Sylvester

Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone (born July 6, 1946) is an American Academy Award-nominated film actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. He is often referred to by his nickname, "Sly". more...

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He achieved his greatest successes in a number of action films, notably the Rocky and Rambo series. His trademark sneer, double lazy eyes, and slurred speech are the result of paralysis in the left side of his face caused by birth complications.

Biography

Early life

Stallone was born in New York City, New York to Frank Stallone Sr., a beautician, and Jacqueline "Jackie" Labofish, an astrologer. Stallone's father was an immigrant from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily while his mother is American; one of his maternal great-grandmothers, Rosa Rabinovich, was from Odessa, Ukraine. At fifteen, his classmates voted him the one "most likely to end up in the electric chair". In the 1960s, Stallone attended the University of Miami for three years. He came within a few credit hours of graduation, before he decided to drop out and pursue an acting career. After Stallone's request that his acting and life experiences be accepted in exchange for his remaining credits, he was granted a Bachelors of Fine Arts (BFA) degree by the President of the University of Miami in 1999.

Early film roles

Stallone's career began with an appearance in a soft-core pornographic film called Party at Kitty and Stud's. The film was originally hard core and depicted sexual acts, but the film was re-cut in order to have scenes end just before any hard core action would take place. After Stallone's later success, the film was re-packaged as The Italian Stallion (a reference to Rocky Balboas nickname).

Stallone's first few film roles were minor, and included brief uncredited appearances in Woody Allen's Bananas (1971) as a subway thug, in the psychological thriller Klute (1971) as an extra dancing in a club, and in the Jack Lemmon vehicle The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) as a youth. In the latter film Jack Lemmon chases and tackles Stallone, thinking he is a pickpocket. He had his first starring role in the cult hit The Lords of Flatbush (1974). In 1975 he appeared in supporting roles in Farewell, My Lovely, Capone, and another cult hit Death Race 2000. He also made guest appearances on TV series such as Police Story and Kojak.

Success with Rocky

Stallone did not gain world-wide fame until his starring role in the smash hit Rocky (1976), awarded the Academy Award for Best Picture. On March 24, 1975, Stallone saw the Ali-Chuck Wepner fight which inspired the foundation idea of Rocky. That night Stallone went home, and in three days he had written the script for Rocky. After that, he tried to sell the script with the intention of playing the lead role. Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler in particular liked the script, and planned on courting a star like Burt Reynolds or James Caan for the lead role. Stallone was offered several hundreds of thousands of dollars for the script, but he didn't accept, as he wanted to play the lead role himself. Reluctantly, the producers agreed.

Read more at Wikipedia.org