Yes Virginia, We Can Still Dream!

In 1975, Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay for "Rocky." He shopped the script to every producer and studio in Hollywood, but he was repeatedly rejected. Eventually, one production company, Chartoff-Winkler Productions, expressed interest. But there was one condition. They didn't want Stallone to play Rocky. They wanted a "more marketable actor" for the leading role. In fact, they were so desperate for Stallone to *not* play Rocky that they kept offering him increasingly large sums of money to go away. "It went up to $360,000," Stallone said, "to go away, to 'get off my lawn boy.'" Stallone didn't take the money for two reasons. 1) "I had about $106 in the bank," Stallone said. "But I had managed poverty very well. I had it down to a science. I really didn't need much to live on." "But more than that..." 2) "There was something about the idea of unrealized dreams,...