Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone has married three times. He married Sasha Czack in 1974 and had two sons with her. The couple divorced almost a decade later.

He then married Brigitte Nielsen on December 15, 1985 and divorced her two years later in 1987.

In 1997, he married Jennifer Flavin, with whom he has three daughters.

Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone was born on July 6, 1946 to Frank Stallone and Jacqueline Stallone in New York City. He is of Italian-Russian-French-Jewish descent.

He was born with the lower side of his face paralyzed as the obstetricians tried to use a pair of forceps to pull him out of his mother’s womb. This seriously severed a nerve that caused permanent deformity in the lower parts of his lip, tongue and chin.

After his parents divorced, he studied at the Notre Dame Academy and Lincoln High School in Philadelphia. He also studied at the Charlotte Hall Military Academy before he attended the University of Miami.

He earned his first role in a soft-core pornography film, ‘The Party at Kitty and Stud’s’, in 1970. Later in life, Stallone claimed that he did the film out of desperation, because he needed the money. The same year, he appeared in the movie, ‘Rebel’, which made him a national star.

He also starred in the off-Broadway stage piece, ‘Score’, which ran for 23 performances in 1971. The same was later made into a film by Radley Metzger. He also appeared in Woody Allen’s ‘Bananas’ and the thriller ‘Klute’ as an extra.

In 1975, he was seen in the Jack Lemmon film, ‘The Prisoner of Second Avenue’ and he also played supporting roles in the films, ‘Farewell, My Lovely’, ‘Capone’ and ‘Death Race 2000’.

The year 1976 brought with it a lot of promise and hope for Stallone as he starred in his first breakthrough film, ‘Rocky’, an action-drama feature, for which he also wrote the script. The movie is considered one of his most commercially successful movies till date.

After swooning in the success of ‘Rocky’, he made his directorial debut in 1978 for the film, ‘Paradise Alley’. The same year, he played a role in the film, ‘F.I.S.T’, a film based on the life of James Hoffa.

He played the titular character of ‘Rocky Balboa’ in the ‘Rocky’ series, which is considered one of his most legendary roles. The films were made from 1975 to 2006 and helped Stallone kick-start his career in Hollywood. The first ‘Rocky’ film became so popular that it spawned five other ‘Rocky’ films in the franchise. The film ‘Rocky’ also received 10 Oscar nominations and eventually won the award for ‘Best Picture’. It was after this movie that he gained a large cult following and the ‘action star’ status.

He was cast as ‘John Rambo’ in the Rambo saga. Although only four films have been made in the franchise, the representation of the character earned Stallone extensive acclaim and recognition. The character became so famous that it was nominated for American Film Institute’s list of ‘100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains’. The franchise also produced a number of video games, comics and television series’ based on the movie as well.