Sylvester Stallone's Net Worth: Contender to Champion
How do you go from being a dead broke, aspiring actor to have Sylvester Stallone’s net worth of $400 million? We have to go back in time to find out.
Imagine it is the early 1970s. You are an aspiring actor in Hollywood. Day after day, you go to casting calls. Week after week, you face rejection. It is very difficult to keep going but you know you will make it if you just keep trying.
The Before-Famous Stallone
You go to a casting call for a film called “The Lords of Flatbush.” It is a period piece. The story is about a greaser gang from the fifties. Therefore, you dress the part and go to the audition. In the waiting area, you see many other young guys who look exactly like you, hair slicked back, leather jacket, tall, macho, and handsome. You hope you don’t look as desperate as they do.
You sit next to a guy who is somehow different from everyone. His face is a little… bent maybe, or just looks like he was in a fight recently. He is a bit shorter at 5 foot 10 inches than all the other auditioning who are mostly over six feet tall. However, his height is the average height for a man. This is not an issue for the big screen because the camera angles can easily compensate. Nevertheless, he is handsome but not intimidating. Looks, more like a regular Joe than a future superstar.
You introduce yourself. He says his name is “Sylvester.” You think to yourself, “That is an awful first name for a masculine guy.”
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Maybe Next Time You’ll be Chosen
You only get a few minutes for your audition. You wait to hear from your agent. Unfortunately, you do not make the cast in the film. Instead, they choose the guy named Sylvester, who was sitting next to you! You are not jealous. You faced rejection dozens of times, so you are used to not getting the job. You are happy for Sylvester because the guy did seem nice. You are happy to have been that close to the lucky guy chosen for the film. You do still wonder if he will change his name.
Looking back, it is better now that he kept his name. Stallone’s full legal name is Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone. He could have used Michael Stallone. However, that now sounds weird. Now, he goes by his nickname of “Sly” Stallone that is very appropriate.
Top 10 Reasons Why People Love Sylvester Stallone!
It would have been ridiculous to think at the time when I met Sylvester Stallone, as an aspiring actor, that I just sat next to a guy who would eventually accumulate a net worth over $400 million from being an actor. I did very well in my career. I became a writer in spite of challenges. Writers face more rejection than even actors do. However, I did not yet assemble a net worth like Sylvester Stallone’s net worth of $400 million. That is impressive!
Sylvester Stallone’s Early Days
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When the baby Sylvester was born on July 6, 1946, Mental Floss says the doctor used forceps (metal prongs) to help deliver the baby. Unfortunately, this injured parts of his delicate face from the pressure, leaving the baby with permanent nerve damage that caused paralysis in some parts of his face. This was not life-threatening but did give Sylvester Stallone his unique look.
A Brutal Childhood for Stallone
Stallone’s childhood was difficult. As a toddler, he went into foster care because his parents were fighting. Then, he reunited with his parents at age five only to have them divorce a few years later. The other children teased him in school because of his droopy face and slurred speech giving him very low self-esteem. They called him “Sylvia” to torment him. Many times primary schools expelled him and he went to a high school for troubled teens.
He overcame this, graduated high school, and then took acting classes at the University of Miami before dropping out to go to New York to try his luck at acting.
The Italian Stallion
Hardcore fans who want to see “everything” need to track down a copy of the young Stallone in a 1970 porno film called The Italian Stallion (renamed from the original title of The Party at Kitty and Stud's), which leaves little for the imagination. Stallone is well endowed in the film but not necessarily well endowed with acting skills. There is plenty of action in this film but not much acting. Stallone was paid $200 for two days of work in this low-budget porno. He was starving at the time and needed the money to survive.
The Big Break For a Dead Broke Stallone
Stallone’s big break was not The Lords of Flatbush. Being in that film got him some recognition and casting in minor roles in other movies and television projects over the following two years.
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While he was down on his luck financially and in-between going to casting calls, he was inspired to write the screenplay for the film Rocky after seeing a boxing match of Muhammad Ali. Forbes says that Stallone got an offer from Chartoff-Winkler Productions to buy the Rocky screenplay for $360,000 without him starring in it. To put this in perspective, that amount is about $1.6 million in today’s money after accounting for inflation.
Any aspiring screenwriter (like me) would have been ecstatic to receive such pay for the sale of their first movie screenplay. Not Stallone. He says when asked about it, that he would have jumped off a building if he sold the story, it became a success, and he was not starring in it.
Rocky Meets the Fonz
Henry Winkler also got a role in “The Lords of Flatbush” and then later went on to play the iconic character of the “Fonz” in the television series of “Happy Days.” Yet, Celebrity Net Worth reports that Winkler only amassed a net worth of $30 million, less than one-tenth of Sylvester Stallone’s net worth, although more than 30 times mine. It seems like being a famous movie star, pays better than being a famous television star, which pays better than being a not-as-famous writer. To each his own.
The Determined Stallone
Even though he was flat broke, living in his car, and had to sell his dog to make sure the dog would get enough to eat, he turned down the offer to sell his Rocky screenplay. He demanded that the producers also agree to make him the star. They finally relented and gave him a budget of $960,000 to make the film. That was a low budget for a film, even in the 1970s.
Stallone had a single determination and that was to star in the film he wrote called Rocky. The Rocky story is the Stallone story. He had to overcome all the odds against him and we all truly admire what he did. Rocky received nine Oscar nominations and won three Oscars including the Academy Award for Best Picture. This film made Stallone a superstar.
From Rocky To Rambo
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What Stallone is incredibly good at doing is creating iconic characters that are anti-heroes. People think of him as an actor, but actually, he is a terrific writer as well. Stallone’s heroes are not necessarily the classical hero, who is pure of heart and overcomes the challenges to defeat the bad guy. Stallone’s hero characters are incredibly flawed but stubborn as hell.
Stallone created Rambo to address the sentiment of the war heroes who returned from Vietnam to face a country where the majority of the younger Americans, who were their peers, rejected them.
The first Rambo film is a psychodrama about how it feels to be a trained killer, to do your duty as an American in the Army’s Special Forces as a Green Beret, and then return back home to a world that rejects your mere existence. Rambo goes on a rampage destroying a small town; however, the audience loves it because Rambo does not want to do this and has no other choice when hunted by law enforcement officers who want to kill him.
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Successful Films Of Sylvester Stallone
The Rocky series made eight films and the Rambo series made six films so far with at least one more in the works. These two franchises are responsible for most of Sylvester Stallone’s net worth. The Rocky series brought in more than $700 million at the box office and the Rambo franchise did about $338 million. In total, the global box office for all the films starring Sylvester Stallone is close to $4 billion.
The After-Famous Stallone
It was more than ten years, from the release of The Lords of Flatbush, before I would see Stallone in person again. I moved to New York to advance my writing career and worked part-time as the manager of a fancy cigar club on Fifth Avenue. All my clients were wealthy famous men. One day, Stallone came to the club with his entourage, which included a Native American man who was his bodyguard. The man was much bigger than Stallone, over six feet tall like me, and towered over Stallone.
I remember thinking, "Stallone looks so much smaller in person than he does in the movies." I was happy to see him since I had met the before-famous Stallone briefly and now could see the after picture of his success. He was decent but standoffish and not exactly overtly friendly. Superstardom had definitely changed him.
I told him I was buddies with Arnold Schwarzenegger who came daily to smoke cigars in my club. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. In my naiveté, I thought he would like guys who were also action stars but at that time, it was more of a competitive thing, since they did not know each other.
I was happy to read later that Schwarzenegger and Stallone became close friends when they worked on the Expendables films together. Arnold is a really great guy. I knew Stallone would like him as much as I do. As one of the richest celebrities, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s net worth is about $400 million too, so Stallone has lots in common with him.
Net Worth from Real Estate
Stallone owns a luxurious mansion in Beverley Hills that has over 15,000 square feet, situated on 3.5 acres in the gated community called Beverly Park. Houses typically sell for $40 to $70 million in that neighborhood.
He had a large estate in Miami Florida, where he lived during the 1990s before he took up residence in Beverly Hills. The estate is on 14 acres overlooking Biscayne Bay and his restoration from a rundown condition when he bought it, is extravagant.
He owns a vacation home in La Quinta, California (a suburb of Los Angeles) that is worth around $3 million, which he is trying to sell. It is currently listed (June 2020) for $3.35 million.
Net Worth from Car Collection
Stallion owns a few million dollars worth of collector cars that include a custom Camaro SS, a 1950 Mercury featured in the film Cobra, and an Aston Martin DBS. He enjoys racecars and likes to race them on the track. In the movie, Cliffhanger, he did some of the stunt driving. He keeps his car collection in specially designed garages on his estate in Beverly Hills.
Charity Work
Stallone’s favorite charity is the Pediatric Epilepsy Project. He also appeared at an event to raise money for the Canadian Diabetes Foundation that collected over $100,000 from that single event. He supports many efforts to help underprivileged children probably because he can relate to their plight very well.
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Stallone is yet another great example that you can accomplish everything you want if you try hard enough and stick to your ideas and goals. His life story is indeed an inspiring one. If you, too, have been moved by it or motivated to start building your own wealth I’m very happy to hear that!
Conclusion
I never got to know Stallone very well. I probably will not run into him again since I am mostly alone in my room living on my ranch in Mexico doing my writing work. However, I will always admire his fortitude, since I know first-hand the kind of incredibly difficult stuff he had to go through to become successful. I am happy to see that when interviewed recently, he seemed to have mellowed a bit from his intensity when he was young. He laughs more easily now and, hopefully, is enjoying himself.