When I caught a snippet of Sylvester Stallone being interviewed on the radio, I had to pull over and listen to every word.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Every sentence he told Chris Evans on his Virgin breakfast show held a story you could scarcely believe – things that had happened in his life and had shaped and made him.

A Hollywood star he may be now, but do we know how he got there?

We may have heard snippets but the whole story is more unbelievable than unknown Rocky Balboa lasting 15 rounds with world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed, played by the late Carl Weathers.

The next day on Audible I downloaded his new memoir The Steps, which he reads in that inimitable drawl.

I started listening and didn’t want the four-hour drive from Darlington to Ayr to end.

To say Sly beat the odds to get Rocky commissioned, while convincing movie bosses that he was right for the 1976 film’s lead role, is something of an understatement.

‘You will Stallone to win’

Unloved as a child, his mother told him repeatedly he only existed because a backstreet coat-hanger method to rid of him had failed.

She blamed him for ruining her life,........

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