Sylvester Stallone Details Brief Stint in 'Violent, Overcrowded' Prison: 'True House of Horrors'

Sylvester Stallone has played multiple tough guys with prison records, including in Lock Up and his four-seasons-and-counting in Tulsa King. But in his recent memoir, The Steps, he revealed he has more than a little personal experience in the clink.

One other thing he has in common with his big-screen counterpart Rocky Balboa is an unfortunate youthful connection to the underworld. He was working in a New York City deli as a struggling young actor in the early 1970s when he was told to tell a local trash company owner that the deli had no further interest in his business.

The three-time Oscar nominee didn’t explicitly write what the trash company owner’s real business was, but certainly hinted at it with the man’s reply: a shove and a threat of a beating.

“There was no way I could win against this behemoth,” Stallone wrote. “So I quickly went around the counter and snatched up the tenderizing hammer and a long, razor-sharp fish knife … Right on cue, a pair of cops came through the door.”

Before long, he was in handcuffs and enroute to the Manhattan House of Detention. The stone monolith was built in 1838, and by Stallone’s time, it had a reputation.

“It was declared the worst jail in any big city in the country,” Stallone wrote. “It was filthy. It was violent, overcrowded. It was a true house of horrors.”

He tried to talk his way out of it, pleading self-defense, and then admitted he got mouthy with the officers and only got a snarl of “say another f------ word!” for his trouble.

Soon, he was heading below and learned exactly why it was called the Tombs.

“Every step got wetter and darker,” he wrote. “The air got thicker until finally I felt like I was breathing through soil and waste. But it was the sound that was the worst. The deeper we went, the more voices I heard grunting and bouncing off the stone walls. It was as if we were descending into a living organism.”

The macho man didn't feel tough when he ended up in a holding cell surrounded by inmates.

“Their silhouettes alone made the room feel like a coven of possessed, dangerous men,” Stallone wrote. “I remember one guy was pounding another man’s head into a small hole in the floor that prisoners used as a toilet.”

He was eventually sent to a different cell that was no less terrifying but at least less violent.

“At least 15 men crammed into a space probably designed for six,” he wrote. “These guys weren’t real hardcore criminals; they were drunk vagrants and junkie draft dodgers. I didn’t look like any of them either, but at least I knew I could handle them.”

Ultimately, a judge ordered his release, but Stallone never forgot the lessons: “The thought of having no freedom ever again was an incentive to keep my nose clean, forever.”