Growing up in Philadelphia within the ’70s, Rocky was royalty.
I don’t remember the primary time I heard his name, the primary time I saw the unique “Rocky” or the primary time I heard those “Gonna Fly Now” horns.
Rocky Balboa was as Philly as cheesesteaks, soft pretzels and the Liberty Bell.
He at all times just existed within the City of Brotherly Love that I knew as slightly shorty — back after I went by Chucky as an alternative of Chuck.
When word went around my elementary school that they were on the lookout for children to be extras in “Rocky II” — after the primary “Rocky” was a box-office smash and beat out such classics as “All of the President’s Men,” “Network” and “Taxi Driver” for the Best Picture Oscar in 1977 — I used to be ready for my close-up.
And as “Creed III,” opening Friday, continues the “Rocky” movie legacy — even sans Sylvester Stallone — it takes me back to that day in late 1978 and jogs my memory why the boxing-film franchise will at all times hold a special place in my heart.
One way or the other I talked my parents into me being an additional in the enduring “Rocky II” scene where a whole bunch of children run after the fabled boxer and up the famous steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My older sister was already taking clarinet lessons — surely this was my time to embrace my inner artiste.
I’ll always remember getting that release form to take home that was more precious than any permission slip I’d ever seen before.
My dad, acting as stage father on a chilly Saturday morning, took me to Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the shoot. It was just a fast jog away from the art museum steps — now without end generally known as the Rocky Steps.
We spent many of the day waiting around in anticipation of our big moment with Stallone, who was not only starring in “Rocky II” but directing the film.
Finally, it was our time to shoot. In take after take, we took off after Rocky.
Though I used to be never essentially the most athletic kid, I flew that day — with those horns blaring in my head.
All of us desired to get near Stallone — and higher our possibilities of seeing ourselves on the large screen.
At one point, I actually managed to the touch his sweaty back.
But, when the movie hit theaters in June 1979, I used to be dissatisfied to not give you the chance to see myself in all my cinematic glory.
When I ultimately got a VHS tape of “Rocky II” — which I still have somewhere — I rewound that scene countless times to see if I could find myself in the ocean of schoolchildren, wearing my coke-bottle glasses. No luck.
Because it was long before the times of cellphones, I don’t even have any photos to prove that I used to be there.
But as a proud Philly homeboy, it stays on the highlight reel of my life.
