Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone

Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone (/stəˈloʊn/; born July 6, 1946), is an American actor, screenwriter and film director.[2] Stallone is well known for his Hollywood action roles. Two notable characters he has portrayed are the boxer Rocky Balboa and soldier John Rambo. He wrote every episode of two eponymous franchises, and directed some of their installments as well.

Stallone's film Rocky was inducted into the National Film Registry as well as having its film props placed in the Smithsonian Museum. Stallone's use of the front entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the Rocky series led the area to be nicknamed the Rocky Steps. Philadelphia has a statue of his Rocky character placed permanently near the museum. It was announced on December 7, 2010 that Stallone was voted into boxing's Hall of Fame.[3]

He has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Rocky, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor. He is the third man in history to receive these two nominations for the same film, after Charles Chaplin and Orson Welles.
Sylvester Stallone was born Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone[1][4] in New York City, the elder son of Frank Stallone, Sr., a hairdresser, and Jacqueline "Jackie" Stallone (née Labofish), an astrologer, former dancer, and promoter of women's wrestling. Stallone's father was born in Gioia del Colle, Apulia, Italy, and emigrated to the United States in the 1930s.[5][6] Stallone's mother is of half Russian Jewish and half French (from Brittany) descent.[7][8] His younger brother is actor and musician Frank Stallone.

Complications his mother suffered during labor forced her obstetricians to use two pairs of forceps during his birth; misuse of these accidentally severed a nerve and caused paralysis in parts of Stallone's face.[9][10] As a result, the lower left side of his face is paralyzed – including parts of his lip, tongue, and chin – an accident which has given Stallone his snarling look and slightly slurred speech.[10] Stallone was baptized Catholic.[11] His father, a beautician, moved the family to Washington, D.C., where he opened a beauty school. His mother opened a women's gymnasium called Barbella's in 1954.[12] Stallone's parents divorced when Sylvester was nine, and he eventually lived with his mother.[10] He attended Notre Dame Academy and Lincoln High School in Philadelphia.[13] He attended Charlotte Hall Military Academy prior to attending Miami Dade College and the University of Miami