Vicki Abelson's Broadcast: The Road Taken

Hoodlum to boxer, painter. writer, Marine, lover, to iconic, Academy Award-nominated actor, Burt Young, has lived a life bursting with color, much like one of his stunning works of art. From the soaps to Chinatown, Nicholson, to a fateful meeting with a young, then unknown, Sylvester Stallone, who wrote a part with him in mind, Burt was the only actor who didn’t audition and earned more than the writer, director, and star himself, in Rocky. Paulie a role which would come to define him. Where did Burt end and Paulie begin… it’s a fine line… one he would draw 6 times, culminating in Rocky Balboa, perhaps the sweetest of the lot since it’s first beginnings. Starting out stealing watches, dropping out of our mutual alma mater. Newtown High School, Burt joined the Marines at 15, with his father’s more than blessing, he helped him… to get young Burt off the streets and out of trouble. There were 18 pro fights, undefeated, an exhibition with Mohammed Ali, his hero, which Burt won, to falling for a broad who wanted