Collecting long-limbed and beautiful blondes was no novelty for Sly Stallone, whose romance with Susan Anton had taken its toll of his first marriage waaay before he set eyes on the delovely great Dane known to close chums as Gitte. We don't usually pose as matchmakers, but the real story of how they met began when Brigitte flew to New York to work on her September 1985 Playboy pictorial. Yes, she did drop off an 8"x10" glossy at his hotel—and that's how Gitte came, was seen by and conquered Rambo himself.
Something like spontaneous combustion occurred at their first meeting. Brigitte soon became a more or less permanent house guest at Stallone's Pacific Palisades estate, then signed for her second movie role, as the Russian wife of his formidable adversary in Rocky V. That, plus Red Sonja, won her the 1985 Worst New Star citation from. The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation, but the Razzies had it all wrong. A more seasoned judge, Stallone offered Brigitte a marriage proposal as well as a contract to star opposite him in Cobra. He calls his glowing Gitte "the most unvain beautiful woman I've ever met ... like a giant Afghan."
Portraying a top model in Cobra ought to be a cinch for Nielsen, a European cover girl before Dino De Laurentiis chose her to play Red Sonja. What Dino saw is what he got: a stunning film presence. Cobra is Stallone's nickname in the new movie. He's a big-city detective who has to kill just about everybody to save Brigitte for himself. Well, who can blame him?
Brigitte Nielsen Stallone, at the age of 23, has found love, fame and fortune far beyond her fondest golden-girlhood dreams. "I've had a strange life," says Gitte, who avows she's slightly psychic and believes her grandmother's ghost watches over her. Stallone, 40, has often discussed his ambition to make a film about the life of poet Edgar Allan Poe. If he can wrest himself away from the megabuck certainties of Rambo and Rocky, Sly may have found a face well qualified to express the beauty and mystery of Poe's Annabel Lee.
