(5 of 6)
He was also a wandering husband. Sly made the Manhattan disco scene and had a couple of well-publicized romances, with Joyce Ingalls, his Paradise Alley costar, and Actress-Singer Susan Anton. "Stallone is one of those eccentric, powerful and vulnerable males I've always adored," says Shire. "I think he was born sweet and spent most of his life repressing that. It's only recently, with Sasha's help, that he's decided to show it."
Sasha Stallone, 31, an accomplished photographer, waited calmly at home. "I figured it was the same old story—helping a man get to the top, and then he wants other things," she says. "But my negative feelings lasted only a little while." The actor's absence was short as well. Sons Sage Moonblood, 6, whose birth date his parents claim was astrologically planned (Stallone once wrote under the name Q. Moonblood), and Sergio, 3, helped bring him home.
Rocky III is the result of Stallone's crazy days. Originally, this last installment of what he has always thought of as a trilogy was to be set in the Roman Colosseum, with the big fight against a Russian. But autobiography took over. Says Stallone: "I wanted to reveal the flip side of the fame game. We're conditioned to cope with failure, but there are no platitudes for dealing with success. Seven years had passed since Rocky. Panic and fear set in. I used those emotions to get back to the person I was before all the glamour and notoriety. Rocky is a once-in-a-lifetime coming together of self and character." But now that they are together, Stallone realizes he may never leave his alter ego entirely behind. "I'm in a shell that will never incubate to the point of hatching, and I have finally accepted that fact," he says.
Like his hero, Stallone remains an athlete. He glories in his stringent conditioning. Since Rocky II he has lost 38 Ibs. under the direction of a nutritionist. "The idea was the reverse of body building. Instead of adding bulk and then sculpting down, I went to 157 and added on in increments of an ounce here, an ounce there." Stallone slimmed mainly on a daily diet of ten raw egg whites and a quarter slice of burnt toast—"so it would contain no water." The daily routine: two miles running, 18 rounds of sparring, two hours of weight lifting, a nap, another run and no dinner. The result: a 47-in. chest, a 29½-in. waist. Stallone managed to achieve an incredibly low body-fat level of 4½%. The average American male 15% to 20%. Says Stallone: "I was weak and dizzy all the time."
Convinced that it would be easier teach a boxer to act than an actor to Stallone auditioned the menacing Shavers, who had fought Ali and Ken Norton. "The man practically me to death," Stallone winces. "The instincts of the ring took over, and he trouble pulling his punches. He hit me the arm so hard that my elbow the wind out of me. I machoed it out the way into the men's room before threw up."