Sylvester Stallone has revisited the bitter dispute with Richard Gere that turned physical during production of the 1974 film The Lords of Flatbush.
The tension reportedly began during auditions, when an improvised scene with Gere went badly enough for Stallone to threaten to “knock his teeth out.”
Their relationship deteriorated further once filming started, eventually erupting into a fight during a lunch break.
According to Stallone, Gere spilled chicken grease onto him, prompting a confrontation so intense that the director had to step between the actors.
The hostility ultimately made it impossible for the pair to continue working together, and Gere was replaced in the film by Perry King.
“It was clear to everyone that this wasn’t working,” Stallone wrote in his newly published memoir, The Steps. “One of us had to go.”
The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Gere for comment.
Sylvester Stallone has recalled the feud with Richard Gere that led to a physical altercation during The Lords of Flatbush; Stallone is pictured
The dispute reportedly began during an audition when an improvised scene with Gere took an unexpected turn; Gere is pictured in a 1973 London production of Grease
Directed by Stephen F Verona and Martin Davidson, The Lords of Flatbush was a low-budget comedy about blue-collar toughs living in 1950s Brooklyn.
Stallone’s audition for the film included scenes with Gere and Robert De Niro, who was soon set to become a major star in The Godfather Part II.
In his memoir, Stallone said that “everything went pretty well initially with me and De Niro,” adding that he enjoyed improvisation and ad-libbing.
His improvisation with Gere, however, quickly became uncomfortable when, Stallone recalled, Gere grabbed his T-shirt and dug his fingernails into his skin.
“I told him to back off, but he did it again on the second take,” Stallone wrote. “He couldn’t have known, but Gere had begun to stir the emotional cauldron inside me.”
Stallone then asked director Verona whether he could improvise and respond as he would if someone treated him that way in real life.
When Verona asked what that reaction would involve, Stallone answered: “Do? I’d knock his teeth out.” He was reportedly told: “Please don’t.”
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The conflict reached its breaking point during lunch. Stallone said he warned Gere not to make a mess, after which Gere allegedly dropped part of his meal onto him.
“A stream of chicken grease spilled off the foil paper onto my leg. I elbowed him across the chest, got out of the car, came around to his side, and pulled him out of the back seat,” the Rocky star recalled.
Stallone, second from left, appears with Paul Mace, Henry Winkler and Perry King in The Lords of Flatbush, the low-budget comedy set among 1950s Brooklyn toughs
Stallone is pictured on September 29, the publication date of his memoir The Steps, in which he recounted his clash with Gere
Gere is pictured last month attending the 20th anniversary gala for the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, held at the Opera de Monte Carlo
‘Hey, man, I don’t want to get physical,’ Gere purportedly pleaded in what Stallone characterized in his book as a ‘thin voice.’
‘Too late…,’ Stallone claimed to have replied, only for the altercation to be broken up by Verona placing himself in front of Gere.
Gere left the film, and so – for apparently unrelated reasons – did De Niro, whose replacement Henry Winkler became close friends with Stallone.
Two decades after The Lords of Flatbush was made, Gere and Stallone reportedly came nearly to blows once again, this time over Princess Diana.
Elton John wrote in his memoir that the incident unfolded in 1994 at a fete thrown in London during Diana’s separation from Prince Charles.
According to John, Gere and Diana ‘seemed very taken with each other,’ to the chagrin of Stallone, whom John suspected of having ‘turned up to the party with the express intention of picking Diana up, only to find his plans for the evening ruined.’
Gere and Stallone are said to have reached the stage of ‘squaring up to each other, apparently about to settle their differences over Diana by having a fist-fight’ that John’s eventual husband David Furnish was supposedly able to avert.
John recalled that Gere and Diana then ‘resumed their position in front of the fire,’ while Stallone ‘stormed off home,’ fuming that he ‘never would have come’ had he known ‘Prince f***in’ Charming was gonna be here.’
The equation between the two movie stars remained fraught enough that Stallone has had to publicly deny being the source of the unsubstantiated Hollywood rumor about Gere checking into the hospital to have a gerbil extracted from his rectum.
Stallone claimed that Gere ‘thinks I’m the individual responsible for the gerbil rumor,’ though he disputed that he was the culprit, via Ain’t It Cool.