Sylvester Stallone is not holding back in his new memoir. In“The Steps,”the action icon claims that while filming 1974’s“The Lords of Flatbush,”he and Richard Gere clashed so hard that he threatened to knock out Gere’s teeth. According to Stallone, the tension started at an audition ad-lib session when Gere grabbed his shirt and dug his fingernails into his skin.
The situation reportedly escalated during filming when Gere spilled chicken grease on Stallone’s leg. Stallone writes that he responded by elbowing Gere, pulling him from a car, and confronting him until director Stephen F. Verona physically stepped between them. In the memoir, Stallone says it became obvious that one of them had to leave the production.
Gere was ultimately replaced by actor Perry King. It’s a wild piece of Hollywood history that shows just how heated things could get behind the scenes in the seventies. Do you think Stallone should have shared this story, or should some set stories stay on set?
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Local Lawton
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