I log into my facebook this afternoon and was shocked to find a news article shared by my friend Janang declaring that Sylvester Stallone is dead. I was shocked. Sylvester Stallone is one the action film stars which I like and I had seen a number of his films. In fact, during my first date with my wife Roselind, we went to watch the movie "First Blood" starring Sylvester Stallone at the Cathay Cinema in Kuching. This cinema has since been demolished but vivid memories of my first date still remained.
My favorite Sylvester Stallone movie is "Rocky". With its tagline "His Whole Life Was A Million-To One-Shot, this movie depicted how an underdog went against all odds to be become a boxing champion." In fact this movie has a lot of similarities with Sylvester Stallone's real life. Not many of us know that the story of Rocky was penned by Sylvester Stallone himself. A lot of movie executives wanted to buy the movie rights to the story. They were not keen to cast Sylvester Stallone in the movie, as he spoke with a slur. At that time, Sylvester Stallone was just a struggling actor and the huge amount of money offered for his book was very tempting. However, Sylvester Stallone stood his ground, he believed in himself, he would not sell out by taking the easy way out. Sylvester Stallone knew that the only way he could make it big is to star in the movie himself. Sylvester Stallone would only sell the story if he were caste as the leading actor. Eventually the movie was made and a star was born and the rest as they say is history.
I was very lucky to come across of a reproduction of the movie poster of "Rocky" while I was holidaying in Saigon, Vietnam a few years ago. I bought the poster for only 5 US dollars and to date is the only movie poster that I owned. The poster showed Rocky running up the stairs of the High Court. Whenever I looked at this poster, I am always being reminded to believe in myself and that if I preserver in the face of challenges and obstacles, I too can emerge a champion.
Anyway, back again to the story that Sylvester Stallone is dead, I am glad to report that the story is a hoax. This story originated from a malicious website whose intention is to steal the personal particulars of users who click on their links. Whatever it is, the story of Rocky is forever immortalized in my heart and mind.