy
Failing psychotherapy as he did so many academics subjects his parents sent him on a religious retreat.In 1957 his parents got a divorce, they agreed to split custody, the boys would spend one year with their mother and one year with their father.

His mother soon found a new life for herself in Philadelphia and also found a new love, 'Tony Filiti'his mother decided to become a entrepeneur, and decided to open a gym for women.
In 1959 Stallone first saw the film Hercules, this inspired him to go regualrly to his mothers gym and he began to build up his body.He also started out on a self-improvement campaing, he would stand in front of a mirror and force his drooping lower lip and force it into a smile so people would stop being intimidated by his unintended snarl.

He was kicked out of parochial and public schools in Maryland . 3 schools expelled him for setting fire to the trash cans, and knocking kids unconcious who had critised his physical handicaps or unusual first name. But as his muscles grew and knock outs grew the taunts diminished and gradually ended. Stallone learned an inappropriate message that would years later make great movies but cause problems with personal and proffessional relationships,'Let your fists do the talking'.

Weight training improved his atheletic abilities in other areas and the once loner tried out for the Lincoln High in Philadelphia where , despite his short legs, he managed to set records.

While his atheletics prowess increased, his academic performance got worse, by aged 16 he had been in 20 schools.
He spent 6 months working in his fathers salon, but soon came to realsie it wasnt for him. He returned to his mother in Philidelphia. Sly went to Manor High School, he changed his name to Mike and under the nuturing influence of Manors theraputic environment, he blossomed, at the gymm his body had helped diminish his sense of of physical inadequacy. At his new school, athletics transformed him from a loner to a joiner. He made fencing, boxing, equestrian and football teams, playing full back the year Manor won the conferance championship. The former loner became so popular enough to win election as co-captain of the team.

Manor High turned out to be a genuine curative for the footlooses youth. He spent 2 years there and graduated, something his parents thought would never happen to the chronic truant.

Despite his athletic record, his academic record made college a near impossibility, again Jacqueline poured her energy into helping her son, but even her efforts were no avail, basically no American university would take on a student with 0.0 average. His mother wasnt discouraged and took her search abroad, where she finally found a place willing to take a poor prospect.

Her search discovered the American College in Leysin, Switzerland, maybe it the altitude but college had a tonic effect on him, after years of failure he turned himself around academically., he earned passing grades in mathematics, science and history.For the first time in his life he actually excelled in two subjects, art and literature.

College encouraged him enough to embark on a self improvement regimen, he began painting and writing poetry, he joined the drama club, he audition for the part of Biff in Death of a slaesman, and got the part, and infected him with the acting bug, after two years of being in Switzerland and finding a new life in the theatre he left and enrolled in the Unerversity of Miami as - what else ? - a theatre major.

While at the University of Miami, Sly found things a lot different form the college in Switzerland, they hated him, his teachers considered him to aggresive,too mannnered, too physical to act.Instead of fighting back with his fists, he began writng scripts, he produced and starred in plays in garages, church basements and anywhere else in the city where rent was cheap.

Three credits short of a degree he dropped out, and moved to New York City. He rented a room at the Sutton Hotel, his one roomed apartment sounds more like insufficiency rather than sufficiant, there was only space to write his heart out, the room was so small that you could lay on the bed and stretch your arms and open the door, shut the window, turn on a faucet, you never had to move, Sly said 'the rats had bigger arms than i did'

Stallone brought a how to book on screenwriting and sat down to write.His first effort was 'Cry Full,WhisperEmpty, In the same Breath.He sent his script to producers and agents and it was returned unread. His second attemp was titled Sad Blues based on the career of his aspiring pop star brother Frank Jn, this screen play met the same rejection, but nothing could discourage the writer, his third screen play ,Till Young Men Exist, on scraps of paper torn from his legal notepad, again returned unread.

Stallone auditioned for his first movie role, unfornunately it was a porn movie, Party at Kitty and Stud's. Stallone went for the title role, which he got. His first legit job, actually Kitty and Stud's was soft porn. During the adition, the producer asked if he would have any problem doing nudity, 'They wanted to know if i would take my clouthes off, i said 'Why not? I take them for every night for free' Stallone said. But this time he would be paid $100 a day to disrobe, a fortune for a starving actor.

Stallone also appeared in Lovers and Other Strangers, Klute and Banana's, but in all of them as a extra, except Banana's, where he strangled a little old lady in the subway while Uber-nerd Woody Allen ignores the womans murder.

The Lords of Flatbush looked like another dead end film, no budget, no distributors, no stars and poor pay, Stallone landed the part of Stanley Rosiello, the over muscled leader of the titles motorcycle gang, set in 1975, The Lords of Flatbush was a bitter sweet nostalgia piece about high school seniours in blue collar Flatbush area of Brooklyn.

Stallone married Sasha Czach on December 28th 1974, she abandened her day job to devote her time to type for Stallone.Also in 1975 Stallone appeared in Capone, Deathrace and Farewell my Lovely.

15th March 1975 was a pivotal date in Stallones life, he bought a ticket to a closed circuit screening of a prize fight. Muhammad Ali fought a grotesquely outclassed pug named Chuck Wepner Stallone saw the match at the Wiltern Theatre on Wilshire and Western Boulevards in Hollywood on a giant TV screen.

The oppenents were so mismatched, the fight wasnt sold out. Ali was just there for another multi-million dollar pay day. Wepners David against Goliah status intrigued Stallone. Stallones screenplay based on the fight would coin a new term for the phenomenon of underdog, 'Rocky'.

Wepner wasnt even ranked in the top 10 of heavyweight contenders, and sports writers considered him an even bigger joke because he had delusions he could actually beat Ali, at the time and possibly still considered the greatest fighter in the history of the sport.

Jaded journalists thought Wepner, like Ali, was just there for a big pay day, although it was nowhere near as much as the champs, Wepner had other ideas- if not to win, at least to last the entire 15 rounds.

At one point in fact, he knocked Ali to the floor, although some witnesses claim he had stepped on Alis foot and pushed rather than knocked him down. Ali won the fight on points, but Wepner remained standing after the final bell. He considered himself a winner, even though he lost.

So did Stallone, and so the film series and an enduring career was born. 'Rocky'.

Piczo