We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.
Sylvester Stallone became one of the most successful actors of his generation, after playing an underdog boxer in the 1976 classic “Rocky.” It proved a stunning commercial and artistic success, winning three Academy Awards, and thrust his career into the stratosphere.
In his new memoir, “The Steps” (to be published Sept. 29 by William Morrow), the actor writes of his early struggles, before creating the character of Rocky Balboa.
Read the excerpt below, in which he recounts the genesis of writing his screenplay for “Rocky”; and don’t miss Tracy Smith’s interview with Sylvester Stallone on “CBS Sunday Morning” September 27!
Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.
It was winter and California was cooling off. Sasha was with child. I was broke. I was in desperate need of an original idea to write about, and I was still blank.
Thomas Paine said it perfectly in 1776: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
I knew that I needed to find something special, but also something that most people could relate to. I just had no idea where to start. Even if I did, I wasn’t sure the opportunity with Chartoff and Winkler was still there, or that I deserved it. I had my chance with them, and I blew it by giving in like a coward and selling the rights to Paradise Alley for a hundred bucks.
I was still angry with myself for not holding my ground, but maybe that anger was getting in my way. It certainly wasn’t helping me fill my notebooks with quality writing. You can only stare at a blank page for so long. One night, deep into a fruitless writing session, I got up from the table around three in the morning and wandered up and down the deserted streets of our neighborhood, thinking and talking to myself.
Am I the only person who feels that life is hard, cold, and dismissive? I can’t be the only one who feels like their window has been closed on them when they didn’t even know it had been opened in the first place.
I didn’t think so.
I started to kick around this idea that maybe many people feel the way I do. How many hundreds of millions of people have abandoned their dream, the possibility of at least getting one shot to prove their worth? To find out, once and for all: Do I really have what I think I have inside?
I believed that the most frustrating aspect of my life was really easy to identify: It was not having an opportunity. If I failed? So be it. At least I had the opportunity to step up to the plate, pick up the bat, and try to hit a home run. I may strike out, but at least I went down swinging.
My wheels really started to spin. I was on to something that so many other people could relate to. I couldn’t possibly be the only person out of billions of people to feel like they were living life in desperate frustration because the door of golden opportunity had been shut in their face over and over. This theme offered a whole different angle on “writing what I knew”—not about what has happened to me, exactly; instead, writing about what generally happens to almost everybody in one form or another. After all, my story is just the story of any person who has ever dreamed of doing something special or unexpected with their lives but was never given a chance.
This was a theme that people could identify with!
I went into the house, got out my notebook, and I started writing like a man possessed! Then a few pages in, I stopped. I was writing too directly about myself again. Who really cares about a broke actor’s trials and tribulations? Nobody. Acting is a very odd profession, to say the least. Actors require an audience. They need to be loved by strangers. To be validated. That’s not really relatable unless you’re another actor.
What about the story of a character whose dream had already crashed and burned, and he’d accepted himself as a loser in life? A “bum.” But what kind of person would he be? What kind of dreams did he once have?
I knew I needed something that was symbolic. A relatable metaphor for life.
—
Two things come naturally to the human species. One is racing. Everyone is racing to get somewhere, to do something, to accomplish a goal. To be first. We race everything from cars to turtles to dogs, everything. We even race time itself. The second thing that comes naturally is fighting. Because life is a fight from the day you take your first breath. It’s a struggle. On every level. It’s a nonstop battle with yourself, with the elements, with society, with time.
I thought of life as a boxing ring. When you decide to get in there, “life” will hurt you if you don’t fight. You’re going to get hit, knocked down. But you can’t complain. You got in there, now you’ve got to figure out how to survive.
This character will definitely have to be a fighter, whatever his dreams are. But maybe he’s an actual fighter. Maybe he’s a boxer, I thought.
From “The Steps: A Memoir” by Sylvester Stallone. © 2026 by Sylvester Stallone. Published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Get the book here:
“The Steps” by Sylvester Stallone
Buy locally from Bookshop.org
For more info:
- “The Steps: A Memoir” by Sylvester Stallone (William Morrow), in Hardcover, Large Print Trade paperback, eBook and Audio formats, available Sept. 29
