Sylvester Stallone's son Sage, 36, found dead in Los Angeles home after suspected drug overdose

Action hero 'devastated and grief-stricken' over sudden loss of his eldest child

Coroner's officials are investigating if it was accidental or suicide

Sage played the 66-year-old's onscreen son in Rocky V

Sylvester Stallone's son Sage has been found dead in his Los Angeles apartment.



The 36-year-old aspiring filmaker is understood to have overdosed on pills and coroner's officials are investigating if it was accidental or suicide, according to TMZ .

His action hero father, 66, who was at the Comic Con film convention in San Diego yesterday, is 'devastated' and 'grief-stricken', his publicist said today.



Tragedy: Sylvester Stallone's son Sage was found dead this afternoon in his Los Angeles apartment after a suspected drug overdose. He was 36, pictured here in 2006 in Hollywood

Pronounced dead at the scene: The coroner's van was spotted at Sage's home in Los Angeles along with news crews

Police said they found the younger Stallone in the home while responding to a 'welfare check', however Sages' lawyer George Braunstein said he was found by a housekeeper.

Friends and acquaintances had become concerned because they hadn't heard from Sage in the past day.



Paramedics were called and pronounced him dead at the scene.

'Sylvester Stallone is devastated and grief-stricken over the sudden loss of his son,' the actor's spokesperson Michelle Bega said in a statement.



Red carpet smiles: Sage pictured in 1996 at the Hollywood premiere of Daylight with his father Sylvester and his now-wife Jennifer Flavin

Double act: Sage appeared alongside his father in the 1990 movie Rocky V, playing the role of Rocky's son Robert Balboa

'His compassion and thoughts are with Sage's mother, Sasha.'



'He was a very talented and wonderful young man. His loss will be felt forever.'

Braunstein said the death came as a shock, telling the New York Post this afternoon: 'He was in good spirits, and working on all kinds of projects.

'He was planning on getting married. I am just devastated. He was an extremely wonderful, loving guy. This is a tragedy.'

Before the heartbreak: Stallone was pictured yesterday with Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Comic Con film convention in San Diego

Sage Moonblood Stallone was the oldest of Sylvester Stallone's children and co-starred with his father in two films. He was the first of two sons Stallone had with first wife Sasha Czack.



He made his acting debut in 1990's Rocky V - he played his Stallone's onscreen son - and also appeared with his father in 1996's Daylight.

Hand in hand: Sylvester pictured back in 1982 with his first wife Sasha Czack, Sage's mother

Also in 1996, Sage Stallone and veteran film editor Bob Murawski co-founded Grindhouse Releasing, a company dedicated to preserving and promoting the B-movies and exploitation films of the 1970s and 80s.

He also directed the 2006 short Vic, which screened at the Palm Springs Film Festival.



Braunstein said Sage had frequent requests to work on films.



'He was a full of life filmmaker with his whole future ahead of him,' he said. 'He was just very up and enthusiastic and positive.



'I think it was probably some sort of accident,' he said of the death.



Braunstein added that Sage Stallone greatly admired his father but was working hard to make his own name in the film industry.



'He was very proud of his father and proud to be his father's son,' he said.

Stallone's split from Sage's mother Czack in 1985 after 11 years together. They also have a another son Seargeoh, 32, who is autistic.



He wed model and actress Brigitte Nielsen in the following December in Beverly Hills but they split just two years later in a very public divorce.



He married third wife, Jennifer Flavin, in 1997 after an eight-year on-again, off-again relationship and they have three daughters: Sophia Rose, 15, Sistine Rose, 14, and Scarlet Rose, 10.

Sage, who was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce, felt distant from his father growing up, a theme which hit home as they were filming Rocky V together.



Big boots to fill: Sage said he always worried about living up to his father's success, seen here together again in Rocky V

‘When I was screaming, “You never spent time with me! You never spent time with my mother!” - that was true,’ he told People magazine in 1996. ‘I was looking into my father's face and really saying that.’



But it proved a turning point for the father and son, who went on to form a close bond and they acted again together in the 1996 film Daylight.



‘Between takes, Sly and Sage would roll around in the dirt like two puppies,’ the director Rob Cohen observed at the time.



Sage certainly felt the pressure of growing up with such a famous father and would worry that he would never match his success.



‘I tell him, “As long as you give it your best, that's all that matters,” his mother Sasha said in that same year.



Sage went on to pursue a career behind the camera and shunned the wild Hollywood party scene, preferring to watch horror zombie films instead.



‘People call me a hermit,’ he said while promoting the film. ‘But I'm happy.’





