Decades of friction: Sylvester Stallone’s history of Hollywood feuds

In his memoir, The Steps, Stallone details how his early working relationship with Richard Gere on the set of The Lords of Flatbush quickly disintegrated. The tension began during an ad-lib session where Stallone claims Gere’s aggressive physical contact—digging fingernails into his skin—pushed him to a breaking point. The friction escalated until director Stephen F. Verona was forced to intervene, eventually choosing to replace Gere with Perry King to salvage the production after an incident involving spilled chicken grease.

This pattern of conflict extended well beyond his early career. Elton John later recounted an evening in London where he discovered Stallone and Gere preparing to settle a dispute over Princess Diana with a fistfight outside a dinner party. Stallone’s volatility also manifested closer to home; during the filming of Rocky, he engaged in a heated exchange with his own father, Frank Stallone Sr., after the elder Stallone failed to ring a boxing bell on cue during a climactic scene. These moments of high-stakes friction, alongside his well-documented rivalry with Arnold Schwarzenegger, paint a portrait of a star whose creative intensity often spilled over into genuine, sometimes combative, real-world confrontations.