As a shy, insecure kid growing up in West Scranton, Mike Kunda spent a lot of time pretending to be someone else — preferably the fearless, heroic sort.
There was the Zorro phase, followed by the Superman period, which came to an abrupt end when a bully pulled his cape out from under his street clothes on the Frances Willard Elementary School playground.
Then, one night in 1979, he discovered cinema’s ultimate underdog — Philadelphia’s own Rocky Balboa.
It was love at first uppercut. Pretty much from that day forward, Kunda said, “I wanted to be Rocky.”
“A bizarre job that did not exist,” he said with a laugh.
Or so he thought.
Turns out, there actually was a market for Kunda’s enduring obsession with Sylvester Stallone’s iconic creation.
For nearly a decade, Kunda has worked as a professional Rocky impersonator in Philly.
He often appears at charitable events, conventions and private parties. But he spends the bulk of his time leading his Yo, Philly! Rocky Film Tours. For the tours, he loads up to six people into his Ford Transit Connect and takes them on a four-hour jaunt of anywhere from 35 to 55 Philly locales depicted in the Rocky films, including Rocky’s apartment, Adrian’s pet shop and Mickey’s gym.
The tour culminates with a triumphant run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, just like Rocky did. He charges $350 for groups up to four people, and an additional $50 for a fifth or sixth person.
Getting in character
Kunda conducts the tours in full Rocky regalia, complete with black fedora, beat-up leather jacket and fake black eye. He bears a striking resemblance to a young Stallone, and can eerily mimic Rocky’s trademark mannerisms and speech patterns.
He can recite most of the films by heart, thanks to more than 1,000 viewings of the original and its sequels.
“We get very, very detailed. These are not for the faint of heart. These are for the hard-core fans,” Kunda said of the tours, which he spends partially in character, depending on the situation.
The tours have ranked as high as ninth on TripAdvisor’s top Philly attractions, and have played host to people from all corners of the globe.
Kunda commutes to Philly from his home in Camp Hill, where he lives with his wife, Sue. For years, he supplemented his income with another job at Sherwin Williams. But, the tours have grown so popular over the past year — he often does two per day — that it’s now his full-time profession.
There have been other perks of the job, too. He’s gotten to chat with Stallone on several occasions. He’s also become close friends with Chuck Wepner, the unheralded heavyweight boxer whose valiant 1975 bout with Muhammad Ali inspired Stallone to create “Rocky.”
Last year, thanks to his friendship with the owners of Philly’s Victor Cafe, the stand-in for Rocky’s restaurant Adrian’s in the last two films, he got to hang out on the set of “Creed,” the critically acclaimed latest chapter in the “Rocky” saga, which finds Rocky training the son of his deceased nemesis-turned-friend Apollo Creed. Stallone won a Golden Globe for his performance in the film.
“ ‘Creed’ just unleashed a fury of requests for the tour, all through December and now,” Kunda, 48, said. “It’s going good. It’s something I always wanted to do, and that I love to do.”
“Tiger Woods was meant to play golf. And Mike was meant to play Rocky,” said Kunda’s dad, Mike Sr.
Practice makes perfect
Kunda’s current success comes after a near-lifetime of “practicing at Rocky.”
“Rocky” hit theaters in 1976, and in addition to making its writer-star an international superstar, it won that year’s Best Picture Oscar.
Kunda didn’t get around to seeing the movie until he was 11, when it aired on CBS. He was hooked from the opening credits, as the giant white letters flashed across the screen and Bill Conti’s soaring score built to a crescendo.
“It was a punch to my DNA,” Kunda said. “When I would hear that Rocky music, it would thump through my blood.”
Most importantly, he saw a kindred spirit in Rocky, a low-level prizefighter who gets a shot at challenging heavyweight champion Apollo Creed.
Afraid of his own shadow, and possessed of a wild imagination and penchant for costumes, young Mike was often picked on by other kids. Living vicariously through Rocky, he said, gave him much-needed confidence and “the strength to move forward.”
His coal miner grandfather bestowed him with the fedora and leather coat to complete his transformation. He wore the ensemble constantly through high school. Most mornings, he downed a glass of raw eggs and ran through West Side in a gray sweatsuit.
Mike Sr. and his wife, Dee, supported their son. Still, Mike Sr. admitted with a laugh that he wondered aloud once to his wife, “Do you think there might be emotional issues with Michael?”
“Imagination is a wonderful thing. Michael had more imagination than 10 kids put together,” Mike Sr. said.
Unlike Rocky, Kunda was never great with his fists. His mouth, however, was a different story.
“I probably put myself in a few positions where I deserved a smack in the mouth,” Kunda said. “Those guys couldn’t smack the smile off my face, though.”
And Rocky wasn’t his exclusive Stallone impersonation. Occasionally, he would dress as Rambo and scale the cliffs of Nay Aug Gorge.
“It was a very bizarre thing,” he said. “I was never content just to watch it. I had to be it. ... In my head it was a fortress of solitude, a way to get through my insecurities.”
Blue-collar roots
Figuring he was “too immature and stupid to go to college,” Kunda embarked on a series of odd jobs after graduating from West Scranton High School. By then, he had pretty much let go of the Rocky persona, save for when he’d want to give his boss a little attitude.
He eventually found a calling of sorts as a Scranton and Dunmore police officer. He loved the work, but after four years at it was still only working part-time.
Frustrated, he took a job at Northeast Eye Institute as an optician. There, he found he had a natural ability for working with the public.
From there, he went to LensCrafters, where a promotion led to him and his wife moving to Camp Hill.
By 2006, life at LensCrafters was becoming a little too corporate for Kunda’s liking. It also happened to be the year that Stallone decided to dust off his beloved character and make the first “Rocky” film in 16 years.
One day, Kunda drove to Philly to check out the film set. His wife told him to bring along a black and white painting he had done of Rocky fighting Apollo, in hopes that it would get a notice from Mr. Stallone.
“She said, ‘Stallone will see it. Passion knows passion,’ ” Kunda said.
Sure enough, as Kunda and other fans stood and watched filming that day in Philly’s Kensington neighborhood, Stallone’s brother, Frank, spotted the painting.
Frank Stallone walked over to Kunda and said, “My brother loves fan art.” Then, Frank Stallone walked over to his brother, who was directing the film in addition to acting in it, and whispered in his ear.
Kunda’s jaw dropped as the actor walked toward him, staring intensely at the painting.
“He’s standing in front of me for about 30 seconds. I know I’ve got to be cool. I know I can’t spit or mumble when I talk,” Kunda said. “I said, ‘Hey, how you doin’, Sly?’ ”
Stallone asked if he could hold the painting. Upon handing it back to Kunda, he said, “Do you know what this is? You’ve captured the heart and soul of Rocky.”
“I thought, ‘Jesus!’ ” Kunda said.
Stallone then signed the painting, and before walking away, said to Kunda, “I have just one request. I don’t want to see this on eBay. It’s better than that.”
The painting currently hangs in Kunda’s den.
That was just the beginning. Kunda spent another day watching filming at the Victor Cafe, where he got to see Stallone get into character.
“I watched his eyes get droopier, I watched his shoulders slump, his voice drop. And then he goes, ‘Yo Paulie, you ready?’ ” said Kunda, referring to the character played by actor Burt Young, whom Kunda also has met and befriended.
A couple months later, Kunda and his wife were told by the Victor’s owners that Stallone would be dining there for his 60th birthday. So, they went, and at some point in the night, the Victor’s maitre d’ led Kunda outside for a one-on-one conversation with Stallone.
At first, Stallone didn’t recognize Kunda from their initial encounter, but they nonetheless had a nice chat. Before long, they were trading famous lines from the movies, in their respective Rocky voices.
Sue came out with a camera, but it malfunctioned before she could snap a photo of the two. As the Kundas and Stallone tried to figure out the problem, a crowd began to converge outside the Victor.
“You know what, you do look like me,” Stallone said to Kunda as it finally dawned on him that they had met before. Then, Stallone added, “You should do something with that.”
Lasting impression
Cut to a couple of months later, and Kunda was competing in the Rocky look-alike competition at Philly Loves Rocky Week in LOVE Park, thanks to the folks at the Victor submitting a picture on his behalf. Stallone was among those in attendance.
Kunda felt like a greenhorn going into the contest, considering he hadn’t worn the costume or done the cadence in some time. But, once he donned that fedora and curled his lip and lowered his voice, it all came rushing back.
“All of a sudden you have the complete package,” he said. “At one point, I grabbed the mic and basically took over. I was making fun of the judges. I just totally embraced it.”
Needless to say, he won, and ended up getting interviewed by the Today show and Good Morning America. Next thing he knew, the March of Dimes was on the phone wondering if he would appear at one of their benefits.
From there, the Pipefitters union wanted him to team up with Ben Franklin at their annual convention. Two-hour gigs were netting Kunda $1,500 a pop.
“Next thing you know, I’m getting five, six events a month,” Kunda said. “I had to get an agent.”
About two years in, he decided to try his hand at giving tours. At first, he did them out of a big yellow school bus, but it proved an extremely expensive venture.
So, he bought the six-passenger van, and with a lot of work on social media, Rocky fans the world over began to find him. They include a Pakistani man who showed up in a gray sweatsuit and only wanted to cover Rocky’s jogging route, and a woman from the Midwest who wanted to give her depressed sons a little joy following the death of her husband.
What Kunda has learned more than anything through the tours is that there’s a universality to the power of Rocky.
“Rocky is the best and most noble we can be. When I get a little lost and confused, Rocky is my guy,” he said. “Watching people run up the steps (of the art museum), it’s so beautiful. I get so humbled. I get to be a part of people’s lives watching this. It gives me the chills just thinking about it.”
“When you think about how long he’s been doing it, and the people he’s met and the people he continues to meet — every step forward has been upward movement,” Mike Sr. said. “Just the lives he touches. Sometimes it’s just hard to imagine that people come from around the world to do the tour.”
Praise from on high
No doubt, Kunda has earned a fair bit of cachet in the world of celebrity impersonators. A couple years ago, Frank Stallone took to Twitter to proclaim him “the greatest Rocky impersonator my brother and I have ever seen.”
Back in August, he was hired by the Democratic National Committee to run by Pat’s King of Steaks with a group of kids. Former Philadelphia Mayor and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was among the dignitaries in attendance.
A few years ago, Kunda wrote a memoir, “Cue the Rocky Music,” which details his life’s journey through his Rocky worship. Last summer, Stallone held up a copy of the book on social media.
Among the fans of the book was Wepner, known in his boxing days as “The Bayonne Bleeder.” He and Kunda became quick friends at a charity event. And Wepner has been to Kunda’s parents’ West Side home for dinner.
Currently, Kunda is writing a biography on Wepner, which he expects to complete this spring.
“Chuck is one of the nicest humans on the planet,” Kunda said. “He’s 76 years old, and faster and sharper than ever.”
Wepner said people are going to learn a lot about his journey from the book, thanks to Kunda’s hard work.
“He’s a great young man,” Wepner said. “I fell in love with him right off the bat. He’s the kind of guy you would like to have for a brother or a son.”
Meanwhile, Detroit-based filmmaker Jim Toscano just completed a documentary about Kunda.
“We’ve got some interesting things going on,” Kunda said. “It’s awesome. And I really couldn’t do it without family. We’re not islands. You’ve got to be surrounded by people who love and care about you.”
If Kunda wants people to take anything away from his story, it’s that, with a little luck, a little bit of timing and a lot of hard work, you can go out and get what you want in life, no matter how seemingly bizarre or unobtainable that goal may seem. Just like a guy named Rocky.
“If you have a passion for something, go and get it,” Kunda said. “If you believe in it, it will pay off in the long run.”
Age: 48
At home: A West Scranton native, he now lives in Camp Hill.
Family: Wife, Sue; Parents, Mike Sr. and Dee Kunda
Profession: Kunda is a professional Rocky Balboa impersonator who owns and operates The Yo, Philly! Rocky Film Tour, LLC in Philadelphia.
For more information on the tours, visit Mr. Kunda’s website, www.theyorockyfilmtour.net. The tour also has a Facebook page, and Kunda’s Twitter feed is ( @IlookLikeRocky.