Before Sylvester Stallone became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, he only had $60 to his name, with $43.60 already earmarked for rent.
But even as he struggled to make ends meet in New York, the future “Rocky” icon refused to give up on his dream.
In his new memoir, “The Steps,” Stallone recounts the years leading up to stardom, including his arrival in New York in 1969, determined to become an actor despite poverty, rejection and uncertainty.
The 80-year-old told Fox News Digital that even in his darkest moments, he remained convinced that his life would eventually change for the better.
“I think it comes from the naivety and the craziness of youth, that you always have this feeling of ‘I can do this, I can break the mold,'” Stallone said.
“I hadn’t been beaten down enough by life yet to say it’s over because as an actor, if you haven’t made it by 30, I would say 99 percent you’ll never make it. I wasn’t aware of that, so I kept going.”
“In New York, when I was really depressed, I didn’t focus on, ‘My God, you’re going to be destitute,'” Stallone said.
“There was this definite optimism that if you put in all your effort, if you deprive yourself of every fun moment of going to the movies, of going out with a girl, if you give it all up and dedicate yourself, I believe you will know 100% if you actually have a chance to be that character you always wanted to be.”
Stallone never stopped believing that he would one day make it as an actor.
After leaving the American College in Switzerland without a degree and dropping out of the University of Miami just a few credits short of a degree in drama, Stallone returned to New York with little under his belt.
He rented a room so cramped that he later compared it to the minimum recommended size for a federal prison cell. He shared a bathroom with 10 other people.
Stallone also found work as an usher at a movie theater, earning just $34 a week. He said the job became training in filmmaking. Night after night, he studied the films he watched, keeping his dream alive.
Stallone said he would shower with his clothes on to save money on laundry. If he were lucky enough to find a bar of soap that didn’t have any “strange hairs” stuck to it, he would use it to lather up “my shirt, my pants, my underwear, my socks — and myself.”
“I could never have afforded to go to a laundromat,” Stallone said. “My wife thinks it’s so disgusting: ‘Why would you take a shower with your clothes on?’ I said, “It made sense to me at the time, rather than going to the laundromat. But it was an apartment building. It was so bad. But you do what you can to survive.
To satisfy hunger, Stallone would eat spoonfuls of cottage cheese, then three or four raw eggs. In the book, he remembers later treating himself to chicken breast and apple juice.
“It was the only thing that made sense numerically and financially,” he said. “Of course it’s all bad. It’s terrible. I’m surprised I didn’t get salmonella, really. It’s really quite remarkable. But both of those things at a certain time of year, because in the summer the cottage cheese would rot and the eggs would spoil.
“But if you brought it in around October, it would sit on your windowsill until March. So it became my refrigerator. And at the time, I just thought it was so convenient. No dishes. You drink the egg, so you don’t have to wash anything. You don’t need a fork. And the cottage cheese is a spoon, and you throw the cup away.”
Stallone wrote in the book: “I wouldn’t recommend this diet to anyone. But if you’re young and poor, it will do, which is why I used eating raw eggs in ‘Rocky’ to give insight into how Rocky approaches his life.”
Stallone had a dollar or two a day for food. He needed a job, and fast.
One of Stallone’s first gigs was cleaning lion cages at the Central Park Zoo. The smell was bad enough, but that wasn’t what scared him.
“I was also afraid for my life,” he wrote. “The lions were always nearby, always lying in wait. They were watching me. They were behind bars, but that didn’t stop the big, sad creatures from sticking their huge snouts between the bars to sniff at me.
“The way they inhaled and exhaled made a strange moan, like they already knew what I was going to taste like.”
During this period, Stallone faced repeated rejections from agents, including one who criticized his deep voice and asymmetrical mouth – two traits that would later become signatures of his on-screen persona.
One day, on his way home, he spotted a “Help Wanted” sign at Dover Delicatessen and took the 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. Although he was able to save enough money to buy a coat that will allow him to weather the city’s harsh winter, it’s a gig he doesn’t miss.
“All the customers get grumpy about this and that: ‘Hey, there’s not enough coleslaw here. This sandwich should be an ounce and a half heavier,'” Stallone said with a laugh.
“You’d be shocked. I learned to be a really good fish cutter, like lox on bagels. I always heard, ‘I can’t see through salmon.’ They wanted the cut to be so thin that you could actually see the light. Oh man. And you cut your fingers too.
“And then the characters who show up at two in the morning, the outrageous, unbelievable drunks and gangsters,” Stallone continued.
“You’d be shocked if someone walked into a place at two in the morning and wanted a sandwich. So it’s colorful. And sure, I ended up in jail, but that’s only because of that stupid grocery store.”
“I thought I was living a good life, a decent life,” he said. “But by today’s standards, you were on the verge of oblivion.”
After an altercation at the deli, Stallone found himself handcuffed in the back of a police car, still wearing his apron and badge. He was sent to “The Tombs,” New York’s notoriously violent detention center – or, as Stallone puts it, “the place of nightmares.”
He was placed in a 20-by-20-foot holding cell with at least 25 other men. One man was already pushing another man’s head into a small hole that served as a toilet for prisoners.
A criminal court judge ultimately released Stallone.
“I took the apron, balled it up and threw it in the trash on the way out,” he wrote.
Today, Stallone has no regrets.
“If you don’t sacrifice yourself completely and fail, you will suffer for the rest of your life thinking, ‘Why didn’t I try harder?’ Why didn’t I use the talent God gave me to be the absolute best?’” Stallone said.
“If you fail, you can say, ‘I tried.’ People can never point the finger at you and say, “You didn’t try hard enough.” But my biggest fear was leaving something on the table. »
Looking back, Stallone said those difficult years taught him a lesson that still resonates in “Rocky” decades later.
“‘Rocky’ further emphasizes that if you are willing to completely sacrifice good times, fun and escapism to achieve this goal, it really is possible,” he said. “There is no half way. »
Gn entert
