C I P R I A N I

“The Master of Disaster, the Count of Monte Fisto. The one, the only, Apollo Creed!”

Living in Los Angeles for over a quarter of a century, you pass by celebrities every now and then. I’ve had the good fortune of working with a few of them and was even able to meet a few of my heroes along the way. I was never one for autographs and pictures. I’ve probably crossed paths with at least a hundred famous folks, but I have only asked for three autographs: Billy Joel, George Carlin and John Goodman.

I got John Goodman’s autograph when he was working on his fifth film, before he even did Revenge of the Nerds. I was nine years old when he was shooting Heart of Steel not far from my home. My mother was searching wildly for the star of the film Peter Strauss, the star of Rich Man, Poor Man and the reason I was weaving through a maze of trailers looking for the actor with a small group of very excited women.

We never found Peter Strauss, but I caught John Goodman walking into a trailer and was very excited to spot him because I recognized him from a Frosted MiniWheats commercial. The fella he was sharing the trailer with got a kick out my admiration for Mr. Goodman and when I asked for the autograph, Mr. Goodman was humble and kind and freely signed it, seeming surprised that this kid had any kind of clue as to who he was. He signed a little red “Ziggy” notepad that my mom had in her purse and it was misplaced shortly after the moment the future star of The Big Lebowski signed it. As far as we know, it’s still lost, but at least I still have the memory.

As far as I’m concerned, we lost a giant yesterday. I grew up, like so many others in my generation, on the Rocky films. I’ve started work on a book about Rocky that I hope to have completed by the end of the year, but we’ll see. Who knows, maybe this essay will ultimately be an excerpt. Carl Weathers certainly will be mentioned. You can’t talk about the Rocky films at great length without eventually quoting an Apollo Creed line. Sure, Sylvester Stallone wrote that dialogue, but the pitch perfect deliverer was Carl Weathers.

Making a movie is hard work. Making a great movie is a miracle. You generally do the same things if you’re making a good movie or a terrible one. The elements are likely better in the first case, but great elements don’t always guarantee a great movie – the kind that you remember. The kind you quote.

Credit where credit’s due, Sylvester Stallone is a great screenwriter. I had an inkling of that when I was a kid, but as I started to take a crack at it myself and have continued to study the craft, it became apparent that when it comes to some of that stuff that makes a good movie great, Stallone has a gift – at least when he was making Rocky movies. Yes, not all of Stallone’s work is great and that’s the proof that there’s a certain amount of luck and alchemy involved when a movie does become great. If there truly was a formula, there just wouldn’t be as many forgettable films.

Recently, I was watching Rocky IV again. My son, who had seen the film before, was still astonished by the amount of montages. It is staggering really. A training montage, a quick interstitial with Adrian, and another training montage. I’m not the first and certainly not the last to point this out. But, man – that movie is like a fine wine to me now. Flaws? Sure. Who cares. And the performance of Carl Weathers in that film, like the three before it, is essential viewing.

As we scroll across Twitter and see all of the tributes to “Apollo”, I’m reminded of the oft told stories of actors fearing being “type cast”. Whether it’s William Shatner, Mark Hamill, and yes, Sylvester Stallone, their association with a beloved character is a double edged sword. I guess, but when you take into account history, meaning thirty, forty, fifty years from now, it would seem that those roles that might get you type cast are the ones that will live the longest.

It’s important to remember – these actors are not actually these characters, but they did the job of the actor: They not only made us believe they were these characters, they made us believe these characters were real. And not just in the moment of watching the film, but in our collective memories thereafter.

In tribute to the late, great Carl Weathers, my son and I wanted to watch a Carl Weathers film. As it turns out, we’ve recently watched perhaps some of his best work from the Rocky series with both III and IV. We’ve also been sporadically watching The Mandolorian. And as an aside, the collective joy in seeing him in that show is another testament to the actor. But rather than a Rocky film, I suggested perhaps Predator, but the prompt to Alexa for “Carl Weathers” delivered a single film on the screen:

Action Jackson.

I hadn’t seen that film in years. There’s great joy in rediscovering films with my kids. While maybe not the best of cinema, and certainly not Carl’s best film, I was struck by how many people in that film were also in Die Hard, which was made the same year. There’s a better movie inside Action Jackson. But that’s neither here or there now. It’s cool that Carl Weathers had his own film, but I noticed in watching the movie last night that he wasn’t able to do what he does best in that film because one of Carl’s strengths as an actor is actually stealing scenes from the lead. Whether it’s Sylvester Stallone in the Rocky movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator, or Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw in Force 10 from Navarone, his moments on screen were often some of the most memorable in whatever film he was in.

I never met Carl Weathers. I saw him once in a restaurant. I never want to bother people, but for a moment, I did consider going up and saying hello. Oddly enough, the only other person I had that inclination with was Bill Conti, the composer of the Rocky score. Bill Conti! I wrestled with it, but didn’t approach him. But he’s one of the few people that I really wish I had said thanks to.

Another one is Carl Weathers. This will have to suffice, I guess.

I always wanted to ask him how he felt when he was reading through the Rocky III script for the first time. 

To put it into context, in the course of my life, in the beginning, there were The Muppets, Rocky, Star Wars and Superman – probably in that order. So Charles Durning, Charles Grodin, Apollo Creed, Darth Vader, Lex Luthor and General Zod were villains. Each with varying degrees of real humanity. But the one with the most, by miles, was Apollo. Yeah, I was rooting against him. He was definitely the “bad guy”. And I didn’t “like” him. But I really can’t explain the electricity that filled a theatre in Steubenville, Ohio in the summer of 1982 when Apollo Creed became a “good guy”. It was roughly the same polarity shift that happened when Darth Vader told Luke he was his father. Maybe that was just for me, but there was, I don’t know, a catharsis I guess in finally being able to root for Apollo.

As amazing as the prior performances were, as much as we genuinely believe Carl Weathers was Apollo Creed, as much as he lost himself in that role – Weathers was still there. And though I never met him, from what I gather, he was the kind of guy that you rooted for and by all appearances, he seemed to have a pretty wonderful life.

So Mr. Weathers, to you I say, I’m sorry we never met, but you gave my friends and I a lot of great memories. Thank you, rest in peace and ding, ding.