The Rocky Statue

99% Invisible

The episode explores the decades-long saga of the Rocky Balboa statue in Philadelphia, tracing its journey from a movie prop to an unintenti

Key takeaways

• Sylvester Stallone commissioned an 1,800-pound bronze version of the prop from artist A. Thomas Schomburg for $53,000.
• The Philadelphia Art Commission initially rejected permanent placement on the museum steps to protect a 'high culture' vision for the Parkway.

Main topics

• Rocky Balboa statue history
• Public art controversy

Notable quotes

The snobs had given in.

Conclusion

The episode illustrates how pop culture icons can transcend their orig

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) This is 99 % Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. And this, of course, is the theme for one of the most epic training sequences of all time. It's from the 1976 movie Rocky, and it plays as the struggling boxer in Philadelphia, Rocky Balboa, builds his strength for the big fight by doing one-arm push-ups and using a giant slab of raw meat Speaker 2 (0:25) as Speaker 3 (0:25) a Speaker 2 (0:25) punching bag. The training montage ends with him bounding up the 72 steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The camera's panning around him and he raises his fists up victoriously. This is producer Justin Kraman. Until I rewatched the movie recently, I'd pretty much forgotten everything else about it. Like, this moment is my image of the film. Rocky jumping up and down in front of the museum, arms raised, all of Philly below him. Speaker 1 (0:56) Rocky's run up the steps becomes this iconic moment. And pretty much immediately, people who run up the steps as part of their exercise routine in Philadelphia become associated with Rocky. And it becomes recognized as this fan practice where people are responding to the film and they're running up the steps. Speaker 2 (1:18) Laura Holzman teaches art history and museum studies at Indiana University. She's written about Rocky's legacy in Philadelphia cultural history. Speaker 1 (1:26) And in Rocky II, the movie acknowledges the prominence of this fan practice because he repeats the run up the steps. And this time, he's joined by a group of kids as he runs up the stairs. Speaker 3 (1:42) Today, at the top of those iconic steps in front of the art museum stands an eight and a half foot tall statue of Rocky Balboa, a gift to the city of Philadelphia from the film star Sylvester Stallone. It's a bronze sculpture and it depicts Rocky dressed like a boxer in that same victorious stance. Speaker 5 (1:59) Standing on a one and a half foot base, this chiseled gladiator towers over Speaker 2 (2:05) the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. a stretch of Philly that's home to some of the city's most famous museums and cultural sites. That location really highlights just how important the statue is in the city. Around 4 million people visit the Rocky statue every year, about the same as the Statue of Liberty. Speaker 3 (2:24) When Stallone first gave the statue to Philly, this is exactly where he wanted it to live, at the top of the museum steps, fists high, looking over the city, just like the movie. Speaker 2 (2:35) But it would be decades before this became the Rocky statue's permanent home. Because what started as a simple gesture of gratitude and possibly a bit of self-aggrandizement soon became much more. The statue set off a 50-year battle about class, public space, and what it means for a single piece of art to represent an entire city. Speaker 2 (3:00) In the way that great boxers aren't born as indomitable fortresses of muscle, the Rocky statue began its life not as an important public sculpture, Speaker 5 (3:09) but a common movie prop. Stallone had the statue built in 1980. Originally, it was for a scene in Rocky III in which a fictional mayor, standing next to the statue at the top of the museum steps, dedicates it to the city of Philadelphia. Speaker 8 (3:26) It is with tremendous honor that we present... This memorial, which will stand always as a celebration to the indomitable spirit of man. Philadelphia salutes its favorite son, Rocky Balboa. Speaker 3 (3:44) But instead of getting the art department to make this prop out of painted plastic and foam, Stallone paid $53,000 to an artist named A. Thomas Schomburg to cast the statue in bronze. Speaker 1 (3:57) It is really significant that he chose to have this be made of fine art materials and not just stuff that would be thrown into the trash bin at the end of the film shoot. Speaker 2 (4:11) Stallone once called Rocky a, quote, euphemism for the city of Philadelphia. Some have speculated that he had always wanted the statue to be a permanent piece of public art there. Stallone went to high school in Philly, and because Speaker 3 (4:25) of his and the statue's connection to the city, he made an offer. He said that after the Rocky III film shoot, he wanted to donate the 1,800-pound statue to Philadelphia to stand permanently at the top of the museum steps. Speaker 5 (4:39) But almost as soon as Stallone announced his plans, there were haters. Critics who didn't want the statue anywhere near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Some refused to indulge what they saw as just an ego trip for Stallone. Others said it was simply an ad for his films. Speaker 3 (5:00) But the strongest opposition came from the leadership at the museum. Their beef with the statue emerged from a much larger concern. At the time, Philly's influential art patrons and tastemakers were trying to figure out how to return Philly to its former glory as a hub of national culture. Speaker 5 (5:19) Philly was hot back in the day. I mean, like, way back in the day. Like, 1776 back. when Philadelphia was at the center of the nation's founding. Speaker 2 (5:29) But by the early 20th century, that shine had seriously faded. Philly looked more like your typical East Coast American city. Speaker 1 (5:38) And by the time of the bicentennial, so 1976, Philadelphia had a reputation as a city that just couldn't get a break. There was a crumbling urban infrastructure. There was a lot of corruption in local politics. In Speaker 5 (5:57) the nostalgia stirred up by that bicentennial, the 1980s art crowd were Speaker 2 (6:02) dreaming of ways to remake Philly as a grand cultural metropolis. They aspired for the city to again become, as a famous architect once called it, the Athens of the Western world, a city that would boast one of the nation's premier art scenes. Speaker 2 (6:18) This art crowd had invested a lot in the city's preeminent museum. And they didn't think this nine-foot-tall boxer with shredded abs was going to push Philly toward that dream. They were inclined to tell Stallone, thanks for the gift, but we will decide where it goes. By the way, it won't be anywhere near the museum. Speaker 3 (6:37) But that wasn't actually up to the museum. Instead, that decision fell to a couple of city commissions, which voted on the selection and placement of public art around Speaker 2 (6:47) the museum. Speaker 3 (6:48) One Speaker 2 (6:49) of those agencies was an eight-member group simply called the Art Commission. And before they even met to place their votes on where the statue could live, things weren't looking good for Rocky. The president of the commission was a wealthy art patron named F. Eugene Dixon Jr. His friends called him Fitz. He'd invested a lot of money in Philly's art sector. And when he got word of Stallone's gift, Speaker 5 (7:13) he Speaker 2 (7:14) said it would be fine Speaker 5 (7:14) for the statue to stand temporarily on the steps while Stallone promoted Rocky III. But in a letter to a colleague, he Speaker 6 (7:22) added, If, however, this statue is to be placed somewhere in the courtyard on a permanent basis, I hope you are adjusting. That's not Fitz. Speaker 5 (7:32) That's writer Mark Bowden. Speaker 6 (7:34) He's tying the letter with best regards, as always, sincerely yours, Fitz. I just picture him in his mahogany-lined library out on the farm in Montgomery County. I'm just like, who Speaker 3 (7:46) are they Speaker 6 (7:46) kidding? Speaker 3 (7:47) Mark is the author of numerous acclaimed and best-selling books, including Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo. At the time, he was a staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer's Sunday magazine, and he covered the Rocky statue gift. Speaker 6 (8:01) I was intrigued by the sort of collision between