Sly and Frank Stallone on Monday Night Football

Sylvester Stallone will be the Guest of Honor on the season premiere of ABC’s Monday Night Football on September 8, 2003. Sly is one of the celebrities asked to tape “openings” for the games this season. Sly has the honor of the first game of the season.

If you’d like to see a preview of Sly’s footage, the SZ has it! Access Hollywood ran the piece on Friday and thanks to our own Wizardfenix, we had it posted the same evening! [You may need to go to www.divx.com and get the download.] After viewing it, there can be no doubt that Sly could easily come back for Rocky VI!

Frank Stallone will also be at the game with Sly. During the game, odds are good that the new commercial for ABC’s NYPD Blue fall season will air. When it does you’ll hear Frank singing the song ‘It Had to Be You’.


A tip of the hat to Wizardfenix and Simon! – Craig Zablo

Sly on TV!

The July 25, 2003, issue of Entertainment Weekly‘s “What to Watch” section contained the toon to the left along with news that Sly will appear on the following shows this week:

David Letterman – Thursday

Conan O’Brien – Friday


Sly is also scheduled to appear on Friday’s AM Today and Regis & Kelly. Check you local listings for exact times!

– Craig Zablo

Sly Set to Present

SYLVESTER STALLONE will be a presenter at the American Film Institute’s next special, “100 Years – 100 Heroes and Villains,” which will air June 3 on CBS. Others set to present include: HARRISON FORD, JODIE FOSTER, KIRK DOUGLAS, GEENA DAVIS, KATHY BATES, DENNIS HOPPER, CHRISTOPHER REEVE, and others.

– Craig Zablo

Catholic Guilt

The current issue of Entertainment Weekly (May 31, 2002) contains the following:

If all else fails, blame the Church. That’s what Sylvester Stallonedid when CBS didn’t pick up Lefty, the television drama he exec-produced starring Titanic‘s Danny Nucci as a tough-talking priest. Stallone believes the Catholic Church’s current troubles led the Eye to pass on the pilot. “Danny was fantastic,” says Stallone. “And to come out with a show about priests at this particular time… I think people are waiting for something to help them exhale.” Stallone‘s the one who needs to take a breather, says one source close close to the negotiations. It wasn’t the preist-pedophilia scandal but Lefty‘s soft, Touched by an Angelsensibility that prompted CBS to reject it in favor of the sharper fare like Without a Trace, a missing persons drama with Anthony LaPaglia, and the cop-themed RHD/LA, which stars Tom Sizemore and is exec-produced by Heat‘s Michael Mann. Says the source, “The network wants to go in a certain direction, with younger-skewing, harder-edged shows with an urban feel.”

– Craig Zablo (May 27, 2002)

Father Lefty and Church Woes

Church Woes Are Invading TV Pilots
Tue May 7, 9:01 AM ET
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY The New York Times

“The Calling,” a prospective ABC television drama, has a pious plot about a seminarian engaged in a personal search for God. But the script has a twist that is likely to be troubling to Roman Catholic bishops: the church is extraneous and even a hurdle in the spiritual quest.

The pilot is one of several being considered for the fall season that deal with the Catholic Church and that seem to mirror the public mood, a disenchantment with the church hierarchy.

The creators of “The Calling,” which was planned before the current child-abuse scandals broke, describe it as “a spiritual ‘X Files,’ ” and say they took their hero out of the priesthood (he began as a Vatican investigator) to avoid upsetting Catholic groups. But the script portrays the higher clergy as jaded and ultimately irrelevant. The hero refuses to be ordained when he discovers that his superiors at the archdiocese do not really believe in miracles. He investigates them on his own.

“The show deals with someone who is looking to renew his faith,” Roger Birnbaum, the executive producer, explained. “But that does not mean he has to get it from a church.”

The networks will select their new shows over the next two weeks. If ABC picks up “The Calling,” its Catholic setting will stand out amid a crowd of shows about Washington and the mob that seek to imitate “The West Wing” and “The Sopranos.” But it will not necessarily stand alone.

Sylvester Stallone has developed a pilot called “Father Lefty” for CBS. It is about a handsome, unconventional Miami priest, played by Danny Nucci (“The Rock,” 1996), who ministers to street kids. He comes to his vocation a bit oddly. A marine in the Persian Gulf war, he makes a promise to God to serve him if, by a miracle, the life of his Muslim girlfriend is saved.

“It is kind of `Northern Exposure’ in a rectory,” said Cynthia Cidre, the creator and an executive producer of the pilot. “But he’s not going to walk around in robes praying with folded hands. He’s a Miami guy in shorts.”

Ms. Cidre said that Mr. Stallone based the character on a real priest, and that CBS approved the pilot before the scandal about priests erupted. But a little like “The Agency” and other law-enforcement shows that had to factor Sept. 11 into their plots, “Father Lefty” is likely to address pedophilia if the show gets a green light.

“We can’t just ignore it,” Ms. Cidre said.

Neither can other networks, apparently. FX is exploring ways to make a movie about pedophilia and sexual abuse in the church. NBC could also end up weaving Catholicism into its comedy lineup. The pilot for an NBC television-newsroom farce includes a nun who lands a job as a weather forecaster because she is the cousin of the station manager.

David Letterman has already lined his monologue with jokes about the scandal. It is also a natural fit for prime-time crime shows. The season finale of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” on May 17 will feature a murder linked to the diocese’s cover-up of a top ranking priest’s pedophilia. That episode was originally scheduled for September, but current events pushed it ahead to the height of the May sweeps.

“We say our shows are ripped from the headlines, so should we ignore this?” asked Dick Wolf, the creator of the “Law and Order” shows. Mr. Wolf, who was an altar boy for Cardinal Francis Spellman at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1950’s, said he did not expect angry phone calls from Catholic antidefamation organizations. “What can we say that would be any worse than what has been in the newspapers for the last two months?”

Such depictions are, to say the least, a marked departure from the solemn deference of the 1950’s when Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen had his own show, dispensing his thoughts and homilies about living a Godly life.

The pilots are also a shift away from even the most recent drama set in a parish, “Nothing Sacred,” a 1996 series on ABC about a conflicted urban priest. The Catholic League, an antidefamation group, persuaded sponsors to leave the show, and ABC canceled it after 11 episodes, never showing the most contested ones, which dealt compassionately with priests with AIDS and angrily with pedophile priests and their protectors in the church.

In retrospect “Nothing Sacred,” which tried to give its main characters the gritty virtue that “E.R.” gave to emergency-room doctors, seems like a Notre Dame recruitment film. In the light of the current scandals, even “The Thornbirds,” the 1983 mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain as a priest who breaks his vow of celibacy, seems quaint. His forbidden love is for an adult woman.

Sinful priests are hardly new to popular culture. They have been a staple of literature from Chaucer to Graham Greene. Since 1994, when the CBS inspirational drama “Touched by an Angel)became a surprise hit, other shows have woven spirituality into story lines, mostly in a fuzzy, nondenominational way.

The nature of the priesthood, however, with its special vows and rules, offers more dramatic possibilities than a Presbyterian minister or a rabbi. Countless television plots have revolved around a priest who learns the identity of a murderer in the confessional but cannot turn the culprit in.

The vow of chastity also carries inherent human drama.

Daytime soap operas, which wallow in lust and betrayal, have found the priestly collar especially hard to resist. Soap opera priests are usually handsome, however, and struggling to resist women. On “The Guiding Light,” Father Ray is falsely accused of sexual harassment by his brother’s wicked fiancée. (There is a happy ending: she is murdered on the wedding night.)

Father Ray does not give into temptation, but the handsome actor who plays him was chosen to tempt female viewers. “He’s a hunk, and we try to get him out of his shirt and collar as much as we can,” Lucky Gold, a “Guiding Light” writer, explained. “He does a lot of boxing and running.”

Prime time television has more mutable conventions. The affectionate flippancy that veined “The Flying Nun” turned sardonic in later decades. On “M*A*S*H” the archetype of the priest was Father Mulcahy, a kindly, but ineffectual chaplain. On “The Sopranos,” Father Phil is a glutton who sponges off Tony Soprano’s devout wife, Carmela. The show’s creator and producer, David Chase, said he expected Tony Soprano to taunt Carmela with the pedophilia scandal in new episodes. “I don’t think Tony Soprano could resist.”

Some ministers and priests on prime time television are ethical role models. In the first season of “The West Wing,” President Jed Bartlet, a practicing Catholic, sought the wisdom of a priest, played by Karl Malden, when faced with a difficult death-penalty case. But they are minor characters.

“The networks’ discomfort with shows about the Catholic Church is tied to their reluctance to leave out any large part of the audience,” said Aaron Sorkin, creator of “The West Wing.” “I think it would take some courage to put on a show that deals specifically with a particular religion.”

The writers of “The Calling” chose to take their hero out of the church to keep their thriller interesting to a wide audience. The Catholic Church’s acknowledgment of covering up child abuse cases and its apology could make it easier for networks to bring up the subject in a dramatic series. “Whenever something controversial comes up in the news, it takes the taboo off of network television,” said Neal Baer, a writer and executive producer of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.” But William Donahue of the Catholic League warned of a backlash against the networks from Catholic viewers who do not trust Hollywood to portray their troubles responsibly.

Ratings calculations will ultimately make the decision. “Our show is supposed to be a thriller,” Richard Hatem, the writer and executive producer of “The Calling,” said of his pilot’s chances of being picked up by CBS. “So I guess it depends on whether test audiences get the heebie-jeebies because its scary or because they are afraid someone is going to touch a kid.”

Stallone Has Faith in TV Priest Series

Stallone Has Faith in TV Priest Series
Wed May 8, 6:39 AM ET
By LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Sylvester Stallone says he has faith that his TV series about a hip Catholic priest will air next fall despite the current church crisis.

“I think the Lord will provide,” Stallone said with a touch of wryness.

“Father Lefty,” created and produced by Stallone and starring Danny Nucci as an unconventional Miami priest, is under consideration by CBS for its fall schedule to be announced next week.

“People have come up to me and given me their condolences,” Stallone said in an interview Tuesday. “They said, ‘Boy, talk about timing. Who wants to see a story about a good priest?’

“Well, who wants to see a story about a punch-drunk boxer?” is his retort, summoning memories of his unlikely 1976 hit film, “Rocky.”

The nation’s Catholics have been so inundated with allegations of sexual misconduct by priests that they are “looking to exhale,” Stallone said.

“We know the police are on it, the public is aware of it and they (errant priests) are all being rooted out,” Stallone said.

At least one other drama about Catholicism is a possibility for next season. ABC is weighing “The Calling,” about a seminarian searching for God.

CBS has indicated it has reservations about “Father Lefty,” which was given pilot approval before the scandal broke, according to Stallone. The network does not comment on pilots during the development period, a CBS spokesman said Tuesday.

“They’ve been very nice and open to it,” Stallone said. “But it is a controversial subject that would take a great deal of foresight to say, ‘OK, we’ll take a gamble on this. Let’s do a little more cutting edge.”

Stallone, who describes himself as a practicing Catholic with confidence in his local parish, said he believes CBS President Leslie Moonves would have been blunt if the show didn’t have a chance.

The series is based on the real-life exploits of a Philadelphia priest, Robert Lefrack, who used a tough, unlikely approach when he was assigned to a gang-infested parish, Stallone said.

“He’s Bruce Springsteen with a collar,” Stallone said.


Craig Zablo (May 8, 2002)

TWO STALLONE TIDBITS

Stallone warns Philly colonists in ‘Liberty’ role
Mon Mar 4, 1:52 AM ETBy Steve Brennan


LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) — Sylvester Stallone is putting extra star muscle behind the planned PBS animated series “Liberty’s Kids” from DIC Entertainment. Stallone‘s distinctive voice will be used to re-enact the character of Paul Revere in the high-profile series that is set amid the events of the American Revolution.

Also new to the all-star cast is British actor Michael York, who has signed do provide the voice of Adm. Lord Howe, leader of the English naval forces and responsible for blockading the colonial ports. York is the first British actor to come aboard the project.

The series is set to premiere on PBS on Labor Day.

“Liberty’s,” which will air five days a week on PBS, follows the adventures of four teenage apprentices working for Benjamin Franklin’s newspaper in colonial Philadelphia. The great events and the heroes of the American Revolution are introduced to viewers through the kids’ interaction as reporters.

Joining Stallone — who gets to utter the famous warning “The British are coming! The British are coming!” — is an A-list cast of celebrity voice actors, including Walter Cronkite as Benjamin Franklin, Michael Douglas as George Washington, Billy Crystal as John Adams, Annette Bening as Jane Adams, Whoopi Goldberg as Deborah Sampson, Ben Stiller as Thomas Jefferson, Liam Neeson as John Paul Jones, Dustin Hoffman as Benedict Arnold and Yolanda King, daughter of the late Martin Luther King Jr., as Elizabeth Freeman.


Bob StackSylvester StalloneChuck Norris were the showbiz honorees at the U.S. Vets Gala Honoring America’s Heroes, held Friday at the BevHilton. Lionel RichieConstantina and Living Proof entertained.

By Army Archerd, Daily Variety Senior Columnist


Craig Zablo (March 4, 2002)

SLY & JEN: LARRY KING LIVE!

Jennifer Flavin, right, wife of actor Sylvester Stallone, left, makes a point as she discusses heart disease during taping of CNN’s ”Larry King Live,” Thursday, Feb. 7, 2002, in Los Angeles. The program is scheduled to be telecast on CNN, Sunday, Feb 10, 2002. Flavin and Stallone’s daughter had open-heart surgery. (AP Photo/CNN, Rose M. Prouser) – Craig Zablo (02/07/02)