Fighting The Good Fight!

FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT

It's no secret that the Rocky movies have, in some sense, mirrored the career of the man who wrote and starred in them all. In the 1970s, Sylvester Stallone was a struggling actor who got his shot at the big time by writing, on spec, a screenplay about a struggling boxer who gets his shot at the big time—starting with the original Rocky, which won an Oscar for Best Picture in 1976. In the 1980s, as Stallone was at the height of his box-office power, Rocky was transformed, quite abruptly, from a hoodlum with a heart of gold to a wealthy celebrity who enjoys his fame and riches but fears that he may have lost his edge. And then, in 1990, as Stallone's star began to fade, Rocky lost his fortune—again, quite abruptly—and retired to the low-income Philadelphia neighborhood where his story had first begun.