Sylvester Stallone



""Yo, Adrian! I did it!""

Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, director, producer, screenwriter and former porn star. 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 is by far one of the most iconic action heroes ever, alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. While not a very large man (standing at about 5'9), his musculature is the result of hard work with weight training and nutritional supplements (such as HGH and testosterone). His identifiable "marble-mouth" voice is the result of complications during birth and having little feeling on one side of his body.

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. And he has also been a driving force behind the camera for the majority of his movies, having written the original story for Rocky and directing most of the sequels.

During the 1980s and best part of 1990s, he was one of the biggest movie stars in the world with the Rocky and Rambo franchises. In the late 90's he started to struggle with a series of Box Office duds as he found that the public was slowly losing interest in the Stallone-style "Strictly Formula" films. He decided to go into more character-piece films where he was praised for expanding his range and acknowledging his advancing age.

This led into him reviving his Rocky and Rambo franchises, with the two restoring confidence that he can still be an action hero and do character pieces at the same time. His latest major film The Expendables gathered an impressive group of past and present action heroes for a new "old school" action movie, including Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke and even a cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Stallone's 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. -

Selected Films

 * Antz
 * Assassins
 * Cliffhanger
 * Cobra
 * Daylight
 * Death Race 2000
 * Demolition Man
 * Driven
 * The Expendables
 * The Expendables 2
 * F.I.S.T.
 * Get Carter
 * Judge Dredd
 * Nighthawks
 * Oscar
 * Over the Top
 * Rambo (Series)
 * First Blood
 * Rambo: First Blood Part II
 * Rambo III
 * Rambo
 * Rhinestone
 * Rocky (Series)
 * Rocky
 * Rocky II
 * Rocky III
 * Rocky IV
 * Rocky V
 * Rocky Balboa
 * The Specialist
 * Spy Kid 3-D: Game Over
 * Staying Alive (Director only, with a blink-and-miss it cameo)
 * Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
 * Tango and Cash