Bang goes Beefy

Ian Botham said his 1985 trip to Hollywood turned him into a joke. But here his former agent tells Observer Sport's Monthly's Nick Greenslade how close the cricketer came to being the next Stallone.

With his action-man physique and blond locks, Botham, Hudson argued, could become a star to rival Sylvester Stallone and Charles Bronson, whose Death Wishseries Golan had produced. Unlike Stallone and Bronson, he could deliver significant audiences not only in Britain, but in India, Pakistan and Australia.

The movie mogul looked Botham up and down ('Well, he's better looking than Tom Selleck') and laid down his terms: if Botham stayed in town for six months and had acting lessons, then there was a real possibility that he could break Hollywood. There was just one problem. In the January of 1986, the all-rounder was due to fly out to the Caribbean for England's three-month tour of the West Indies.