Rocky's Robe
Sylvester Stallone changed my career. I was a young agent at CAA and the company was new. He was the biggest star in the world; he had just done Rocky. Rocky 2 and Rambo had not come out yet, and he became my client. All of a sudden, both movies came out and were giant hits, and I was representing the biggest star in the world.
Rocky represented a very specific time in America. America had gone through Watergate, the youth revolution, the Richard Nixon election. We had riots in Chicago where the police were beating up kids and voters. You had the end of the Vietnam War, which had really divided America like no other event since the Civil War. All of a sudden a movie came along, and it said, “Americans, if you can believe in yourself, really believe in yourself, you can make it.”
The fabulous Rocky Italian Stallion robe with that great Shamrock Meats sponsorship is a Philadelphia icon in and of itself. I had a chance to meet Sylvester Stallone recently, and it was exciting as someone from this city. That big fight took place in the Spectrum, and today we’re lucky enough to own its successor arena in Philadelphia. What a moment Rocky was for the underdog and the City of Brotherly Love. We can sometimes be overshadowed by New York and Washington. Philadelphia is a wonderful city, and Rocky running up the art museum steps is pretty special. In just a few days, the NFL is going to hold the 2017 draft on those same steps, which will be another incredible moment for sports in this city.
Is there a greater example of sport and art coming together? That movie is so embedded in American culture that you almost think that that fight was real. There is a statue of Rocky Balboa in Philadelphia. What does that tell you? How crazy is that? One of the great sporting towns in America has a statue of a fictional boxer from a movie. It’s one of, if not the most, iconic sports movies of all time. It’s hard to say anything beyond that, frankly, and the fact that it still connects with us today is pretty remarkable too.
