Rocky turns tourists into douchebags

In 1981, when Sylvester Stallone finished Rocky 3, he gave the City of Philadelphia a gift: an eight-foot-tall statue of himself that he didn’t need any more. Christmas at Sly’s house must be a gas.

The statue, a prop, stood at the top of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the duration of filming, and once filming was finished Stallone liked it so much that he requested it stay there forever. The idea generated, as one might imagine, a fair amount of controversy: a movie-prop statue of a fake boxer as the frontispiece to one of the more elegantly designed museums of fine art in the country. The Art Commission and the Museum of Art went toe-to-toe in a match that would have done Rocky and Apollo proud.

Finally, the City settled on placing the statue at the Spectrum, the fight where many of Rocky’s (fictional) fights were held. In its place at the top of the steps, the Art Museum placed a modest plaque featuring a pair of boot-prints and the word “Rocky.” The statue was returned to the top of the Art Museum steps for the filming of “Rocky 5,” after which it went right back to the Spectrum.
In 2006, thirty years after the release of the original “Rocky” and just in time for the release of “Rocky Balboa,” the statue found a new permanent home at the Art Museum, this time just northeast of the base of the steps. It has its own small glade and a path that is home to a perpetual line of tourists, all waiting for their turn to snap a photo raising their hands in triumphant Rocky fashion. Many of them then go on to run up the steps of the Art Museum and do a little fist-pumping dance at the top.

A replica of this statue (perhaps I should say “sister,” since they were produced at the same time – remember, it’s a movie prop) has been listed on eBay several times in an effort to raise money for charity – first at $5 million, then at $3 million, and several more times at $1 million. It has never received a genuine bid.
Sculptor: A Thomas Schomberg
Dedicated: 1981
Location: Eakins Oval, Northern Corner (at foot of Art Museum Steps)