One of Hollywood stars’ favorite pastimes is publishing an autobiography and revealing details they have never discussed before. This week, it was Sylvester Stallone making headlines with his new memoir, The Steps.
New chapters and details are emerging from the 80-year-old actor’s book, this time focusing on death and grief.
“I was playing golf and someone called, ‘Your mother’s dead,’” Stallone recalled. He added that he did not attend her funeral.
In an interview with Page Six, Stallone spoke further about his complicated relationship with his mother, Jackie, recalling one remark that has remained firmly etched in his memory: “The only reason you’re here is because the hanger didn’t work.”
“Some people just shouldn’t have children,” he said. “And I think she knew that.” Stallone described his mother as deeply immature and eager to become a star, saying she tried her hand at palmistry, astrology and even “rumpology” — fortune-telling based on a person’s buttocks — as well as trapeze artistry and piano.
But, he said, “she never reached out for her grandchildren or her children.” Eventually, he said, “it got to the point where she just didn’t want to talk to me. So she died in isolation.”
Stallone also spoke about his father, Frank, whom he described as similarly emotionally distant.
“My father waited till his deathbed to give advice on love,” Stallone said. “You’re 96, you’re dying. And now is when you figure it all out?”
Now, at 80, Stallone said he understands how grief suppressed for decades can eventually surface.
“You suppress, and you suppress, and you keep trying to ignore it, and then it comes out as an adult,” he said.
Some of the grief Stallone discussed involved the loss of his son. In 2012, his eldest son, Sage, whom he shared with his first wife, Sasha Czack, died suddenly at age 36 from heart disease.
Stallone still remembers exactly where he was when he received the news. He was in his office writing a screenplay when his mother’s third husband, Dr. Stephen Levine, called to tell him Sage had died. Stallone said he had never met Levine and never understood why he was the one chosen to deliver the devastating news.
“He goes, ‘I’m calling to say he’s gone,’” Stallone recalled.
The delivery, he said, was strikingly cold and unemotional: “Sorry, gone. See you later. Bye.” There was no offer of help or comfort, Stallone said. “And that was devastating.”
In 1996, when he was 20, Sage told People magazine that his relationship with his father had been strained before the two eventually reconciled. He said acting alongside his father as Rocky Balboa Jr. in the 1990 film Rocky V had been painful but also cathartic.
“When I was screaming, ‘You never spent time with me! You never spent time with my mother!’ that was true,” Sage said at the time. He said he was looking directly at his father and expressing feelings he genuinely held.
The experience allowed him to get many things off his chest, he said, and the two broke down in tears more than once. “After the film, everything changed. We’d do anything for each other.”
“I had great hopes for him,” Stallone later said of his eldest son. He said Sage had found his own niche outside performing and appeared headed toward something special, but Stallone had no idea he was ill.
The grief remains close to the surface. “When you see a photo, it’s rough,” Stallone said. “Real rough.”
Sylvester Stallone and his eldest son, Sage
(Photo: John Bryson/Getty Images)
Stallone and Czack also have another son, Seargeoh, 47, who has autism and lives with his mother.
“She’s never abandoned him,” Stallone said of Czack. “So he has constant companionship, and they live in LA.”
Sylvester Stallone and his three daughters
(Photo: Instagram)
Stallone dedicated his memoir to his wife, Jennifer Flavin, who filed for divorce in August 2022 before the couple reconciled about a month later. They have three daughters together.