Sylvester Stallone is opening up about the years before "Rocky" made him a household name - and by his own account, they were far harder than the underdog story he later became famous for telling.
In his new memoir, "The Steps," out Sept. 29, the 80-year-old actor traces his life from a difficult birth - a complication that left lasting effects on the left side of his face and speech, features that became part of his signature look - through a childhood marked by an unstable, often harsh home life and years of being written off and misunderstood in school. Stallone has said in recent interviews that he was voted "most likely to end up in the electric chair" by his classmates.
The book frames those years as the foundation, not a footnote, of what came later. Stallone recounts arriving in New York City in 1969 with no money and no connections, a moment he's described as the point he realized no one else was going to carry him forward. That drive eventually led to "Rocky," the 1976 film he wrote himself after years of rejection, and which won Best Picture at the 1977 Academy Awards.
The book's framing - struggle first, triumph earned rather than given - echoes the same message the "Rocky" steps in Philadelphia have symbolized for audiences for nearly 50 years.
Stallone has said he wants the memoir to be less a highlight reel and more an honest account of what it actually took: years of being counted out before anyone believed the story would end differently. That kind of hard-won perseverance is a message that resonates well beyond Hollywood.
