Sylvester Stallone Recalls Life on the Brink Before 'Rocky' Fame
The action star detailed his years of poverty in New York City, including showering with his clothes on and surviving on raw eggs, in his new memoir.
Before achieving global stardom with "Rocky," Sylvester Stallone lived in poverty in New York City, surviving on meager resources and clinging to his acting aspirations. In his new memoir, "The Steps," Stallone recounts a period where he had only $60 to his name, with a significant portion allocated for rent, highlighting the extreme measures he took to make ends meet.
Stallone, now 80, told Fox News Digital that he arrived in New York in 1969 with a fervent desire to become an actor. Despite facing poverty, rejection, and uncertainty, he maintained a belief in his future success. "I think it comes from naïveté and the folly of youth, that you still have this sense of, ‘I can do it, I can break the mold,'" he said. He added that he hadn't yet been "beaten enough by life" to give up.
During his most desperate times, Stallone rented a room he described as barely larger than a federal jail cell and shared a bathroom with ten other individuals. He also worked as a movie theater usher, earning $34 weekly, a job that became an unexpected film education. At night, he would study the movies he watched, keeping his dream alive.
To conserve money, Stallone resorted to showering with his clothes on, a practice he explained was to avoid the cost of a laundromat. "My wife thinks this is so gross, ‘Why would you take a shower with your clothes on?’ I said, ‘It made sense to me at the time, rather than going down to the laundromat,'" he recounted. He would use a bar of soap to wash himself and his clothes simultaneously.
Stallone's diet during this period was equally stark. He would consume spoonfuls of cottage cheese followed by three or four raw eggs to stave off hunger, a practice he later incorporated into the character of Rocky Balboa. "I wouldn’t recommend this diet to anyone. But if you’re young and poor, it will suffice," he noted, adding that he was surprised he never contracted salmonella. He described using his windowsill as a makeshift refrigerator for eggs and cottage cheese during colder months.
His financial struggles extended to employment. One of Stallone's early jobs involved cleaning cages at the Central Park Zoo, a role he found frightening due to the proximity of the lions. He also worked at Dover Delicatessen, where he endured demanding customers and the physical toll of slicing lox thinly enough to be translucent. This job eventually led to a brief incarceration at "The Tombs," New York's notorious detention facility, after an altercation.
After his release, Stallone reflected on those challenging years, emphasizing the importance of complete sacrifice for one's goals. "If you don’t sacrifice completely and fail, you’ll suffer for the rest of your life going, ‘Why didn’t I try harder?'" he stated. He believed that facing failure allowed one to say, "I tried," avoiding the regret of not pursuing his dreams to the fullest. Stallone concluded that the lessons learned during his impoverished beginnings continue to resonate in "Rocky," which underscores that achieving a goal requires total dedication and sacrifice.