Today in History: The first Rocky movie debuts in theatres
The movie starred a then-unknown Sylvester Stallone, and would catapult him to fame shortly after its release.
On this day in 1976, Rocky, starring Sylvester Stallone as the underdog prizefighter Rocky Balboa, debuted in New York City.
The movie, which opened in theatres across the United States on 3 December 1976, was a huge box-office hit and received 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay for the then little-known Stallone. Rocky ultimately took home three Oscars, including one for Best Picture, and made Stallone one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Sylvester Stallone was born on 6 July 1946, in New York City. By the early 1970s, he had begun his professional acting career, appearing in off-Broadway shows and bit movie roles. Frustrated by his lack of success, Stallone started penning screenplays, including The Lords of Flatbush (1974), in which he co-starred with another relatively unknown young actor named Henry Winkler.
Stallone’s career was transformed after the success of his next screenplay, Rocky, in which he insisted on playing the lead. Produced on a shoestring budget, the film told the story of Rocky Balboa, a small-time, down-on-his-luck Philadelphia boxer who worked as a debt collector for a loan shark before getting a shot at the world heavyweight championship.
Rocky includes such memorable lines as “Yo, Adrian!” (directed at Rocky’s love interest, played by Talia Shire) and “You’re gonna eat lightning, you’re gonna cr@p thunder”, as well as the now iconic scene in which Rocky takes a training run up and down the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as the movie’s theme song, “Gonna Fly Now”, plays.
Stallone went on to write and star in five more Rocky movies: Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982), Rocky IV (1985), Rocky V (1990), and Rocky Balboa (2006). He also played an integral part in the making of two other movies within the Rocky universe which follow the story of Apollo Creed’s son; namely, Creed (2015) and Creed II (2018).
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