Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone (born July 6, 1946), nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. One of the biggest box office draws in the world from the 1970s to the 1990s, Stallone is an icon of machismo and Hollywood action heroism. He has played two characters who have become a part of the American cultural lexicon: Rocky Balboa, the boxer who overcame odds to fight for love and glory, and John Rambo, a courageous soldier who specialized in violent rescue and revenge missions. During the 1980s, he was one of the biggest movie stars in the world with the Rocky and Rambo franchises.
Stallone’s film Rocky was inducted into the National Film Registry as well as having its film props placed in the Smithsonian Museum. Stallone’s use of the front entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the Rocky series led the area to be nicknamed the Rocky Steps. Philadelphia has a statue of his Rocky character placed permanently near the museum, on the right side before the steps.
Stallone had his first starring role in the softcore pornography feature film Party at Kitty and Stud’s (1970), later re-released as Italian Stallion (the new title was taken from Stallone’s nickname since Rocky and a line from the film). He was paid US$200 for two days’ work. An “uncut” version of the film was released in 2007, purporting to show actual hardcore footage of Stallone, but according to trade journal AVN, the hardcore scenes were inserts not involving the actor. In 2008, scenes from Party at Kitty and Stud’s surfaced in a German version of Roger Colmont’s hardcore-film White Fire (1976).
Stallone also starred in the erotic off-Broadway stage play Score which rans for 23 performances at the Martinique Theatre from October 28 – November 15, 1971 and was later made into a film by Radley Metzger.
