Sylvester Enzio Stallone born Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, July 6, (1946) is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. After his beginnings as a struggling actor for a number of years upon arriving to New York City in 1969 and later Hollywood in 1974, he won his first critical acclaim as an actor for his co-starring role as Stanley Rosiello in The Lords of Flatbush. In 1977, Stallone was the third actor in cinema to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor. Stallone’s film Rocky was inducted into the National Film Registry, and had its props placed in the Smithsonian Museum. Stallone saw a decline in popularity in the early 2000s but rebounded back to prominence in 2006 with a sixth installment in the Rocky series and 2008 with a fourth in the Rambo series. In the 2010s, Stallone launched The Expendables films series (2010–2014), in which he played the lead as the mercenary Barney Ross.
Stallone is the only actor in the history of U.S. cinema to have starred in a box office number one film across six consecutive decades. Complications suffered by Stallone’s mother during labor forced her obstetricians to use two pairs of forceps during his birth; misuse of these forceps accidentally severed a nerve and caused paralysis in parts of Stallone’s face. As a result, the lower left side of his face is paralyzed (including parts of his lip, tongue, and chin), an accident which gave him his signature snarling look and slurred speech. As a child, he was bullied as a result, so he coped with bodybuilding and acting. He was baptized Catholic. His father moved the family to Washington, D.C. in the early 1950s to open a beauty school. In 1954, his mother opened a women’s gym called Barbella’s.
