SYLVESTER Stallone has been called "the most self-conscious noble savage since Mussolini" but he has done a lot better than Mussolini, who died in unfortunate circumstances at 61. And he is a great deal richer. Perhaps the most immortal words that Stallone ever muttered - apart from "Yo, Adrian!" - were: "If I'm so dumb, how come I'm so rich?" It has always been a very good question.

He is not nicknamed Sly for nothing.

Although whether it is wise to return to his role as a boxer in his 61st year remains to be seen. Who would have thought that Rocky could possibly have stayed the distance for so long? Yet here we are at the release of Rocky Balboa, the sixth in the Rocky series, in which our hero goes 10 rounds with a much younger professional boxer, 30 years after he first put on his gloves, in 1976.

Rocky was created to appeal to the little guy, Rocky was always an underdog with spaniel eyes, but his creator Stallone has never had any ambitions to be a little guy. His other and much less appealing creation, John Rambo, is much closer to the inner Sly - there is talk of a Rambo re-make as well.

Things are not great for Rocky at the beginning of the new film. Adrian is dead, and Rocky runs a restaurant called after her.

His relationship with their son is strained. He misses boxing. A computer-generated competition on television in which the younger Rocky is put up against a current champion starts Rocky thinking? and sure you know the rest yourself.

Many tears have been shed at Rocky films, and not all of them by critics. Frank Capra, the veteran film director, is on record as having said at the time of the first Rocky that it was the best movie he had seen in 10 years. Certainly it was a simple, well-told story about a good man struggling against the odds. Stallone has spoken about how this new film addresses the problems of people trying to write the last chapter of their lives, and it has been greeted in America as a film about the problems of middle age - even though 60 can hardly be termed middle-aged, unless you have concrete plans to live until 120.

Stallone has long tried to trim his own career history to match the struggling Rocky's. His start in life was certainly dramatic. His strange eyes and slightly slurred speech are the result of facial nerve damage incurred at his birth - he was a forceps delivery. At school he was teased about his face - and Stallone attended a special school. However things were not as hard as all that when he started in the film business. The first Rocky film did not catapult him from obscurity to fame, as he has since implied.

In fact Stallone had appeared in six films between 1971 and 1975, and that does not include his leading role in a pornographic film, Stud Party At Kitty and Stud's, in which Stallone played Stud. This film was later re-cut in the wake of the success of the first Rocky film, diluted and released under the new title, The Italian Stallion, which was the young Rocky's nickname.

Stallone can act, but then being able to act has never been enough. The first Rocky film was made for $1.1m and grossed $225m. There was no arguing with these numbers. Rambo: First Blood, made in 1982, was similarly successful. But the truth is that Stallone is at his best portraying, not a psychopathic killing machine like Rambo, but flawed and vulnerable men. At high school his classmates voted him the Most Likely To End Up In The Electric Chair, and you can see where they were coming from. Stallone's best reviews came for Copland, made in 1997, in which he played a partially deaf and not very bright low-ranking policeman. But Copland did not do very well in America - or indeed elsewhere - and could never compare with the huge sums earned by Rocky and Rambo. For more than a decade, Stallone's career has been in decline, despite nice performances, such as his playing of the villain in Spy Kids 3.

Meanwhile, he lives the Hollywood lifestyle. With Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, he started the Planet Hollywood chain of restaurants. He has allegedly dated Pamela Anderson and Naomi Campbell. He has featured - in a most distasteful way - in the memoirs of Hollywood call girls but has never sued.

In 1991, Stallone did sue, though, when the British magazine the Spectator claimed that he "had ducked out of Vietnam". This was particularly damaging when Rambo was a Vietnam veteran. The case was settled out of court on terms that were not disclosed.

In 1995, Stallone was himself sued, by the cooks and housekeepers who worked for him. They claimed that they were bodysearched each day before they left, and that unreasonable demands were made on them, such as not making eye contact with either Stallone or his mother. Oh, the mother, the extraordinary mother.

Jackie Stallone, who once appeared on Celebrity Big Brother, is the most bewildering thing about Stallone.

Just this month, on a visit to Mexico, Stallone has praised Mexican immigrants and their work ethic in the US. He opposes the construction of a border fence between the two countries. He has also spoken in the past about his opposition to the ownership of handguns in America.

At the same time, he has been named as the biggest supporter of the American Republican party in Hollywood. He and George W Bush were born on exactly the same day - 6 July 1946. He and that other right-wing action hero, Chuck Norris, are said to be the president's favourite actors - worrying, if unsurprising, news. Both Stallone and Norris attended Bush's inauguration in 2001.

On the other hand, and in the way of American politics, Stallone has given money to left-wing causes. He supported President Clinton during his impeachment, and hosted a Democratic fundraiser for him at his home in Miami.

Stallone has always claimed that he wrote the script for the original Rocky in just three days, inspired by a fight between Muhammed Ali and Chuck Wepner which took place on 24 March 1975. Stallone took a low fee for his performance, but insisted on a percentage of the profits.

Rocky went on to win three Oscars and Stallone went on to take his action-hero image very seriously. In a bench-pressing competition with the then reigning Mr Olympia, Stallone tore his pectoral muscle so badly that it needed 160 stitches.

Devoted fans can still spot the fact that one half of his chest is much more veiny than the other as a result of this mishap, although the rest of us have not looked that closely.

Rocky Balboa has been called Stallone's Mel Gibson moment. Not, hopefully, that moment. Action heroes are interesting to watch as they hit old age, because in their own way they are a thoughtful bunch.

But not for Stallone Clint Eastwood's sad reflections on the true cost of violence. Or Schwarzenegger's environmental concerns. Or Mel Gibson's spiritual searchings and drunken meltdowns. Rocky, it seems, remains pretty much the same.

C.V.

Name: Michael Sylvester Stallone
Born: 6 July 1946
Parents: Frank Stallone (hairdresser) and his wife Jackie Labofish (later an astrologer). Brother Frank also became an actor
Marriages: Firstly to Sasha Czack 1974-1985 - two sons, the younger boy autistic. Secondly Brigitte Nielsen 1985-1987. Thirdly to Jennifer Flavin (1997) - three daughters In the news because: The sixth Rocky film is to be released in Europe this Friday (19 January)