In the early 1970s, Sylvester Stallone was an impoverished, struggling actor—at one point, he even had to sell his dog in order to get money to feed himself and to avoid starving the dog! One night, Stallone went to see a boxing match. The great Muhammad Ali was fighting Chuck Wepner. Ali knocked Wepner out with only seconds left in the fifteenth round, but the match is still remembered for being one of only four fights in which Ali was officially knocked down. Stallone was instantly inspired: “What I saw was pretty extraordinary. I saw a man called ‘The Bayonne Bleeder’ fight the greatest fighter who ever lived. And for one brief moment, this supposed stumblebum turned out to be magnificent. And he lasted and knocked the champ down. I thought if this isn’t a metaphor for life.”

Three days later, Stallone had completed a 90-page script telling the story of a small-time boxer who gets the chance of a lifetime to meet the reigning world heavyweight champion in the ring. During a casting call for another film (a role Stallone realized didn’t suit him), Stallone mentioned his script to the producers, who asked to see it. This wasn’t the first script Stallone had attempted to sell; he was already the writer of 32 rejected scripts. This time, however, the producers were pretty excited. They offered Stallone $360,000 for the rights to it. But there was a catch: they didn’t want Stallone to play the lead character. Stallone (who had $106 in the bank at the time) wasn’t having any of that: “I thought, ‘You know what? You’ve got this poverty thing down. You really don’t need much to live on.’ I sort of figured it out. I was in no way used to the good life. So I knew in the back of my mind that if I sell this script and it does very, very well, I’m going to jump off a building if I’m not in it. There’s no doubt in my mind. I’m going to be very, very upset…So this is one of those things, when you just roll the dice and fly by the proverbial seat of your pants and you just say, ‘I’ve got to try it. I’ve just got to do it. I may be totally wrong, and I’m going to take a lot of people down with me, but I just believe in it.’”

Stallone in the iconic “Rocky” victory pose after conquering the stairs outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Well, the producers eventually let Stallone make Rocky (1976, Robert Chartoff-Irwin Winkler Production; United Artists)—with a super small budget of about $1 million. The film experienced both critical and popular success, garnering over $100 million and spawning four direct sequels (Rocky II-V), 2006’s Rocky Balboa, 2015’s Creed, and the upcoming Creed II (set to be released November 2018). The original Rocky film beat out big contenders for Best Picture in All the President’s Men, Bound for Glory, Network, and Taxi Driver. With ten nominations total, Rocky took home only two other Oscars: Film Editing and Directing for John G. Avildsen. It did not win in the following categories: Sound, Writing (Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen—based on factual material or on story material not previously published or produced), Music (Original Song) for “Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti, Actor in a Supporting Role for Burgess Meredith as Mickey, Actor in a Supporting Role for Burt Young as Paulie, Actress in a Leading Role for Talia Shire as Adrian, and Actor in a Leading Role for Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa himself, the “Italian Stallion.”

This is probably putting it mildly, but Rocky has become an American cultural icon. It’s not really possible to hear either “Gonna Fly Now” or “Eye of the Tiger” (the theme song from Rocky III) without conjuring up images of Sylvester Stallone and flying fists. That being said, it’s even more interesting to me that such an “All-American” film was released during one of the most “American” years ever: 1976, America’s Bicentennial. (There were some pretty big parties that year to celebrate America’s birthday, the footage of which is worth checking out on YouTube!). Stallone, the son of an immigrant, set his 1976 rags-to-riches story in Philadelphia, the same city in which the Declaration of Independence had been signed 200 years earlier—by some other sons of immigrants (as well as a few actual immigrants). Random connection? Maybe so. But I like to think that Rocky’s theme and setting and date of release–as well as Stallone’s own personal journey–all contribute to the film’s attempting to capture an image of the American Dream, and it’s nice to believe that such a thing still existed not that long ago.

For more thoughts on Rocky and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!