It is considered one of Hollywood’s most legendary enmities: the rivalry between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallonee (“Sly”) for the title of leading action star. This competition reached its peak in the 1970s, when Sylvester Stallone celebrated one of the greatest successes of his career with his iconic role as Rocky Balboa in Rocky. We will explain to you the special enmity and also how the two ultimately became peaceful colleagues.
So much in advance: The way there was long, because the hostility didn’t just include mean jokes about each other’s films, but also serious allegations that could seriously jeopardize an actor’s career.
In the 80s: Sly’s secret Nazi campaign against Schwarzenegger
These serious allegations appeared at the beginning of the hostility in the 1980s. According to The Himalayan Times, Arnold Schwarzenegger suspected at the time that his former rival Sylvester Stallone was waging a secret campaign to to accuse the Terminator star of being a Nazi sympathizer. Biographer Laurence Leamer claims that Stallone told British journalist Wendy Leigh that Schwarzenegger’s Austrian father arrested Jews during the Holocaust and that Schwarzenegger was a “secret admirer of Hitler.”
In the Netflix documentary Arnold, it is revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father was actually a Nazi Party official. However, there is no evidence that Arnold Schwarzenegger himself admired Hitler. On the contrary: he wanted to escape from his father, who often used physical violence and had an authoritarian upbringing, and to distance himself from his views.
In the 90s: Schwarzenegger outwits Sly – The story of a film flop
But Arnold Schwarzenegger is anything but an innocent lamb. In the early 1990s he tricked Sylvester Stallone into believing that the film Stop! Or my mom shooting would be an exciting opportunity. Although Schwarzenegger thought the script was “a piece of shit,” he claimed to Stallone that he found the project interesting and would consider taking the role. When Stallone called him and asked if he had heard about the film, Schwarzenegger reiterated: “Yes, I’ve thought about doing it. This is a really brilliant idea.”
Stallone was persuaded and declared, “Whatever it takes, I’ll make the movie.” Ultimately, however, the film proved disastrous, and Stallone later had to admit that it was “perhaps one of the worst films in the entire solar system.” So he was really tricked by Schwarzenegger.
At times it was also about a woman between Stallone and Schwarzenegger
There was so much excitement between Stallone and Schwarzenegger that there is a separate Wikipedia page in English called “Schwarzenegger-Stallone rivalry”, in German “the rivalry between Schwarzenegger and Stallone”. A woman who has made a name for herself in Germany in recent decades, especially through reality formats, was also involved in this hostility: Brigitte Nielsen. Shortly before Stallone married her in late 1985, Schwarzenegger was said to have had an affair with her, according to IMDb.
Despite all the conflicts in the past, the two understand each other much better today. According to Far Out, they are no longer enemies and have already been in front of the camera together several times. They respect each other for their impressive work.
This is how a bitter enmity developed into a solid male friendship between successful Hollywood colleagues.