Toxic legacy of famous fathers: how having a celebrity dad can have a huge effect on their children

As Hollywood tableaux go, the tragic scene outside the apartment of American actor Sylvester Stallone’s son Sage could barely have been more ironic.

When the coroner arrived to collect the body of the 36-year-old, who lay undiscovered for four days after his death from a suspected pills overdose last Friday, another bus pulled up alongside.

On board were tourists brandishing cameras on one of the city’s many star-spotting guided tours, their bus having suddenly diverted there following the breaking news about Sage.

Only in death had the failed actor found a fraction of his father’s fame.

And this is Tinseltown in a nutshell, for wealth and privilege have often done very little to protect the children of the famous struggling for recognition.

Indeed, the fame has sometimes been as much of a curse as a blessing. How tragic — but almost typical — that it took his sad demise for anyone to show much of an interest in Sage Moonblood Stallone.

Having failed to step out of the shadow of his famous father, Sage died surrounded by detritus — empty pill packets, cigarette butts and drink bottles — in the messy bedroom of his £1.3 million Hollywood Hills home.

Yesterday, as conflicting stories continued to fly around about his state of mind, Sage’s mother, Stallone’s first wife Sasha Czack, claimed he may have overdosed on painkillers after undergoing extensive dental surgery two weeks before he was found dead.

Other reports claim he was either planning to get married in Las Vegas this weekend to his longtime girlfriend — or had spent his last weeks in a drug-addled stupor.

It could be two months before toxicology reports determine what killed him.

Meanwhile, a devastated Stallone has called for a stop to speculation about how Sage died. The Rocky star’s understandable grief must surely be tinged, too, with the guilt that for much of his son’s life he has been a peripheral figure.

He is even said to have ignored phone calls from Sage on Stallone’s 66th birthday earlier this month.

And yesterday, in a vitriolic outburst, Stallone’s own nephew claimed it was this snub that tipped Sage over the edge.

On his Facebook page, Edd Filiti, 18, wrote: ‘What did he do wrong, say happy birthday. Neither you [Stallone’s current wife, model Jennifer Flavin] or he could return a phone call, which is all he wanted.’

Stallone himself admits to having spent more than half of Sage’s childhood absent after his first marriage disintegrated when his son was just six.

Sources in Los Angeles told me yesterday that despite the two men effecting a reconciliation of sorts in recent years, the tensions remained.

‘Sly tried to pull a few strings over the years to get Sage work, but nothing really came off. Not even his dad could open doors for him,’ a veteran Hollywood casting director told me.

The tensions in his relationship with his father were in evidence when aspiring film-maker Sage premiered a short film called Vic that he directed in 2006. His father, however, failed to turn up.

That same year, Sage was also said to be devastated when his father dropped him from another instalment of the Rocky boxing movie franchise, despite casting him as his screen son in the 1990 sequel Rocky V.

In recent years, Sage has been trying to build up his firm, Grindhouse Releasing, which restores old horror films, with titles such as Cannibal Holocaust.

However, he is alleged to have been going through serious financial problems.

For his part, Stallone confesses his attempts at a reconciliation with Sage had not been smooth. ‘They are not as seamless as I hoped,’ he has said.

‘There’s always the excuse he’s had a bad childhood. But I think there is a point at which you have to say: “You’re right, it was screwed up. You were denied love and respect. But now you must move on.” ’

What a shame that it seems the troubled Sage did not seem to be able to take his father’s advice.

But then showbusiness is littered with the unhappy tales of the children of stars who have wilted in the long shadow of their famous parents — and Sage is far from an isolated case . . .
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