Long before Rocky turned Sylvester Stallone into a star, he found a way to make one shower handle two necessities at once. The struggling actor says he used to step under the water fully dressed, washing himself and his clothes together because every dollar mattered.
Stallone returned to New York City in 1969 with $60, and $43.60 of it was already earmarked for rent. He rented a room so small that he later compared its dimensions to a jail cell and shared a bathroom with roughly 10 other people while pursuing acting work.
“I could never afford to go to a laundromat,” the 80-year-old told Fox News Digital. His solution was to lather up his shirt, pants, underwear and socks while he was already in the shower.
The story is one of several accounts of poverty and odd jobs Stallone revisits in The Steps, his memoir released September 29 by William Morrow. Stallone’s official site says the book traces his path from his 1969 return to New York through Rocky‘s triumph at the 1977 Academy Awards.
His Shower Doubled as a Laundry Routine
The routine came with the realities of a heavily shared bathroom. Stallone joked that finding a usable piece of soap sometimes meant first checking whether it had a “strange hair” attached before using it on both his body and whatever clothes he was wearing.
Stallone told Fox that his wife finds the practice gross, while he remembers it as a practical calculation during a period when even a trip to the laundromat felt like an unnecessary expense.
Stallone was earning small amounts wherever he could while continuing to spend his time approaching agents, watching films and trying to establish himself as an actor.
His Raw-Egg Diet Later Became Part of ‘Rocky’
Food required the same kind of improvisation. Fox reported that Stallone sometimes had only a dollar or two available for the day, leading him to eat cottage cheese and drink three or four raw eggs as an inexpensive source of food.
Cold New York weather gave him a makeshift refrigerator. From roughly October through March, Stallone said he could leave the eggs and cottage cheese on his windowsill, avoiding the need to cook and creating almost no dishes to clean afterward.
Today, Stallone describes that diet as a terrible idea and says he is amazed he avoided salmonella. The experience nevertheless supplied a detail he later gave Rocky Balboa, whose famous training routine includes drinking raw eggs before heading out to run.
Lion Cages and Late-Night Lox Helped Pay the Bills
Stallone cycled through jobs that had little to do with acting. Vanity Fair reports that he spent roughly three and a half weeks cleaning lion cages at the Central Park Zoo, working from about 5:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.
The animals themselves made the job unnerving, but the smell ultimately became a professional problem. Stallone wrote that the odor from the cages clung to him so strongly that approaching talent agencies afterward became difficult, prompting him to move on from the zoo work.
Another opportunity appeared when he spotted a help-wanted sign at Dover Delicatessen. Stallone took the 6 p.m.-to-2 a.m. shift and became skilled at slicing lox thin enough to satisfy demanding customers, eventually saving enough from the job to buy himself a winter coat.
The overnight hours also exposed him to a different side of New York. Stallone recalled dealing with argumentative customers, late-night drinkers and other unpredictable visitors while continuing to pursue acting during the hours away from the deli.
The Deli Job Ended With a Night at ‘The Tombs’
An altercation at the deli eventually put Stallone in the back of a police car. He recalled being handcuffed while still wearing his work apron and name tag before officers took him to the Manhattan detention facility widely known as “The Tombs.”
Fox reports that Stallone described being placed in a roughly 20-by-20-foot holding cell with at least 25 other men. Violence unfolded almost immediately around him, giving the aspiring actor a much harsher end to his deli shift than anything he had experienced behind the counter.
A criminal court judge eventually released him. Stallone threw the apron into the trash as he left and returned to the same uncertain routine of finding work while pursuing acting opportunities.
He Eventually Bet Everything on the ‘Rocky’ Script
The financial struggle remained part of Stallone’s life for years, but acting stayed at the center of his plan. His official website says The Steps follows that period through the creation of Rocky, when he wrote the screenplay that finally gave him the opportunity he had been trying to create for himself.
CBS Sunday Morning recounts how Stallone held onto one crucial condition as interest in the script grew, he wanted to play Rocky Balboa himself. The gamble eventually produced the 1976 film that earned him Academy Award nominations for acting and writing and went on to win Best Picture.