Before Stallone: The Forgotten Actor Who Played Rambo First!

Contrary to popular belief, Sylvester Stallone was not the first actor to portray Rambo in film – well, almost! The original actor to bring the name Rambo to the screen was Tomás Milián.

This story dates back to 1972, the year the novel First Blood (titled Rambo in France) by David Morrell was published. The book caught the attention of Milián, a Cuban actor who had made a name for himself in Italy starring in Spaghetti Westerns like Face to Face and Providence, as well as in crime films such as The Ransom of Fear and Bandits in Milan. Captivated by the story, he contemplated making a film adaptation.

To recap, First Blood tells the story of a former Green Beret arriving in a small American town, where the local sheriff ultimately triggers dangerous tensions with the solitary drifter.

A Different Rambo

However, the adaptation project never materialized: three years after the book’s release, Tomás Milián tried to persuade Italian producers to bring the story to the big screen, but without success. As Roberto Curti explains in the book Italian Crime Filmography, 1968-1980 (via Collider), the actor eventually gave up on following the novel exactly. Nevertheless, he was not ready to completely abandon the name: his next character would thus be named Rambo.

And so, Milián became Rambo in the film Bracelets of Blood, directed by Umberto Lenzi. The plot is entirely different: Rambo is a former police officer and biker seeking to avenge the death of his friend, killed by two rival criminal families.

The script bears no resemblance to First Blood and is more inspired by the atmosphere of Sergio Leone’s Westerns, where alliances and betrayals among successive gangs lead to ultimate destruction. In short, the only connection to Morrell’s Rambo is the name of the main character, imposed by Milián.

Despite everything, the film was a real hit in Italy and grossed 1.5 billion lire at the box office.

It wasn’t until 1982 that David Morrell’s novel was finally faithfully adapted into a film by Ted Kotcheff, with Sylvester Stallone playing the lead role. You know the rest: Rambo became a massive hit and spawned two sequels in the 1980s, before the films John Rambo (2008) and Rambo: Last Blood (2019) concluded the story of the famous veteran.

If you wish to (re)discover Bracelets of Blood, you might look for potential DVD editions of the film. As for the Rambo saga, you can find it on various dedicated platforms, sometimes streaming or simply on VOD.