Long before he became the most famous cinematic fighter of all time, Sylvester Stallone had to fight his own battle to survive in New York.For example, he was living in places where he literally had pizza boxes for his mattress.
"I did, yeah.It was very comfortable," he said.His jobs also included cleaning the lion cages in the Central Park Zoo.
"That's a rough one, because I felt so bad for these magnificent animals," he said, "and then I felt bad because I smelled like them, you know, going home." As a starving actor in the big city, life was tough, but his upbringing wasn't much easier.Born in New York's Hell's Kitchen 80 years ago, Stallone says his parents sent him away to a boarding house at a very young age.
He says he understood."I almost didn't blame them," he said.
"I was very rambunctious."His parents were not the kind to show affection."No.
I don't think they knew how.There was zero touching," he said.
No hugs? "Oh, no, no, no." But Stallone says his hard-knocks childhood was great training for the uphill battle he'd face trying to make the passion project of his life.His struggle was so epic, they've made a film about it: "I Play Rocky," coming out this November, about how Stallone kept the faith when the only thing he kept hearing was "No." Stallone wasn't involved in making the movie, but he says they really nailed it.
Asked how he was able to keep going as doors kept getting slammed in his face, he replied, "Because I consider there's a process of elimination.Eventually they're going to open the door."He wound up making his own door.
In a story that's now become legend, Stallone wrote the script for "Rocky," with himself in mind for the title role.He wrote it in about 3½ days, and credits divine intervention: "I said, 'Is this Your plan to, like, torture me? To this-and-that to test me? All right, I've come this far, I refuse to break.' And I went back in and I finished the last few pages of 'Rocky.' ...