The Rocky Road to Success

The Rocky Road to Success Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, a man who has walked down a tough road but never gave up on his goals. He was overlooked at the beginning but now he overlooks Lake Tahoe in his large house. Even though it looked bleak at first Stallone kept with it and ended up changing American views, the movie industry, and also he showed us that â€Å"It ain't over till it's over. † Sylvester Stallone's birth wasn't the easiest operation for a doctor. On July 6th, 1947, Stallone was pulled from his mother, Jackie Stallone's womb by the doctor's forceps which ended up severing a facial nerve.This paralyzed the lower left half of his face, which gave him his iconic look and slightly slurred speech today. Young Sylvester Stallone was born into a troubled marriage, for his first five years he lived in the infamous Hell's Kitchen going to-and-from assorted foster homes. Eventually his parents got their act together and they were all reunited as a family. Due to St allone's birth accident, his face and speech made him an outcast in school, which in turn led to multiple fights and poor grades. His father and mother got divorced when Stallone was eleven and soon after, he was sent to a school for â€Å"troubled kids†.He moved to Philadelphia where he attended Notre Dame Academy and Lincoln High School which is where he first started acting and was also a football player. After high school Sylvester Stallone went to instruct at the American College of Switzerland in Geneva. After a couple years he returned to the United States and enrolled for college. He enrolled at the University of Miami hoping to get a major in drama. Stallone's college life didn't last long because he dropped out to pursue an acting career in New York.The Jobs didn't come easy in the beginning like they do ow, but Stallone stuck with it and played some minor roles before he blasted off in 1976 when he wrote â€Å"Rocky'. This Jumpstarted his career to becoming the ma n we know today. Stallone owns a third of the world-wide icon Planet Hollywood. Planet Hollywood is a resort that has food, games, a pool, and hotel. The creation of this hotel/resort/restaurant gave people of the world the opportunity to look at some of cinemas most iconic costumes, art, and props. Stallone is also a dedicated painter. l think I'm a much better painter than an actor† Stallone states in an interview with Kate Roberts. He also believes â€Å"It's much more personal and I'm allowed to do Just what I want to do. Quite often in acting you have to play a certain part, you cannot speak as much as you want to speak. † His paintings can be seen in St. Petersburg. (Reuters. ) He also claims that he wouldn't take an acting Job if it interfered with his paintings. Some of his paintings depict his iconic creation Rocky Balboa. Sylvester Stallone wrote many of the movies he has starred in.In 1976 he wrote and starred in the hit film â€Å"Rocky', which eventually e volved into a six movie set that the main role as John Rambo a Vietnam War veteran. Stallone also wrote/co-wrote â€Å"F. I. S. T. ,†, â€Å"Rambo: First Blood Part II,† â€Å"Rhinestone† and â€Å"Rambo Ill. â€Å", â€Å"Staying Alive†, â€Å"The Expendables†, â€Å"The Expendables 2†. As an actor Stallone has had in ups and downs. His roles as Rocky Balboa in the Rocky saga, John Rambo in the Rambo trilogy, the movie â€Å"Cliffhanger†, and â€Å"Demolition Man† were some of his best roles. But after the success of â€Å"Demolition Man†, Stallone's career began to fade away.His career hit rock bottom in 2002 with the movie â€Å"D-Tax† which only earned fifty-five thousand dollars on its opening weekend (that's pretty bad). His career then took off again when he was 60 when he returned to the role of Rocky in â€Å"Rocky Balboa† the sixth and final movie to his rocky series. Stallone has earned many aw ards and nominations along the years. He has won two Oscars and won 27 awards and has had 31 nominations. He also holds the record for being the â€Å"only actor to open a number one film over five decades†. His career is still rolling strong today.Stallone is starring in an upcoming film called â€Å"Grudge Match† that comes out Christmas Day and had announced the production of an â€Å"Expendables 3† and also a spinoff of Rocky â€Å"Creed. † One of Stallone's greatest accomplishments was the creation of a little man with a big heart, Rocky Balboa, who overcame adversity and won the hearts of millions. In 1975, Stallone was out of work and his hopes where low, but then became inspired by a boxing match he witnessed, he soon wrote the script of â€Å"Rocky' in Just three days. He made his first mark in his career whenever he went to sell the script.He was the first person to write a script and refused to sell it unless he played the starring role. Nobod y had ever done this before but it soon caught on with actors like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Owen Wilson. Most people shot him down because of his rule but he was finally accepted by Robert Chatoff and Charles Winkler and they soon began production. â€Å"Rocky' wasn't Just a hero but an icon for many, not because it was a boxing movie but because it was a movie of overcoming the odds, a true underdog story, and also a love story.The Rocky saga was seen as â€Å"this great symbolism of never give up and that your dreams can come true† (Stallone, The Rocky Saga: Going the Distance) or â€Å"A saga about America with the backdrop of boxing. † (Carl Weathers, The Rocky Saga: Going the Distance) these aspects are what made the series such a uccess. Today there is a marathon based off of the workout route Rocky took during his training in the movie called â€Å"Rocky 50K Fatass Race. â€Å", â€Å"Rocky Balboa wasn't Just an underdog boxing hero, but a full-fledged u ltra-marathoner, the waiting began.Someone, at some point, would emerge to stage a run based on the 30. 61 -mile course McQuade determined Rocky ran in the training sequence in Rocky II. † (Hamilton, Fun Run on Rockys 30-Mile Philly Route is On! ). The route starts at Rockys home and ends at the iconic stairs leading to the Philadelphia art museum. Rocky also left his mark n the city of Philadelphia; there is a statue of Rocky Balboa that stands at the front of the iconic museum where Rocky would end his workout run.When filming the scene of Rocky running up the stairs, Garret Brown got a chance to try out his newest creation the Steadicam, â€Å"Rocky' wasn't the first movie he used it on but it was the first nowadays in most films. Rocky Balboa also has been inducted to the Boxing Hall of Fame for his influence on the boxing community and the world. Stallone's other big hit was about a Vietnam War veteran, John Rambo. â€Å"Rambo dramatized the conservative pillars of the post-Vietnam period† (Wardenski, WhyRambo Mattered) this movie was about the Vietnam War but it was a story that showed that we couldVe won the war but we ended up losing because of the beaurocrats. Rambo changed how Americans viewed those who served in Vietnam. Rambo was the first real action hero, â€Å"setting a new standard for body count, property destruction, and a hero's view of human and material destruction. Why did Rambo change the action movie genre? Well first off Stallone created a character which became synonymous with big macho 80's fragging action but also because it was kind of smart.Not exactly a thinking man's movie but one where the characters ad some complex emotions that made them, want blow up the whole town. Thanks to Rambo and a host of mean-spirited vigilante movies, the Vietnam Vet had film options outside of hang wringing dramas about post-combat relationships.