Before he was Rocky or Rambo, Sylvester Stallone’s 1960s were defined by grueling struggles, a shifting identity, and the literal formulation of his trademark look. Born in 1946, Stallone spent the 1960s transitioning from a turbulent teenager into a broke, aspiring theater student trying to find his footing.
Stallone’s childhood was rough, complications at birth left him with partial paralysis on the lower left side of his face, creating his signature slurred speech and snarling look. By the early 1960s, he was a deeply troubled youth living in Philadelphia. He was expelled from multiple schools for behavioral issues and fighting. To channel his aggression, his mother eventually sent him to Devereux Manor High School, a specialized boarding school in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, where he finally started lifting weights, throwing the shot put, and dipping his toes into high school theater productions.
In the mid-1960s, Stallone moved to Switzerland to attend the American College in Leysin. It was a bizarre but pivotal chapter. He worked as a dorm bouncer and a girls’ physical education coach to pay his tuition. It was here that he starred in a campus production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The experience made him realize that acting was the only career he wanted to pursue.
Returning to the US, Stallone spent two years studying drama at the University of Miami from 1967 to 1969. He didn’t finish his degree; instead, he dropped out just blocks short of graduation to move directly to New York City to conquer the theater world. By the very end of 1969, he was living the ultimate “starving artist” lifestyle, sleeping in bus terminals, taking odd jobs like cleaning lion cages at the Central Park Zoo, and ushering at theaters just to stay close to the stage.
It wasn’t until 1970 that he would land his first minor film roles, paving the long, rocky road to his 1976 breakthrough.
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