BostonAvola

Sylvester Stallone with his dad Frank Stallone Sr. and brother Frank Stallone Jr. in Gioia del Colle, Apulia, Italy in 1965.... Sylvester was 19 when he visited Gioia del Colle, the southern Italian town from which his paternal family originated. His father, Francesco “Frank” Stallone Sr., was born in Gioia del Colle in 1919 and emigrated to the United States as a child. Sylvester’s grandfather Silvestro had worked as a barber before the family left Italy. Stallone had grown up in a turbulent household. His parents had an extremely contentious marriage and divorced when he was young. Stallone later described his father as exceptionally tough and said he himself became aggressive and difficult as a teenager. He attended numerous schools, was expelled from several, and spent time at a school for troubled youths. Around 17, he went to the American College of Switzerland, where he became involved in acting. He later struggled financially while pursuing acting, taking small roles before writing the screenplay that became Rocky. Released in 1976, the film turned him into an international star. Nearly six decades after this visit, Sylvester and Frank returned to Gioia del Colle in September 2023. Both were awarded honorary citizenship in a public ceremony. During that 2023 return, Stallone visited the building where his grandfather had operated his barbershop and was presented with the original key to the shop. He held it up before the crowd, connecting his family’s emigration from this small Italian town directly to the life that eventually produced Rocky. #archaeohistories