BOXING CLEVER

MARION McMULLEN LOOKS BACK AT HOW SYLVESTER STALLONE BECAME A BIG-SCREEN CHAMP AS THE HOLLYWOOD STAR TURNS 80

- MARION McMULLEN

“I’M not handsome in the classical sense,” Sylvester Stallone once said. “The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren't straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.”

The son of a Sicilian immigrant was born Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone 80 years ago on July 6 in the charity ward of a hospital in New York's Hell’s Kitchen.

His looks were determined when the doctor’s forceps slipped when he was born and accidentally severed a nerve in his cheek. It left him with a drooping mouth, paralysis on the lower left side of his face and slurred speech.

Sly later said: “When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair.”

One of his first jobs saw him cleaning lion cages at the Central Park Zoo in New York City, but he was determined to carve out a career in the movies.

He has described himself as an insecure kid growing up but started hitting the weights and building up his muscles when he saw actor Steve Reeves in the movie Hercules. “It completely changed my life,” he said. “If I had never gone to that film, I wouldn't be here today.”

His first film break came with The Lords Of Flatbush in 1974 when he appeared alongside Happy Days actor Henry Winkler, Perry King and Paul Mace in a movie set in 1950s Brooklyn.