Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone (born July 6, 1946) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. One of the biggest boxoffice draws in the world from the '70s to the early '90s, Stallone is an international icon of machismo and Hollywood action heroism. He is responsible for creating two characters who have become a part of the American cultural lexicon: Rocky Balboa, the no-name boxer who overcame all odds to become a champion, and John Rambo, the courageous soldier who specialized in violent rescues and revenge.
Stallone has established himself as both a dramatic actor and one of greatest action stars of all time. During the 1980s, he enjoyed phenomenal popularity and was the biggest movie star in the world with the Rocky and Rambo franchises. Stallone's culturally influential films changed pop culture history and he has largely enjoyed a career on the Hollywood A list for over 30 years.
He is considered by many (including the mayor of Philadelphia) as the one who made the city of Philadelphia an international tourist attraction with the Rocky Steps. His incredible popularity there has led to a statue of his Rocky character being placed permanently near the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a cultural landmark. On August 2007, a statue of Rocky was also erected in the Serbian village of Zitiste. His film Rocky has also been inducted into the National Film Registry as well as having its film props placed in the Smithsonian Museum.
Stallone did not gain world-wide fame until his starring role in the smash hit Rocky (1976). The film was awarded the 1976 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 (which was suggested by Stallone after a casting), and planned on courting a star like Burt Reynolds or James Caan for the lead role. The final result was an unequalled success; Rocky was nominated for ten Academy Awards in all, including Best Actor for Stallone himself.
The sequel Rocky II which Stallone had also written and directed was released in 1979 and also became a major success, grossing US$200 million worldwide.
Apart from the Rocky films, Stallone did many other films in the late 1970s and early 1980s which were critically acclaimed but were not successful at the box office. He received critical praise for films such as F.I.S.T. (1978), a social, epic styled drama in which he plays a warehouse worker who becomes involved in the labor union leadership and Paradise Alley (1978), a family drama in which he plays one of three brothers who is a con artist and who helps his other brother who is involved in wrestling.
In the early 1980s he starred alongside British veteran Michael Caine in Victory (1981), a sports drama in which he plays a prisoner of war involved in a Nazi propaganda football (soccer) tournament. Stallone then made the action thriller film Nighthawks (1981), in which he plays a New York city cop who plays a cat and mouse game with a foreign terrorist, played by Rutger Hauer.
Stallone had another major franchise success as Vietnam veteran John Rambo in the action adventure film First Blood (1982). The first installment of Rambo was both a critical and box office success. The critics praised Stallone's performance, saying he made Rambo seem human as opposed to the way he is portrayed in the book of the same name First Blood and in the other films. Two Rambo sequels Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988) followed. Although box office hits, they met with much less critical praise than the original. He also continued his box office success with the Rocky franchise and wrote, directed and starred in two more sequels to the series: Rocky III (1982) and Rocky IV (1985). It was during this time period that Stallone's cultivated a strong overseas following. He also attempted roles in different genres when he wrote and starred in the comedy film Rhinestone (1984) where he played a wannabe country music singer and the drama film Over the Top (1987) where he played a truck driver who enters an arm wrestling competition to impress his estranged son. But these films did not do well at the box office and were poorly received by critics. The action films Cobra (1986) and Tango and Cash (1989) did solid business domestically but overseas they did blockbuster business grossing over 100 million dollars foreign and over 160 million worldwide. The Rocky and Rambo franchises at the end of the decade were billion dollar franchises internationally.
After a few years hiatus from films, Stallone made a comeback to in 2006 with the sixth and final installment of his successful Rocky series; Rocky Balboa, which was both a critical and commercial hit. After the critical and box office failure of the previous and presumed last installment Rocky V, Stallone had decided to end the series with a sixth installment which would be a more appropriate climax to the series. The total domestic box office gross came to a close with US$70.2 million (an impressive US$155.3 million worldwide), almost three times its production budget. His performance in Rocky Balboa has been praised and garnered mostly positive reviews.
Stallone's newest release is the fourth installment of his other successful movie franchise Rambo with the sequel being titled simply Rambo. The film is experiencing very positive buzz due to a favorable reception of its rough cut trailer for Cannes.
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