Daily Mirror - 19.08.2019

DM1ST

(^14) DAILY MIRROR MONDAY 19.08.
STALLONE:
1976 with his
story about
no-hoper
boxer Rocky,
but he had to
fight to star in
his own film as
studio executives
wanted to give the
role to the more well-
known leading men Robert
Redford or Burt Reynolds.
Stallone then turned to the world
of wrestling for inspiration to direct
his first film Paradise Alley in 1978,
before heading back into the boxing
ring the following year to write, star
in and direct Rocky II.
Before he hit the big time, Stal-
lone married his first wife, photog-
rapher and actress Sasha Czack, in

1974. The couple had two sons, Sage
      Moonblood Stallone, who died from
      heart disease aged 36 in 2012, and
      40-year-old Seargeoh, who was
      diagnosed with autism.
      As with so many Hollywood
      marriages it didn’t last.
      Stallone divorced Czack in 1985,
      tying the knot with Danish actress
      Brigitte Nielsen, 17 years his junior,
      the same year.
      When they met, the 22-year-old
      sex bomb was starring alongside
      Arnold Schwarzenegger as Marvel
      Comics’ heroine Red Sonja, a char-
      acter who could crack the heads of
      her enemies between her thighs.
      The couple were divorced in 1987.
      Although not before Brigitte

1995 Assassins

1995 Judge Dredd

1994 The Specialist

1993 Demolition Man

1993 Cliffhanger

1992 Stop! Or My Mom

Will Shoot

1990 Rocky V

1989 Tango & Cash

1989 Lock Up

1988 Rambo III

1987 Over the

To p

1986 Cobra

1985 Rocky IV

1985 Rambo:

First Blood Part II

1982 Rambo:

First Blood

1982 Rocky III

1979 Rocky II

1976 Rocky

1975 Death Race 200 0

1974 The Lords of

Flatbush

1969 The Square Root

2019 Rambo: Last Blood

2019 Escape Plan: The

Extractors

2018 Creed II

2018 Escape Plan 2: Hades

2017 Guardians of the

Galaxy Vol. 2

2015 Creed

2014 The

Expendables 3

2013 Escape Plan

2012 The

Expendables 2

2010 The

Expendables

2008 Rambo:

John Rambo

2006 Rocky Balboa

2003 Spy Kids 3-D: Game

Over

2001 Driven

2000 Get Carter

1997 Cop Land

1996 Daylight

HIS TOP FILMS

DEBUT The Square Root

C

elebrating the heroics of

goalie Adrian after winning

football’s European Super

Cup last week, Liverpool FC

manager Jurgen Klopp launched

into an impression of Rocky Balboa.

The movie boxer, just like the

Vietnam veteran John Rambo, is the

iconic creation of Sylvester Stal-

lone, who is celebrating 50 years in

the movie business this summer.

Next month the Hollywood

legend, 73, is back on our screens

again with Rambo: Last Blood, an

incredible 37 years after releasing

Rambo: First Blood.

And Stallone says the battles he

faces in his own life often resemble

those Rocky has fought in the ring.

“Every time I’ve failed, people had

me out for the count, but I always

come back,” says the seasoned

actor, writer and filmmaker.

Despite still feeling punchy with

studio executives – who he says

cost him £200million in lost earn-

ings – the action hero has made a

sizeable £330million fortune.

He wrote and starred in Rocky –

it made £200million at the box

office in 1976 and won Oscars for

Best Picture and Director.

It cost around $1million to make,

and since then all the Rocky films

have grossed more than $1.5billion.

The New York actor has gone on

to have a fantastic career, making

almost 70 movies.

But the path to global supers-

tardom was never easy for the man

from the wrong side of the tracks.

Even being born in Hell’s Kitchen

on July 6, 1946, had its difficulties.

Doctors using two pairs of

forceps severed a nerve and para-

lysed the lower left side of his face.

It left him with his signature snarl

and slurred speech.

B

orn Michael Sylvester Enzio

Stallone to parents Italian

hairdresser Francesco Stal-

lone and Jackie Stallone, the

young Sly spent the first years of his

life in foster care due to his parents’

rocky marriage.

But despite being eventually

reunited with them and his younger

brother Frank when he was five, his

parents divorced a few years later.

It goes a long way to explaining

why he was expelled regularly from

schools, and ended up in a high

school for troubled youths.

Luckily a love of acting saved him

from a life of petty crime, and,

after drama school in

Miami, Florida, Stallone

appeared in his first

movie The Square

Root in 1969.

Quick success was

to elude him, and his

early career mainly

consisted of jobs as

an extra or bit parts –

with one notorious

exception when he was

paid £165 for two days’ work

on a softcore porn movie The Party

at Kitty and Stud’s in 1970.

The actor said he was left with

little choice after being evicted and

having to sleep rough in a New York

bus terminal in the middle of

winter. He said: “It was either do

that or rob someone, I was at the

end of my rope.”

Stallone’s success finally came in

VETERAN In Rambo First Blood: Part II

FORCE With action film legends in The Expendables 3

DESPERATE In

soft porn movie

FLICKS

Cop Land

and, left,

Stop! Or

My Mom

Will Shoot

MASK Judge Dredd

days after she vanished. Her family, of

Balham, South West London, believed

she was abducted due to her brain

condition, which meant she would “not

go anywhere alone”.

The girl died after suffering intestinal

bleeding, probably from starvation and

stress. Meabh and Sebastien are due to

leave Malaysia today.

Nora’s body, being kept at a funeral

parlour in Kuala Lumpur, will follow.

Parents saw mediums

in attempt to find Nora

BY PATRICK HILL in Seremban, Malaysia

THE parents of Nora Quoirin were taken

by police to a group of four mediums in

a desperate bid to find the 15-year-old.

Spiritualists held a two-hour audience

the day before she was found dead.

But mum Meabh, 45, and dad

Sebastien, 47, left the “spiritual cere-

mony” on Pantai Hill – site of the luxury

Dusun rainforest resort where the family

were staying – after just an hour.

A source said: “Police were under

pressure and struggling with the case.

“They wanted to do anything and

everything to find a breakthrough.

“Mediums asked ‘spirits’ to return

Nora to her family, which many locals

believe was behind her being found.”

Malaysian police have tried to down-

play the meeting with the mediums.

They have faced criticism for failing

to trace Nora, who survived in the jungle

for up to a week.

Her body was found naked a mile-

and-a-half from the resort by hikers, 10

DEVOTED MUM Meabh with daughter Nora

BY SIOBHAN MCNALLY and

JAMES DESBOROUGH