Men’s Journal
Bette Midler Regrets Turning Down “Rocky”
By John Lembo
Oct 20, 2026
Her agent said it wasn’t for me.’
Bette Midler was a successful stage performer and recording artist by the mid-1970s. She was hoping to make her way into feature films but didn’t want her first major role to be a supporting character, according to Roger Ebert.
One opportunity she later regretted missing was Rocky. Midler was offered the part of Adrian, a shy pet-shop employee who becomes the supportive girlfriend of Rocky Balboa.
“When (Sylvester Stallone) sent over the Rocky screenplay, my manager told me it was a nice role, a nice movie,” Midler told Ebert. “But not for me.”
Cher, Susan Sarandon and Carrie Snodgress were considered before Talia Shire was hired.
Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa and Talia Shire as Adrian in Rocky. John Springer Collection / Getty Images
“When I saw Rocky,” Midler said, “I was really sad that I’d lost the chance to play that girl.”
In his new memoir, “The Steps”, Stallone said he thought Midler and Cher were wrong for the role.
“Adrian was supposed to be shy and withdrawn. I was told I was new to the business, and I should let the ‘pros’ make the creative choices,” he wrote in an excerpt provided to Entertainment Weekly. “I could not get this far and have the movie hurt by wrong casting. I had seen Talia Shire in The Godfather and thought she was the one.”
Shire received Stallone’s script in the mail and felt a connection to Adrian.
“I’m shy, so I understood her,” Shire told Victor Fiorillo of Philadelphia magazine. “I went into the audition—and I do not audition well—and there was an immediate connection with Sylvester and myself, a creative partnership.”
Shire received an Oscar nomination and reprised the role in four of Rocky’s five sequels.
Midler eventually found onscreen success and earned Oscar nominations playing an ill-fated rock star in 1979’s The Rose and for her performance in 1991’s For the Boys.
But she acknowledged missing out on being a part of Rocky, ranked the second-greatest American sports movie of all time
“One supporting role I should have taken, if my then-manager hadn’t turned it down, was the Talia Shire role in Rocky,” Midler said.
