Frank Stallone has a new documentary out this week called Stallone: Frank, That Is which explores his career featuring interviews with Frank himself, his brother Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and many more guests. Frank stopped by The Action Elite to chat with me about it but we also discuss Terror in Beverly Hills, Tombstone and Rambo: First Blood – Part II.
This week sees the release of your new documentary Stallone: Frank That Is so it must be very exciting.
Yeah. Have you gotten a chance to see it yet?
I have indeed. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. I thought it was fantastic.
Oh, thank you. Wonderful.
What’s interesting about this documentary is that it wasn’t initially your idea, was it? How did the concept for it all come about?
Yeah, I mean, they just came to me and asked me about it. I really had no aspirations to do a documentary at all. So they just came to me with this and they asked if I would be interested. At first I was a little sideways on it, you know, I didn’t know if this was a goof or for real. Then they came through and this is the end result. They worked hard. I gave them all the names of the people that I knew that would get this thing going and the rest is, as they say, history. It was a fun ride, to tell you the truth.
How did you find working with Derek Wayne Johnson who put it all together? Were you involved in the process or did you just leave him to it?
Well, there were a few things I wanted done and that would be my musician friends I grew up with because I don’t believe you get to point B without point A, you know? You have to start somewhere and that’s where I started.
I started as a rock guy in a rock group and that’s how it all started and that’s where we took it and it was great. You know, some of these guys I hadn’t seen in 50 years seriously up to 50 years! It was really wonderful to see them, and it was very heartwarming. Some people said some really wonderful things because Eoin, I was not at the interviews at all. So I didn’t know what people were going to say in case they said I was a jerk or whatever (laughs). I wasn’t at the interview, so I didn’t know what was going to be said so that was an interesting situation.
I was enjoying hearing all the back and forth regarding your band Valentine and your work with them. What was your fondest memory of Valentine?
I think my fondest memory was probably playing in some of those little clubs because we were like a big fish in a little pond. We were trying to get a record deal and so forth but getting signed to RCA Records was a big thing because I was an Elvis fanatic and Elvis was obviously on RCA Records. So I was really into it, and there was just the honour to be on RCA Records and such. But, yeah, that was a great time for Valentine but then all of a sudden with the publicity of the movie (Rocky), because, we came up around the same time RCA did focus on the movie; so it was all about Take Me Back and I think at the end it was our undoing. The group is called Valentine but now they’re going with Frank Stallone and Valentine, which I never intended. Of course, egos got bruised, which I can understand and then it went kind of downhill from there.
It was nice to see you all sort of come back together in the documentary after all those years.
Yeah, it was fun. It was nice to kind of get back together, and the sad thing was my bass player died a little before that and I would’ve loved to have Jody in the documentary because he just had a great laugh and was funny and, we were really good, good friends. So basically, eight people have died since we started this movie, including my first drummer Mark, my agent John, Danny Aiello, my bass player Jody, Russ Regan, who signed me, my mother and recently Sammy Nestico died. Man, that’s crazy…
I am sorry to hear that.
Yeah, Thank you.
Where do you keep Jody’s guitars now?
I keep them in my house. I think it was a funny thing, I remember I saw that first Hoffner Beatle bass, and I know how much that meant to him because when he was younger, he looked like Paul a little bit and nobody had a real Hoffner Beatle bass from England… but he had it. He also had that Rickenbacker bass because Paul played a Rickenbacker too. Just to remember old times, like being on stage listening to the Rickenbacker bass. So they started selling everything. I said, you know what, I have a few bucks right now and I just didn’t want to see it go to like some bar band not that that’s bad, but just for sentimental reasons I just kept it and I’m happy I did.
You did some boxing matches back in the day. How did it feel any time you stepped into the ring compared to walking onto the stage to perform?
Well, I know when I walk on the stage, I might get a bad review, but I won’t get my ass kicked (laughs). It’s a whole different story but I can tell you, you’re always a little more nervous, I think, because I’ve been on stage so much, I’m a little more nervous until you get in the ring; it’s usually before; by the time you walk up on the apron, it’s too late so it’s either sink or swim. So the stage was always fairly easy for me; it wasn’t really a hard thing for me to do and I really enjoyed it but, yeah it was really just kind of a cool thing.
You mentioned in the documentary that nobody really talks about your movie Terror in Beverly Hills, but I will.
That is absolutely amazing! I remember doing that movie; I did it with Cameron Mitchell and it was really weird. We worked with a Middle Eastern company back then and Cameron Mitchell is a famous actor from the old days. So I come on the set, drove all the way up like forty five miles to get there on set. The cameraman, Peter Wolf, was a really nice guy but he was a deaf mute, but also the cameraman. He’s flailing his hands. I don’t know what the Hell he’s talking about but these people forgot to bring the film.
Wow…
Right? So we’re in the middle of nowhere and this idiot film company forgot to bring the film and Cameron Mitchell, who goes way back, he did movies with James Cagney said “in my fifty years, I’ve never seen that happen”. So, I said, “well you saw it today”. Of course, I got paid. I told them “you’ve got to pay me”.
I did a lot of lousy movies. I have to admit but that’s the way it was back then. If you had a part, you did it. It was one of those things and beggars can’t be choosers. Those days it was like, “OK, you want to work?” I said, “sure”. The thing is, I kind of learned on the job; I was one of those guys. I kind of learned how to act on the job and that was kind of cool. That’s what it was like back in those days; it was a different world than it is now. A little bit different and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Yeah. To me, it’s really the 80s and 90s were sort of the golden age of the genre. Before it became much more corporate…
It has become corporate and I mean, social media; yeah, there’s some good things about it, but sometimes it gets a little much but back then it was nice. When people would pick up the phone and called but now, it’s like everything seems a little more impersonal than it would normally be but that’s life.
It’s always good when you have a movie and someone gets something out of it. They walk away, they take something away from it, whether it touches their heart or something. But, they get something out of it and I hope that happens. Movies are made to inspire I think, so I just hope they get something out of that. That would be really cool, you know? I mean. What did you get out of Terror in Beverly Hills?
I just thought it was fun. I love those type of Die Hard-esque movies where it’s just you taking out the trash for the final half hour. I just enjoyed it just for the sheer escapist fun that it was.
It was. I mean, it’s not a depressing movie at all. A lot of people think it might be a movie that’s depressing. I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve been pretty fortunate about my career, my life and things like that. So I’m not complaining too much, but it was a good time. As far as I’m concerned, I had a good time on it.
Yeah. There’s always something to enjoy with most movies. Something to take away from it. Just to be pure entertainment. That’s what they’re for, after all.
Yes. Some movies I did were so bad that they’re actually brilliant (laughs), like The Rollerblade Seven. They’re almost on the verge of unwatchable but then when you get into it, and go you know something? Nobody would really go out of their way to make a movie this bad, because that’s what makes it great. It’s like Ed Wood; that kind of thing.
You also did one of the all-time great movies that was Tombstone, which is an absolute masterpiece.
Oh yeah, man, that was so much fun to make and if someone asks me what I would like to do again I thought I’d love to do a Western again. I love that. I know in your country, the United Kingdom they love John Wayne in the Westerns and stuff like that. I do, too. I’ve always liked Westerns so it’s kind of a cool thing.
I love Westerns; one of my favourite genres…
Yeah. You’re in Scotland, right?
I’m from Scotland, but I actually live in Toronto now.
Oh, you do? Wow. Nice people there. Yeah. I did a lot of films in Canada in the old days. It was a bit of a gas.
I’m really proud of this movie and I think the lads did a really good job. It’s not easy to do because you can get very caught up in a lot of things in terms of your ego saying things like “I’ve got to see more of me on the film” and stuff like that. I didn’t feel that. I felt when you watch it, I’m not really in the movie all the time. I’m just there for light relief factor, you know what I mean? I’m in and out of it. I’m not just there through the whole movie. Other people are telling the story as much as I am now. People like Danny Aiello… I miss Danny Aiello; he was so great. We did Hudson Hawk together and he was such a great guy, he was one of those old school type characters. He was just really a lot of fun to work with.
Yeah. I loved watching him on screen. I actually enjoyed Hudson Hawk. I know it wasn’t a huge box office hit, but I thought it was fun.
Yeah. I mean, listen, if you like Terror in Beverly Hills then you definitely have to like Hudson Hawk (laughs).
Exactly!
Well, it’s really weird though. I get a lot of people come up to me and ask me about Terror in Beverly Hills. It’s funny, because they rereleased it and I didn’t realise that it had become a bit of a cult movie which is kind of fun. I mean, you never know. When you do movies, you never know what’s going to happen. You never know what they’re going to like and not like or take away from it or anything like that. So that’s what makes it kind of fun.
I can’t not mention Peace in our Life from First Blood: Part II which is one of my all-time favourite movies and I love the song. You incorporate some of Jerry Goldsmith’s main Rambo theme so did he come up with the tune or did you write lyrics around it? How was it putting that together?
I wrote both the lyrics and music. I wrote it with a friend of mine, Peter, but I write all the lyrics and most songs I write music and lyrics. I do a little of both. I mean, sometimes I’ve done songs where I really wrote most of it. Of course, you have to give credit to the other guy because they were just there, you know what I mean? Which is not always so much fun, but it’s a fact of life. It’s funny, if one guy had, like, one word, he gets half the songwriting credits and that’s kind of a bore, in a way. I prefer to write by myself, but not that I would turn down writing with Paul McCartney (laughs). I think I could work on that one. That’d be pretty easy.
On the whole I feel fine about the movie (Stallone: Frank, That Is). How many people can say they had a movie made about them? So I’m very blessed and I’m very thankful as well.
Finally, what would you like audiences to take away from the documentary?
Well, I want them to take away that perseverance and stick-to-itiveness and all that fun stuff. That’s what I wish they would take away from it. Like the idea of sticking to your guns and doing the best you can and hopefully everything works out in the long run. I kind of always like the respect I get from my peers. That was always really important to me; it just meant a lot. When you have people that you admire and they like your music. So that’s kind of what I try to take away from it. Other than that, I’m pretty satisfied with it now. It’s in the hands of the public. Let’s see what they think now.
Well I’m sure it’ll pick up an audience, so I hope it’s a huge success for you anyway.
Thank you so much Eoin, and let’s chat again soon.
“Stallone: Frank, That Is” is out now on digital.
