The Greatest Myth About ‘Rocky’ Debunked: ‘Getting Sly To Star in the Film Was Not Difficult’ (Exclusive)

When I Play Rocky is released this November, it will focus on the legendary behind-the-scenes story of the original Rocky—currently celebrating 50 years—and the way that Sylvester Stallone not only wrote the film, but held the script hostage until he was allowed to star in the title role. It’s one of that film’s greatest myths, though producer Robert Chartoff revealed to this writer something very different back in the 1990s.

Here’s how things originally supposedly went down, with director John G. Avildsen stating, “A number of people wanted to star in the film, but much to Stallone’s credit, he said, ‘Nothing doing. I play it or nobody does.’ He was a starving actor at the time, so he didn’t have a lot of options.”

Concurred Stallone himself in the pages of The Official Rocky Scrapbook, “United Artists said they would love me to do it, only I was not bankable. I was an unknown commodity. They felt they should go with any of the 10 or 15 major actors who are marketable. They eventually offered me $265,000. But something deep inside, or wherever our real conscience lives, told me that the money meant nothing. ‘This is it. You’re on the ride of your life. Don’t let go, because if you do, you’re going to hate yourself for the rest of your life. The movie is about not selling out. The movie is about going the distance. The movie is about that million-to-one shot. Don’t become a hack.’”

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So far so good, but this is what the late Robert Chartoff (who was partnered with Irwin Winkler) admitted in an exclusive conversation we had during the film’s 20th anniversary: “Getting Sly to star in the film was not difficult, despite anything you might have heard over the years. The studio just didn’t care that much whether or not we made the picture. I think they were hoping we would forget about it. What had happened was that Irwin Winkler and myself had just signed a long-term commitment with United Artists to make films. They were hoping that we would fill a niche of making big-name films. We had just made New York, New York for them and they wanted us to make substantial pictures, but then we brought in this little film with ‘Who? Sylvester what?’ Obviously they didn’t have any strong feelings about making it. It was something that we wanted to make, and it was probably because we were just starting fresh with the studio and were committed to doing it that they agreed to do it. But there was never any question in my mind that Sylvester Stallone was going to be starring in it, in spite of all of the mythical stories you might hear. Making a million-dollar picture with Stallone, that’s what it was all about.”

Now you know the story behind the story!