Sylvester Stallone spent over a week in jail after "threatening an 'unarmed' man with not one, but two deadly weapons."
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Sylvester Stallone Was Not Researching a Role
Stallone starred in Lock Up and Escape Plan, two action films about breaking out of prison. However, his stint in jail had nothing to do with research for those roles.
PEOPLE reports that in Stallone's book The Steps, the 80-year-old actor describes working at a New York City deli in the early 1970s. He was asked to tell a man from a trash company that the restaurant would be using a new vendor.
The man then threatened Stallone and gave him "a big-time shove against the counter." Stallone responded by picking up a tenderizer and a "razor-sharp fish knife." Police stepped in before things escalated.
Stallone says he was arrested "for threatening an 'unarmed' man with not one, but two deadly weapons." The other man was freed. The actor spent over a week in the Manhattan House of Detention, which he said was nicknamed "the Tombs."
Stallone described it as "filthy," "violent, overcrowded," and "a true house of horrors."
The "Rocky" Actor Called the Experience "A Wake-Up Call"
Stallone said that he spent a week and a half in a cell with "at least 15 men framed into a space probably designed for six." A judge then released him. Stallone also quit the deli.
"It was a wake-up call," he wrote. "The thought of having no freedom ever again was an incentive to keep my nose clean, forever."
But this wasn't the only time Stallone lost his temper. In The Steps, the actor also describes a violent argument with Richard Gere on the set of the 1974 movie The Lords of Flatbush.
Stallone wrote that the resentment began during the audition process. He alleged that Gere grabbed his T-shirt and his fingernails dug into his skin.
Afterward, Stallone asked the film's director, Stephen F. Verona, if he could ad-lib and "react the way [he] would actually react if someone did that to [him] in real life." He said he would have knocked Gere's teeth out.
"Please don't," Verona replied.
Then, when filming began, Stallone said that during a lunch break, Gere spilled chicken grease on his leg.
"I elbowed him across the chest, got out of the car, came around to his side, and pulled him out of the back seat," the actor wrote.
Gere replied in what Stallone describes as a "thin voice," "Hey, man, I don't want to get physical."
Actor Perry King eventually replaced Gere. However, things obviously worked out for both of the feuding actors.
