Sylvester Stallone reacts to ‘Rocky’ actor Burt Young death

Sylvester Stallone paid tribute to his co-star Burt Young late Wednesday evening after news of Young’s death broke.

“To my Dear Friend, BURT YOUNG,” Stallone, 77, wrote on Instagram. “You were an incredible man and artist, I and the World will miss you very much…RIP.”

His death was confirmed Wednesday by his daughter, Anne Morea Steingieser, according to The New York Times.

Young, who died at the age of 83 earlier this month, starred opposite Stallone as his best friend Paulie Pennino in the “Rocky” franchise.

The role would ultimately gain Young an Oscar nomination for supporting actor.

Young’s character did not appear in the 2015 boxing film “Creed,” as it revealed in the film that the character had died in 2012.

The Post reached out to Young’s rep and Stallone for comment.

“Burt was an actor of tremendous emotional range,” Young’s manager, Lynda Bensky, told People mere hours after the actor’s passing. “He could make you cry and he could scare you to death.”

“But the real pathos that I experienced was the poignancy of his soul. That’s where it came from,” concluded the statement.

In 2009, Young, born Gerald Tommaso DeLouise, told The Sweet Science that he was the only actor who didn’t have to audition for the Stallone-written film.

“I was on the MGM lot when Sly Stallone came over and introduced himself to me, told me he wrote ‘Rocky’ and said ‘you gotta do it,’” Young recalled, adding that he “wanted to do it right away, but wanted to twist their arms a little bit, not look too eager.”

The “Chinatown” star told the publication that the 1976 film “had the cleanest street prose I’d ever read.”

Young said that Stallone was “a genius who is always looking three years ahead.”

“He has a real eyeball for what’s going on in the world,” the actor gushed.

Young revealed to The Rumpus in 2017 that he actually got quite a bit of money for his role in the film.

Reflecting on his time as Pennino in 2020, Young told Celebrity Parents magazine that he made the character “a rough guy with a sensitivity.”

“It was a great ride, and it brought me to the audience in a great way,” Young told the publication. “I made him a rough guy with a sensitivity. He’s really a marshmallow even though he yells a lot.”

Young is survived by his daughter, brother and grandson.