Two years earlier than Sylvester Stallone walloped Hollywood with the sleeper smash “Rocky” (regardless of the movie’s studio not wanting him to star in it), the struggling actor co-starred within the ensemble coming-of-age comedy “The Lords of Flatbush.” The movie is about 4 greatest buddies who revel of their greaser personae, gleefully stepping into all types of bother as they confront their looming passage into maturity. It is no “American Graffiti,” however it does give the viewer a gritty sense of what it should’ve been prefer to stay by one’s wits and fists on the not-always-hospitable streets of Brooklyn within the late Nineteen Fifties.
50 years later, Stallone is the most important identify within the forged, however on the time of the movie’s launch in 1974, he was overshadowed by newcomer Henry Winkler, who’d simply made a splashy tv debut as Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli on the ABC sitcom “Joyful Days.” Different notable names within the ensemble are Perry King (a decade away from full-fledged tv stardom on the NBC motion collection “Riptide”) and Susan Blakely, who’d obtain a Primetime Emmy nomination in 1976 for her work within the vastly well-liked ABC miniseries “Wealthy Man, Poor Man.”
Had life damaged a distinct method, King’s position would’ve served as the primary movie position for Richard Gere. Certainly, Gere was forged and capturing the film, and certain would’ve stayed on had he not gotten right into a food-related scrap with Stallone.
How a messy hen lunch obtained Richard Gere actually kicked off The Lords of Flatbush
In a 2006 reader Q&A with Ain’t It Cool Information (the place I began my journalism profession and served because the West Coast Editor from 2009 to 2015), Stallone obtained candid about a number of aspects of his legendary profession. Probably probably the most shocking anecdote (definitely probably the most entertaining) was his recollection of briefly, unhappily working alongside Gere on “The Lords of Flatbush.”
“He would strut round in his outsized motorbike jacket like he was the baddest knight on the spherical desk,” wrote Stallone in his reply to a reader’s query concerning the movie. “In the future, throughout an improv, he grabbed me (we have been simulating a combat scene) and obtained a bit of carried away. I instructed him in a mild vogue to loosen up, however he was fully in character and unattainable to cope with.”
This was only the start of their fraught skilled relationship. The top got here within the backseat of a Toyota, the place Stallone had hunkered all the way down to eat a scorching canine at lunchtime. All of a sudden, Gere burst in with, per Stallone, “half a hen lined in mustard with grease almost dripping out of the aluminum wrapper.” Stallone noticed the potential for a messy state of affairs, and when it got here to fruition, he did one thing about it.
In accordance with Sly:
“I mentioned, ‘That factor goes to drip all over.’ He mentioned, ‘Don’t fret about it.’ I mentioned, ‘If it will get on my pants you are gonna find out about it.’ He proceeds to chew into the hen and a small, greasy river of mustard lands on my thigh. I elbowed him within the facet of the top and mainly pushed him out of the automobile.”
At this level, the director needed to make a name as to which actor would keep on with the manufacturing. He selected Stallone. “Richard was given his strolling papers and to today severely dislikes me. He even thinks I am the person accountable for the gerbil rumor. Not true … however that is the rumor.”
“Gerbil rumor,” you ask? If you do not know, properly, you see, when a person will get actually lonely … on second thought, I will allow you to Google this. You will by no means watch “Fairly Lady” the identical method once more.