Sylvester Stallone - krótka biografia

Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone (born July 6, 1946), nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He was one of the biggest box office draws in the world from the 1970s to the 1990s, Sylvester Stallone is an action hero icon. He has played two famous movie characters: Rocky Balboa, the boxer who overcame challenges to fight for love and glory, and John Rambo, a brave soldier who did violent missions.

Early life

Stallone was born in New York City, and he is the son of Frank Stallone, Sr., a hairdresser, and Jackie Stallone, an astrologer, former dancer, and supporter of wrestling for women. During his birth, doctors used forceps, an instrument that looks like a pair of pincers or tongs, that damaged a nerve and caused paralysis in parts of Stallone's face. The paralysis caused his well known slurred speech and drooping lower lip.

Stallone's grandfather, Silvestro Stallone, was an immigrant from Gioia del Colle, in the province of Bari (Apulia, Italy). Stallone's mother was born in Washington, D.C., and she was the daughter of a Parisian socialite. When Stallone was between the ages of two and five he boarded in Queens, and he only saw his parents on the weekends. In 1951 he went back to live with his parents in Maryland where they owned beauty salons. In 1961 he was enrolled in Devereaux Manor, a private school for children that was in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. After he graduated from there, he went to beauty school.

In the 1960s, Stallone stopped going to beauty school after he won a scholarship for the American College of Switzerland in Leysin. There, he studied drama and was well received in school productions. When he went back to America he went to the Theater Arts Department at University of Miami for three years. He came within a few credit hours of graduation before he decided to drop out and try a career at writing screenplays under the pen names Q. Moonblood and J.J. Deadlock. At the same time he started acting in small parts in movies.

Later, Stallone asked that his acting and life experiences be accepted in exchange for his remaining credits, and the President of the University of Miami gave him a Bachelors of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in 1999.

Success with Rocky, 1976 and Rambo, 1982

Stallone was not very well known by a lot of people until his role in Rocky (1976). On March 24, 1975, he saw the Muhammed Ali-Chuck Wepner fight which gave him the idea for 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 intent of playing the lead role. Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler both liked the script (which Stallone submitted to them after a casting), and planned on having a star like Burt Reynolds or James Caan to play the lead character. Rocky was nominated for ten Academy Awards, this included Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay nominations for Stallone. (...)

Stallone had another major success when he played as a Vietnam veteran named John Rambo in the action adventure movie First Blood (1982). The first chapter of Rambo was both a critical and box office success. The critics praised Stallone's performance, saying he made Rambo seem human despite the way he is described in the book of the same name, First Blood and in the other movies. Two other Rambo movies Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988) followed (and another, Rambo, in 2008). Although box office hits, the movies were given 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 movies to the series: Rocky III (1982) and Rocky IV (1985). (...)

Following his amazing performance in Rocky, critic Roger Ebert had once said Stallone could become the next Marlon Brando, although he never received the same critical praise achieved with Rocky. Stallone did, however, go on to receive much approval for his role in the crime drama Cop Land (1997) in which he starred alongside Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta. (...)

Competition with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Stallone has always been considered a opponent to Arnold Schwarzenegger as an action hero actor. Hints to this have been made in both of their movies. In Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero, Stallone is seen as playing the Terminator in a video advertisement in the film's alternate real life. In Stallone's Demolition Man, there is a futuristic reference to the Arnold Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Also in the movie Twins, Arnold Schwarzenegger walks by a giant movie poster for Rambo III. He glances at the size of Stallone's biceps on the poster, and then he feels his own and laughs at how much smaller Stallone's are. According to both Stallone and Schwarzenegger, despite their on camera "rivalry", they are both very close friends. (...)

Personal life

Stallone has been married three times. At age 28, on December 28, 1974, he married Sasha Czack. The couple had two sons, Sage Moonblood (May 5, 1976 - July 13, 2012) and Seargeoh (b. 1979). His younger son was diagnosed with autism at an early age. The couple divorced on February 14, 1985. The same year his divorce finalized, he married model/actress, Brigitte Nielsen, on December 15, 1985, in Beverly Hills, California. His second marriage lasted two years. In May 1997, Stallone married Jennifer Flavin; he has three daughters with her: Sophia Rose (b. 27 August 1996), Sistine Rose (b. 27 June 1998), and Scarlet Rose (b. 25 May 2002). (...)

Source: wikipedia.org