How Tall Is Sylvester Stallone?

How tall is movie icon Sylvester Stallone? The actor had a famously tough time breaking into the movie business, where he was often broke and barely making a living as a background performer in the likes of M*A*S*H and Klute, before earning his first lea in thriller No Place To Hide – AKA Rebel – in 1973. Sylvester Stallone later played a lead role in the cult hit Death Race 2000 and had a fateful meeting with the eventual producers of Rocky. Stallone pitched the concept and quickly assembled the first draft in a few days, and turned down increasingly large paycheques to sell the project so a bigger name like Burt Reynolds could play the part. The low-budget drama eventually became a major hit and made Stallone a star.

Despite this, Sylvester Stallone’s follow-ups like Paradise Alley – which he also wrote and directed – did poor business. This led him to return for Rocky II, which he directed also, and the sequel put his career back on track. Following the likes of gritty 1981 thriller Nighthawks he scored what would become another iconic part with First Blood, where he played Vietnam vet John Rambo. Stallone was the eleventh choice for the role and famously hated the original edit so much he offered to buy the negative so it could be destroyed. Wiser heads prevailed and after some editing, it became a success.

Sylvester Stallone became a full-fledged movie star during this period and had a string of huge hits including further Rocky and Rambo sequels, in addition to 1986’s Cobra. That’s not to say he didn’t have his share of duds, including the horrid Rhinestone alongside Dolly Parton and arm-wrestling epic Over The Top, which both underperformed. Stallone was also an odd choice to direct John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever sequel Staying Alive, which received poor reviews but was a solid hit. According to CelebHeights, Stallone stands at 5ft 8 ¼, which is something he – and some co-stars – often joke about.

Sylvester Stallone attempted to branch away from action during the early 1990s to little success, starring in farce Oscar or Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, which the star himself considers to be his worst movie. Rival Arnold Schwarrzeenger tricked him into signing for the latter after pretending to be interested in it. This decade was a period of hits and misses; Cliffhanger and Demolition Man clicked while Judge Dredd and Daylight flopped. He also won acclaim for his performance in 1997’s Cop Land, where he outshined the likes of Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel.

By the early 2000s, Sylvester Stallone was visibly struggling with movies like D-Tox and his remake of Get Carter performing poorly. After a long development period to get it off the ground, he scored a comeback with Rocky Balboa and 2008’s Rambo. He also assembled an all-time greatest hits collection of action stars for his Expendables trilogy, with a fourth entry currently in the works.

In more recent years, Sylvester Stallone has “retired” from both Rambo and Rocky – with his final appearance as the latter being Creed 2 – and appeared as Stakar Ogord in 2017’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. He also appeared in the Escape Plan trilogy, with the latter two entries being STV affairs. Upcoming projects include dark superhero drama Samaritan, a possible Demolition Man 2 and an adaptation of sci-fi horror novel Hunter. The latter project pits the titular character and some mercenaries against a genetically engineered creature, and Stallone once considered the idea for the fifth Rambo movie.

About The Author

Padraig Cotter
(3485 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

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He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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