The Real Rocky Story: Author Mike Sielski on Stallone, Myth, and Going the Distance | Engel Angle

For Halloween this year, I'm going as a bald eagle because I don't need the beak. Mac Engel, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Engel Angle podcast, Stolen Water Media, Sunset Lounge. It is October, which means next month, I think if my calendar's right, is November, which means we will have arrived at the fiftieth birthday for one of the great fictional characters in the history of American culture.

And I'm talking, of course, about Rocky Balboa. That's right. Rocky turns 50 this November.

When I think about the movie Rocky and I think about its legacy and its impact, I don't think we can... If there's any way to really calculate the impact that it had on Hollywood, on American sports, and global cinema. Think about the Rocky franchise and what that movie has done.

Not just for Sylvester Stolen's life. We're talking about millions of lives that movie has touched. It is a special movie that still holds up to this day.

I've seen Rocky a million times, and I look forward to seeing it a million and one times. I never get tired of seeing Rocky. And there's not many movies that you can say that about.

Normally, even if the movie's on, there's some level of maybe over familiarity with it or fatigue. But when I see Rocky, I'm like, I get sucked into it. So this year, Sylvester Stolen is going on a fiftieth anniversary tour promoting his new book, a memoir about his life titled The Steps.

Coincidentally, that book is coming out at the same time that actor, director, producer, Douglas's memoir is out, which is more or less comes across as a resume of the Hollywood actresses that he had sex with. So Rocky famously gave Sylvester Stallone his life. And in the last fifty years, Sylvester Stallone has told the story and stories about this unlikely story and character that is Rocky, that is Sylvester Stallone, and how it came to be.

And all of these little details that are very pro Sylvester Stallone, and how this incredible film was made, and how nobody wanted to give it to him. He had written the script in three days, and all these other details that have become accepted as fact, even though no one really looked him up. Because why bother?

It's rocky. It's a fun story. It's good.

It's good to have those kinds of details and mythology about our acting heroes and actresses and things like that. Well, somebody has decided, you know what? I'm going to tell the real story of how the movie Rocky was made.

I'm going to tell the real story of Rocky and Sylvester Stolen. The new book is entitled Going the Distance and is written by a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mike Selesky. To give you an idea about how good I think this book is, as I have gotten older, I struggle reading books.

Not because I'm dumb, although I know a lot of people would contend otherwise is because I fall asleep and my attention span is so short. Thanks technology. This book, however, I ripped through.

Took me three or four days to read it, and I enjoyed it so much because Mike did a terrific job reporting the real story of Rocky and discerning fact from fiction, from the myth of Sylvester Stallone's version and telling of the making of the film to what it really did entail. Again, it's called going the distance, Stallone, Philly, and the Story of Rocky. I can't recommend it enough.

And mister Mike Selesky was kind enough to join me for this episode. So, Mike, you ran into something that sometimes authors do on certain subjects, which is you are writing a book at the same time somebody else is writing a book about the same subject. And in this case, it happens to be the subject himself.

When did you become aware, Mike, that Sylvester Stolen would write his memoir and release it in the same general vicinity as your book? I honestly don't remember, Mac. I was so focused on doing what I was doing that I don't honestly remember when it occurred to me that he was gonna do this book.

I will say this. I was very... It was...

I was very cognizant when I started on the project that I needed to get him in some form or fashion in the book. Right? When I began the project, I had these grand designs of, you know what?

If I don't get Stolen, I'll just do a write around. I'll write the whole thing, and he's talked about the movie enough and his life enough that I'll be fine. And then I would tell people when they would ask, hey.

What's your next project? I'd say, wow. I'm doing a book about the making of Rocky.

And the first question they'd ask invariably was, are you gonna talk to Stolen? So that really worried me at the start of the project. And then I was able to get him through email.

But to answer your question directly, I'm looking at this like a rising tide lifts all boats that he's out there talking about it. That can only help me. And the good part is everything he said publicly, I've been keeping a close ear to and eye on, and he hasn't said anything related to the period that I cover in this book that I don't have in the book.

So that's been really reassuring. That's the big fear you have is, you know, the subject is gonna say something elsewhere that is... You didn't have.

And it's it's... It sends the earth tremoring and trembling, and it's got everybody's attention. So far that has not happened.

So I wanna... Before I ask you anything else, I do wanna tell you something. And I've got my copy right here.

Thank you very much. I don't know if this has happened to you, but as I've grown older, my ability... And certainly as screen time and the frequency and ease of watching things has become so easy.

My ability to read books now has been dramatically altered as a result. But Mike, I read this in like three or four days, which for me is is unheard of. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this.

Was so well done. It really was. I'm not just saying that.

I really, really enjoyed it. But you know, you did a substack on the process of interviewing and getting to Sylvester Stolen. And also in the book, mentioned the right around, which you can do.

There have been a number of books written without cooperation from the actual subject because it's perfectly legal. But you got Stolen. And in this day and age where everybody wants to own their own information and profit from it, you still got it.

That's the part that blew me away. And you got a lot of people to cooperate for this book. It's harder because so many of those people are gone now, but you got virtually everybody, it seemed like.

Mike, tell me the story how you got Sylvester Stolen to participate even through email because that part of it floored me. Yeah. I appreciate that, Mac.

Thank you. Real... Thanks.

You're really kind. So as I said, I was nervous at the start of the process because initially, I thought I didn't need him, then I realized I did. And then I was wondering, alright.

How am I gonna get him? And you can try to jump through all the hoops up, go through his publicist or something like that, and you're easily ignored in those situations. Yeah.

So I had a source who fortunately gave me Stolen's personal email address. So I sent Sly a note through email saying, hey, here I am. Here are my credentials.

Wait. Time out. Time out.

I'm gonna cut you off. Was the subject line that made him stop? My book on Rocky, I think.

Okay. Okay. And, you know, I I went into detail in the email.

You know, here are my credentials. Here are the other books I've written. Native Philadelphia and yada yada yada.

And didn't hear anything for several weeks. And so I was still concerned. And I was on the phone one day with a gentleman you mentioned, Gene Kirkwood, who was the executive producer of Rocky, still around, still, you know, in his eighties and still sharp as a tack, and was a great source for me.

And he was really the guy who brought Stolen to the producers of the movie. He's... He was one of the driving forces that got the movie made and got Stolen in the right rooms to be able to do this.

And I said to him, I said, Gene, I sent Sly a a note, and and he hasn't responded, and I'm not quite sure what to do. And Gene is a character who seems to have been lifted out of, like, the nineteen sixties just right to the present day. I've never had anybody call me Babe so often as this guy.

And Gene said, listen, babe. Listen. Here's what you gotta do.

You gotta write him another email and tell him that you're gonna write the book like one of those big time New York City tabloid columnists from from back in the day. Tell him you're gonna write it like Jimmy Breslin or Pete Hamill, and he'll respond. He loves those guys.

My god. That's not a bad idea. And I also thought, you know, let me let him know who I've already spoken to.

Because two of the people who I had already interviewed were Erwin Winkler, who's one of the producers of the film, and Chuck Wepner, you know, the the boxer who Mhmm. You know, knocked down Muhammad Ali and Stolen has credited him for being part of the inspiration for the movie. And the thing I knew about Erwin and Chuck was that Sly didn't like either one of them.

So in the next email I sent, I mentioned, hey. I'm trying to write this like Hamill and Breslin. And just to let you know, I've already spoken with Erwin Winkler and Chuck Wepner, and I wanna make sure I'm getting this story right, and it would be great if you could add something to it.

And within twenty four hours, I had a response. And I responded to that, and he came back at me again. And I was able to get basically four or five emails from him over the course of a year reacting to aspects of the book or to people that I had spoken to for the book.

And in his responses, he fleshed more detail out and really gave me a voice for him that I have to say has not been present in the interviews that he has done for the steps, his memoir. So I hope that people come to Going the Distance ready to hear Stolen unfiltered because that's what you're gonna get in this book. You mentioned in your substack about him and I...

Or at least I interpreted it that Stolen may not come off that great in terms of how... Guess how he objects to some of the things that other people said that you interviewed for this book. And like you know, as well as anybody who has been in journalism for a long time, if you meet a famous person, that you are inevitably going to hear a negative thing or two or 10 about that person.

And you might hear 50 good things about him. Stuff I had always heard about Stolen was not necessarily always flattering. So as I was reading your book, was like, okay, that sounds genuine.

That sounds like a guy who can be, pardon my French, a bit of an asshole. A bit of a dickhead. Seriously.

That's how I interpreted it, which basically one side of the story. And there were facets too Rocky in this... In the whole movie making process.

And then the success after result of it, Stolen sounds kinda like a jerk. Did you take any... Is that how you interpret it?

Like sometimes, like he he didn't do this very well, the success of it? Yes. Very much so.

And and as you know, I get into that in in the later parts of the book about how he handled the aftermath of Rocky. But, yeah, I think what that comes down to, Mac, is he he's very reluctant to share credit for the success of the film and the franchise with anybody else. One thing I picked up on that I didn't realize until after I'd finished the manuscript was that the people he praises who were involved in the film, for the most part, are all dead.

The people who are still around... There's... The the the people he really, really criticizes, and that's...

There's some of that... There's a good bit of that in this book for kind of taking credit for their contributions to Rocky, they're all still alive. They're all still around.

And it's interesting. It's it's just an interesting way to see how the chip on his shoulder, the insecurity that he had coming up in the business and as a young man and in his background and childhood and all that stuff never really went away. It never really went away.

And I think he... You know, like a lot of people who have experienced great success, he probably bought into the myth. He's told these stories so many times that they're they're just par for the course for him.

And I imagine he either forgets or doesn't care to remember that there are other people involved in these stories. You know, there's one. I'm not gonna get into the details here, but it's particularly poignant related to someone who contributed greatly to this film tied to the dog Butkus, if you've all seen the movie.

You remember the old master Butkus. But that person is still around and is hurt deeply by the way Stolen has treated him publicly. And, you know, I think Sly forgets that sometimes.

So you did something here that I wonder how much audiences want. And I don't know if this was a part of your discussion with editors, loved ones when you were kicking this around, which was you were going to tell the real story of Sylvester Stolen making Rocky. Because over the years, it's become this sort of myth.

And as a consumer for me, Mike, I love this kind of stuff. I I don't wanna hear the myth. I want to hear, how did this really happen?

Don't tell me one guy's side of how he heroically did this when there's three or four other people say, No, that's bullshit. That didn't really happen. Mike, when you were contemplating this, did you ever have a discussion and think, do people just want the myth?

Yes. I did. I I knew I knew that that's what people...

Certain segments of the population would expect. They want to believe that Sylvester Stolen was the only person responsible for the creation of Rocky Balboa and the making of Rocky, and that he was nothing but sweetness and light throughout the course of his life and making the movie and all of that. And that ain't the real world.

You know? You you and I both live in a world where we wanna get to the heart of what really happened. The world is gray.

It's not black or And I still think he comes... It's still a remarkable story. It's an incredibly inspirational movie, and that was that was really the challenge was I love the film so much and am moved so much by it.

I mean, to the point where I must have spent, I don't know how many hours on YouTube watching the nine and a half... The final nine and a half minutes of the movie. From the moment the the the final bout begins until the end when he embraces Adrian in the ring.

And every time I watch it, I'm moved to the verge of tears because now I know what went into filming it. Now I have some deeper appreciation for it. I'm a father now.

So, you know, back when the first time I saw it, I didn't make a connection with my sons and, you know, the idea of of trying to find your dignity and trying to find your way in the world and all all the themes of the film. And all that's still there, but you can tell an honest story about how that scene and those feelings were created. And it wasn't just Sylvester Stolen writing a script and finishing it in three days, because that didn't happen.

That didn't happen. And let's let's tell the story as it is. You You and I are...

We live in the world of the real, and let's be real about this stuff. So he famously, which you get into, has what appears to be a lifelong disagreement and hurt with two of the producers of the movie, Erwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff. Robert Chartoff is no longer with us.

And when it comes to Rocky, those two Hollywood executives are synonymous with it, I think anyways, for people who are movie fans. But he, Stalone, can't let it go, even though he's 80, and he's deeply hurt. As you explored that relationship...

Because he's not the first person to create something and say, Wait a minute, I want all the rights to this. And have a disagreement with the people who might have been the money behind it as Winkler and Chardoff would have been. As you explored the complexity of that relationship, Mike, who did you come away with, for lack of a better word...

For lack of a better word, who did you side with? I think I sided a little bit more with Erwin Winkler. And I think it's because he saw more clearly.

And believe me, like, there are plenty of people in Hollywood who don't like Erwin Winkler and find him difficult to deal with. But I think he saw more clearly the business of Hollywood and the business of business. And I think Stolen looked at the situation, and he was...

Look. He was... He's had ups and downs and smart...

Made smart decisions and made dumb decisions and done things he shouldn't have done as he's telling everyone now in this book tour that he's on. But he made the decision to relinquish part of control of the rights to Rocky. And this is part of the cost, I guess, of becoming a megastar in Hollywood.

And, you know, he made a good bit of money from relinquishing those rights. You know? He sold the rights and and got a ton of money for it.

And I don't, like, I don't look at what Winkler did outside the bounds of normal big business within the realm of filmmaking. And I think Stolen kind of relies on, I made Rocky, therefore, the sentimental nature of my connection to it should allow me to retain control of it. You know, he always frames it in, how can I tell my my children?

How can I pass this down to my children? It's like, well, you decided not to do that. So, you know, who are you blaming here?

Who... Where where does the blame really lie? Does it lie with Erwin Wakeler and Bob Chartoff, or does it lie with you?

I I agree with you. I I sided with them because to me, it's more like, well, wait a minute. We took on the risk to do this project.

Right. And if it blows up, it's our money out the door. Now, don't make any money, but it's our money out the door.

And there's a risk reward here. We took on the risk, a greater financial risk than you did. And we get the reward and this one happened to hit.

You still made an ungodly amount of money and became a global superstar as a result. And Stolen sitting there trying to appeal to some sentimentality of, Well, I want to give this to my children. And I'm looking at his life, I'm like, Give to your children.

Look what you've already given to them. What more... And so I'm a little confused by that sometimes.

You know, there's other details that you get into the story, details about his life, Sly's life. I had no idea because I bought into the myth. I didn't know Sylvester Stolen grew up pretty comfortably.

Would you call him upper middle class, Mike? I I I think it's safe to call him middle class, like solidly middle class. Had no idea.

Even upper. Mean, his his stepfather owns the chain of pizzeria restaurants, and, you know, his mother becomes a bit of a thing and is making money doing her thing, you know, whether it's gyms or beauty salon, whatever the case may be. So, yeah, he...

It wasn't like he was a hardscrabble kid growing up. So when you explored his life and learned more about it, you went into an area that I'm always fascinated about in terms of actors and actresses, specifically people who play action roles. And sometimes whether or not they believe their persona that they see on screen that they're really these kickass guys that can go in and beat up a bunch of people.

And the more I thought about it, Mike, I'm like, what are you talking about? You're an actor. Who do we know?

Who... Seriously, that these are a collection of frustrated jocks, guys who couldn't play sports, no different than sports writers, right? Sports journalists.

And when you talked about his story of not making the football team and basically lying about it, I don't give too much away. But of all the details that you learned about his life, was that the one that that told you more about him than any of the others? Yes.

Very perceptive of you, Mac. Absolutely. That's one of my favorite scenes in the book is him at Lincoln High School in Northeast Philadelphia watching football practice, standing outside the fence that ring the field, and he wasn't allowed on the field.

And his mother, you know, thought this pathetic. You know, he's talked a lot about his relationship with his mother and father recently, and this kind of gets to the heart of it. She didn't she didn't comfort him about it.

She was kinda like, boy, that's kinda pathetic of you that you wanna be on the team, and they don't want you. Now he ended up playing football in high school at Devereaux Reform School in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and that's a whole another subject we can get into. But that's part...

Like, at least locally in the Philadelphia area, that's part of the Rocky myth is that Sylvester Stolen was a varsity football player at Lincoln High School, and the the reality is he never suited up for the team. It just... It never happened.

And I think I think it's something he carried with him the rest of his life, and I also think it's something that connects later in the book to his rivalry and contentious relationship with Carl Weathers, who was an NFL player and was the big man on campus and was just as smart, if not smarter, than Stolen. And that scene later in the book where Weathers is auditioning to play Apollo Creed, and he comes out for the audition and takes his shirt off. And then Stolen takes his shirt off, and they're they're sparring in the audition, and they're flicking jabs at each other, and the alpha male energy just must have been crackling in that room to a degree I can't even comprehend.

I think there was probably some resentment from Sly towards Carl Weathers because Carl had lived the dream. He had been in the NFL. He had been the football star, and Sly hadn't.

So when you talked about his experience at the boys' school and you did some reporting where you found somebody, a graduate of that school who met Stolen at an Eagles game. And they had a brief exchange about it. And in the exchange, Sly was brief.

He said, think... If I'm recalling correctly, Mike, he said, yeah, boy, that was a weird place. Yeah.

But it sounds like one of those experiences that, you know, is very much from a certain time. I didn't know he went to an all boys school, but you tell... You have details in there that it sounds like now your standard cliche, very demented warped reform school.

Yes. Is that still a part of... I mean, when you look at that, Mike, now that you're an adult, you have kids, how much do you think that that's...

That experience damaged him? Incredibly. I I really do.

I think... You know, the way I frame it in the book is that once you go through something like that, you're gonna live the rest of your life feeling like you don't have anything to lose. And that probably drove him to keep writing and keep chasing this dream of being an actor and a screenwriter and a writer even when he had no money, you know, when he's just married and, you know, his wife's waiting tables and he's trying to hold a job at a movie theater or whatever the case may be.

Yeah. I mean, he talks about it to this day, and it's probably the most poignant aspect of of his life that he shares with people because I can't imagine what he went through. I mean, you have an inkling from it.

As I said, I, you know, talked to an alumnus of Devereaux who knew him and was able to give some insight, and Stolen had talked about this a little bit with his daughters on a podcast a few years ago. But the the image I keep having is if you remember the movie from about thirty years ago called Sleepers with Brad Pitt Yeah. Yep.

Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro, Jason Patrick. Like, that's that's the vision I have of the experience he had, at Deborah. Hello.

It's Mike Rhyner of your dark companion here. Let me ask you. Are you looking for something to fill the long dead air hours of your day?

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So, you know, one part to this... Of of all the different elements to the making of Rocky, I think the one element or one sentence that has become fact is that no studio wanted him to play the part. And it was an exchange of, I'll give you the script, but I've got to play, but I have to play Rocky.

And that's become fact. And when I read your book, I thought, wait a minute. That's not fact.

Is it not fact? It's not fact. I'll I'll try to be as as succinct as I can with this.

He got in front of Bob Chartoff and Erwin Winkler, who had their own production company. And Chartoff and Winkler had an arrangement with one studio, United Artists, in which if they brought United Artists a project, they, Chartoff and Winkler, could retain creative control of it if they kept the budget for the film under $1,500,000. As soon as it went over 1,500,000, United Artists took over, they could do with it whatever they wanted to do with it.

Stolen comes to them with a a script. There's a big back and forth about this particular script. He had already sold the option of the script to somebody else.

He has to try to get the option back. He realizes Chartoff and Winkler could be his big break. It all kind of falls apart in a way.

And he says to Chartoff and Winkler, okay. Well, can I write you something else? And they say, okay.

And he writes Rocky. And they love the scripts for Rocky. And they're go...

Chartoff and Winkler are going back and forth with United Artists about Rocky. And what United Artists wants to do is they wanna buy the script in all likelihood so that if they if they don't make it, they're gonna only lose the money that they paid to get the script. Right?

So if they offer Stolen a $150,000 and he takes it and he gets the $1.50 and they get the script, if they never make the movie, then they're out a $150,000. But if they make the movie for 2.5, 2.6, and it's a bomb, then they're out 2.5 or 2.6. So, and Winkler are looking at this and saying, well, we want the movie.

We wanna we wanna hold on to it. So to do that, we've gotta make it for less than $1,500,000. And so that's what they decide to do.

The reason Sylvester Stallone plays Rocky is not because the studio finally gave in and said, okay. Go ahead. Play Rocky.

He plays Rocky because Chartoff and Winkler wanted to hold on to the movie. They wanted to keep costs down, and Stolen came cheap. They didn't have to pay him anything.

He didn't... Nobody knew who he was. If if they tried to hire Burt Reynolds or Ryan O'Neill or name your famous actor, it would have blown the the budget up for the movie.

They wouldn't... They would have lost control of it. It would have gone to the studio, and who knows what would have happened?

It might have never gotten made. But because Stolen had written it and he was there and he wanted to play it, they're like, okay. We'll have Stolen play it.

You know, Erwin Winkler told me explicitly, he said, it's not like we thought he was some genius or something. He just came cheap. Gotta tell you, Mike, I love that.

And I love it because it totally blows a shotgun hole into the whole myth of, well, they were... Mean, just all of the myth that has existed about this story for years and years and years. I read that.

I'm like, that sounds real. Yeah. That sounds genuine.

Yeah. We can get it for nothing. We'll try it.

Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. It's a minimal risk.

That sounds authentic. There's another part. And as a sports writer, you can...

You might have a different view of this. ESPN did a 30 for thirty number of years ago on the real Rocky former heavyweight champion or contender Chuck Wepner, who was sort of famously viewed as the inspiration for Rocky, the movie. Knocked down Muhammad Ali.

Some say he might... Ali might have tripped, But nonetheless, you know, he had a great white hope fighter from the East Coast and it sort of... He he challenged Muhammad Ali for however many rounds and he almost made it the the whole length of the fight if memory serves.

But years later, he was encouraged to sue Sylvester Stolen basically for a violation of, I guess, in this day and age, NIL. And Stolen settled out of court. And their relationship now is gone.

Stolen justifiably is like, I don't want anything poor anymore, anything else to do with this guy, and Wepner regrets it. When you viewed that story, do you think Wepner was in the right that he should have been given a cut because that basically is He inspired Rocky? I I don't think there's any doubt that the the Wetner fight, the Wetner Ali fight, that Stolen drew from that.

Interesting about it now is how often Stolen will say, and he said this in one of my emails, he's very sly... Not to... No pun intended.

He's very sly about this. He makes it clear that he based the character of Rocky on Rocky Marciano. And there's a big...

In the in Rocky's apartment in the movie, there's a giant poster of Rocky Marciano, and there's that that scene where Mickey, the the manager comes in. Ah, you remind me of The Rock. You know?

So I take Stolen at his word that the character is based on Rocky Marciano. But the story of a long shot heavyweight who doesn't have a chance fighting the champ who is braggadocious and unbeaten and so handsome and so smart, Apollo Creed and Muhammad Ali, like, he clearly took the story from Chuck Wepner and Ali. There's no there's no getting around that.

And that's why I spend so much time on Wetner in the book. I devote a whole chapter to him and really tell the story of how he came to fight Ali because I think there are parallels there between Wetner, Ali, and then what Stolen wrote for Apollo and Rocky. But, yeah, like, of course, he based the the the story on Chuck Wepner.

I mean, it's... Even if you watch the fight between Ali and Wepner, I mean, you know, you can see that Wepner with his comb over kinda flapping all over the place and lumbering around the ring, it looks kinda like Rocky Balboa fighting Apollo Creed. It really does.

So, you know, I had an actor tell me this years and years ago. I was in Los Angeles. And this was a guy who was an up and coming actor.

He was telling me that he really didn't want to do television. He really didn't want to do movies. He wanted to do theater.

And, you know, I'm thinking to myself, why? Why? Because there's not as much money in it.

That's what I'm thinking. So I said, why? Why does that appeal to you more?

And he said, because television and movies, movies especially, are a director's medium. And I never thought of it that way. I thought I was right.

So put through that lens, Rocky is a director's film, which that means it's John Alvinson's film. And of all the people who are involved in this, obviously, Stolen's the star. He gets all the credit for it.

You know? And I was reading this book and I thought the guy who's the unsung hero in all this is the director. And I think in terms of people who love movies and love Hollywood, especially that era of Hollywood, they know.

But do you think John Alvinson's work in making this movie into what it is is largely not credited enough, Mike. Yeah. I think that's totally fair, Mac.

I do. You know, he was he was a product of that seventies era of filmmaking. You know, he was doing some kind of different things.

You know, there's that whole era of counterculture in film and obviously in society. You know, you have these kind of psychedelic sort of films and things like that. And he kind of marries both.

He takes that kind of renegade way of filmmaking and applies it to a more conventional romantic kind of story in Rocky. And the the the visuals that he comes up with, the the way the way that whole movie is paced, it's... It it is a masterpiece of direction.

You know? It is a slow build by the standard of today's day and age. There isn't much that's happening for a while, and then it is an absolute freight train over the second half of it.

And I think that comes back to Adelson. I think it comes back to knowing exactly what he was very exacting with his editors, with the cast. And he did something very smart, he and Stolen.

The gap between the actors and the characters they played was so narrow. Talia Shire was Adrian, personality wise, you know, in Hollywood. She was the flower in the corner.

She was the shy, you know, sister of Francis Ford Coppola. She was the wife of David Shire, the composer. And now Rocky gives her an opportunity, and the character of Adrian gives her an opportunity to kind of come into her own.

You know, Carl Weathers wants a chance to act. He's a... He's kind of a failed NFL player, and he wants to be an actor.

And he gets to be the kind of athlete he wanted to be in the NFL, but he gets to play it on screen. And Bert Young as Paulie is this tormented, troubled guy who is... Has a heart of gold deep, deep down, but, man, you gotta dig through some stuff to get to that heart of gold.

And Paulie is exactly the same way as a character. So the the genius of that was Adelson and Stolen being able to see what exactly what they wanted in the cast and being able to pluck those people out and, you know, have them play these characters, which had become timeless. So there's one part to this film that you explore.

I was really glad you did, that you explored that is one of the more appreciated and yet unheralded elements to it, and that is its soundtrack. Its score is perfect. And what Bill Conte, the film composer, did to make that music become a part of it is is a remarkable element to it.

I don't know how much time you've ever had a chance to spend with musicians or anything like that, but what did you learn about the process of making the score for this film that later on, he may say, I can't believe he did that. I I can't believe it worked because there's so many different part. Like, you mentioned all those...

Like, the casting on this was perfect. But the music to me was... I I don't know how he did it.

Yeah. Did you? They they found the composer with the perfect background.

He wasn't... He didn't wanna be a rock and roll star. He wanted to be a baroque composer from the time he was young.

That was what he wanted to be, and it married perfectly with what Stolen and Abelson wanted in the soundtrack. That that soundtrack is both classical and pop music at the time kind of fused together in a way that, as you said, takes the film to a place it otherwise wouldn't go. You know, it's it's interesting.

One of the editors of the film, Scott Conrad, told me that when he was splicing, when he was editing the movie and putting the cuts together for various scenes, he would listen to Bad Company, the the seventies rock band Bad Company. This kind of like, if you think about it, that's perfect. This kind of like glam rock, you know, mainstream accessible kind of rock band.

We're not talking about the Stones. We're not talking about, like, the Sex Pistols who aren't even around yet in '76. But we're talking about this kind of, like, hard driving.

You're in your car, and you're playing this kind of music. And in a way, like, that's what Conti's score is to a higher level, to a higher, more emotional level. And he began everything on the piano.

He would start everything out where, you know, he's just tinkling away in the keys. One thing that Gene Kirkwood said to him was, I want music to follow Rocky everywhere he goes. There there can't be silence around Rocky.

There's got to be a theme or something in the background. So when he's walking down the darkened streets of Philadelphia, you hear a tinkling piano. When he's training, you get the full orchestra.

All that movie, by the way, recorded in one day, you know, with the with the the trumpets blaring, you know, dun dun dun dun dun. You know? And and my favorite section of the score, which I titled the book after, is going the distance where the music that sets up and and is played over the championship fight, reaching that crescendo when Rocky gets to his feet and eggs Apollo on, and Adrian closes her eyes and says, I must be...

This is my man. I'm going to be with him for the rest of my life. Conti saw the the film and his role in the film as moving emotions.

I'm here to make you feel something. Let me tap into what this... These scenes are showing you, which really is the indomitability of the human spirit, the quest for love, the quest for self dignity, and that is a grand quest.

And so let the music reflect that. So I had a chance, and I I I emailed you this a while back. And I I really felt bad after I sent you the email.

It was like I was mansplaining you when I happened to have a conversation with the ringside announcer from the fight, the late legendary Los Angeles sportscaster, Stu Nahan. Stu Nahan. And there's one part...

And I went back and it's funny, even you mentioning that crescendo in the music and the fight, I still get chills from it. And I've seen that scene a million times. Mike, when you watched...

In the process of doing this, did you ever feel like, okay. I've seen this too much. I'm I'm sick I'm sick of Rocky.

Or do you still love it as much today as you did... Yeah. Yes.

In fact, I would play the soundtrack while I was writing. Really? Over and over and over again.

And if anything, I have a deeper appreciation for the film. I think some of it is the stage of life that I'm at. You know, I'm 51.

I have two sons who are 15 and 12. I took them to see the movie. It it...

We live in a town North of Philadelphia, and we have a great arthouse theater in our town. And they showed it on the big screen last year, and I took my sons to see it. Because I...

In Philadelphia, it's a rite of passage. Right? Like, you don't...

You never... There's never a Philadelphia sporting event, an Eagles game, Phillies game, Sixers, Flyers, anything, where the home team isn't losing by a goal or a touchdown late in the game, that they don't show the scene from Rocky two where Adrian is lying in the hospital bed, she tells Rocky she wants him to do one thing for her, and that's wind. And then the music kicks on, and and people still go nuts for it here.

And so I wanted them to see it. And when they started... In in in the theater, forty nine years after the movie came out, Stolen runs up the steps in that scene at the end of the training sequence.

And in a packed theater, one guy starts applauding, and another person starts applauding. And before you know it, the entire theater is applauding, including my sons. And when I saw that, I was like, oh my gosh.

Here's a connection that I'm so glad that they made. That that that they're feeling something from this movie too. And I don't get tired of it.

I really don't. It's it's one of those you know, you're a film buff. I'm a film buff.

There are certain movies where you watch them and you see something new in them every single time. And it's one of those for me, and I I never get tired of it. Is it a lie?

You know the saying, and you do it as a profession, so do I, which is never meet your heroes. Because you will you will learn that they are mortal and they are men and they are flawed. When you go about a book like this and you learn how our hero Rocky Balboa is in real life.

Are you glad you met your hero? He returned to my emails. And I'm kinda glad that...

I'm I'm kinda glad... Yeah. I am.

Because I like I like seeing, as we talked about earlier, I wanna experience people as they are. That's... I I I don't mind that.

Like, you know, that's okay. Like, people... I'm a jerk sometimes.

We all are. We're all flawed. We're all striving to be better, I hope, or at least most of us are.

And if, you know, Sylvester Stolen is a jerk sometimes, that's okay. Like, that's part of life. It doesn't it doesn't bother me that he is.

My goal here in doing the book wasn't to, like, have my best hopes about him reaffirmed. It was to tell a compelling and accurate and fun story about this movie and how it got made and what it means to Philadelphia and people around the country. And I think I did that.

And so, yeah, glad I met him. What is your next project, Mike? Don't have one right now.

I'm I'm weighing some different things. As you may have noticed, Mac, it's a... There's a bit of tumult here in Philadelphia sports.

You know? As we're talking right now, the eagles are about to leave for London, and half their team is injured. And they...

You know, Lane Johnson is retired, and they just traded away Cam Juergens. And LeBron, you may have heard of him as well. He's coming to play this whole helicoptering in for practicing games.

Yes. And the Phillies have just bitten the dust in the playoffs. So I I have some project ideas, but I haven't settled on anything yet.

Well, I'm gonna say it again. The book is great. It's really terrific.

It's a great piece of reporting, and it's such a wonderfully unvarnished look at such an important film in American history. But this book was great, and I really enjoyed it. And I hope I I hope you get you get a lot out of it just in terms of financial success and notoriety because it's really important to have some things like this documented of, Okay, that's kind of the truth, but here's the real truth and this is what it looks like.

And I know as a consumer and as a fan, I really appreciate that. And it was just great. I really appreciate your time here today, Mike.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Mac. It was great.

All right. Take care. This is a Stolen Water Media production.