I sure hope he's not our next Governor, but his story is a pretty interesting one.
Schwarzenegger's Next Goal on Dogged, Ambitious Path
By Bernard Weinraub And Charlie Leduff for the NY Times.
Thirty-five years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger, an unknown Austrian bodybuilder who spoke only a few words of English, had little money and no acting experience, came to the United States and soon made a prediction: He would become a movie star, make millions of dollars, marry a glamorous wife and wield political power...By all accounts, Mr. Schwarzenegger's drive to succeed was not merely an immigrant's classic up-by-the-bootstraps obsession. It was a calculated effort to turn himself into an invulnerable and powerful (physical and otherwise) figure. He was also a far cry from the skinny Austrian boy whose father, Gustav, a policeman and a one-time member of the Nazi Party, intimidated and sometimes beat him, favoring his other son, Menhard, according to published accounts of Mr. Schwarzenegger's life. (Mr. Schwarzenegger did not attend the funeral of his father in 1972, or that of his brother, who died in a car crash in 1971.)...
But the scrutiny of Mr. Schwarzenegger has only begun. So far he has not clarified his positions on most public issues, including offshore oil drilling, the state's budget crisis and immigration.
On abortion, however, he has said that he is for women's right to choose. On business, he has said he would bring more of it to the state to generate more revenue. And as for his economic view, Mr. Schwarzenegger was quoted in The Sacramento Bee as saying, "I still believe in lower taxes - and the power of the free market."...
The Los Angeles Times, in a recent investigation of his finances, estimated that his fortune far exceeded $200 million. This included real estate investments and a significant ownership in Dimensional Fund Advisors, a mutual fund company in Santa Monica that manages about $40 billion.
Mr. Schwarzenegger has climbed a social as well as political ladder. He used his early fame to get acquainted with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. When "Pumping Iron," was released, Mr. Schwarzenegger told the film's publicity agent, Bobby Zarem, that the one person he wanted to meet was Mrs. Onassis. Mr. Zarem spoke to a friend who worked for Mrs. Onassis. A luncheon meeting was arranged at Elaine's in New York to introduce the relatively unknown Mr. Schwarzenegger to Mrs. Onassis, Andy Warhol and others. A photograph of Mr. Schwarzenegger talking to Mrs. Onassis was widely distributed, and his celebrity grew...
Mr. Butler, who still keeps in touch with Mr. Schwarzenegger, put it another way. "Arnold is one of the most political people I've ever met," Mr. Butler said. "Everything he does is political. He has an uncanny ability to go to a meeting, get into an elevator, sit down with people in a restaurant, and immediately assess their strengths and weakness. He manipulates."...
Mr. Schwarzenegger's campaign team for the run for governor consists of Mr. Wilson, a Republican whose support for rigid measures to combat illegal immigration contrasted with his moderate approach to abortion and other social issues, and some senior members of his old Sacramento crew, including Bob White, his longtime strategist.
Mr. Schwarzenegger has drawn other powerful and well-know figures to his cause. Warren Buffett, the billionaire financier and a friend of Mr. Schwarzenegger, came aboard as a financial consultant, and George P. Shultz, secretary of state under President Reagan and friend of Mr. Wilson from the Hoover Institute, is helping the campaign...
Mr. Schwarzenegger did not vote in the last two presidential elections, according to election records. And over the last 20 years he has given more money to Democrats than Republicans, albeit all of the Democrats are Kennedys...
Some Republican conservatives have held back in supporting Mr. Mr. Schwarzenegger's candidacy. On social policies, at least, Mr. Schwarzenegger seems to hold views that conflict with hard-cover conservatives in the party. His outlook can best be summed up in an interview he gave to The Sunday Telegraph magazine in November 1999 in which he admonished his party members to alter their approach.
The Republican Party, Mr. Schwarzenegger said, "is going to lose until you become a party of inclusion." He went on to say, "that you love the foreigner that comes in with no money, as much as a gay person, as a lesbian person, as anyone else - someone who is uneducated, someone who's from the inner-city."
Lisa's voting NO on the Recall and YES on Cruz Bustamante.
Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/national/17ARNO.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
Schwarzenegger's Next Goal on Dogged, Ambitious Path
By Bernard Weinraub And Charlie Leduff
The New York Times
Sunday 17 August 2003
LOS ANGELES - Thirty-five years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger, an unknown Austrian bodybuilder who spoke only a few words of English, had little money and no acting experience, came to the United States and soon made a prediction: He would become a movie star, make millions of dollars, marry a glamorous wife and wield political power.
As far-fetched as some of his aspirations might have seemed to some, all of Mr. Schwarzenegger's predictions have come true - except the last.
In stepping into the bizarre race to recall California's governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger, the 56-year-old former Mr. Universe, is seeking to fulfill what he called his "master plan" as he once sat talking with bodybuilder friends at an International House of Pancakes in Santa Monica.
By all accounts, Mr. Schwarzenegger's drive to succeed was not merely an immigrant's classic up-by-the-bootstraps obsession. It was a calculated effort to turn himself into an invulnerable and powerful (physical and otherwise) figure. He was also a far cry from the skinny Austrian boy whose father, Gustav, a policeman and a one-time member of the Nazi Party, intimidated and sometimes beat him, favoring his other son, Menhard, according to published accounts of Mr. Schwarzenegger's life. (Mr. Schwarzenegger did not attend the funeral of his father in 1972, or that of his brother, who died in a car crash in 1971.)
"What fascinated Arnold was money and power, and what money and power bestow on an individual," said George Butler, producer and director of "Pumping Iron," the 1976 documentary that became Mr. Schwarzenegger's first successful film.
"The past meant nothing to Arnold because it was over," Mr. Butler said. "He never looked over his shoulder. This is a man of bottomless ambition. It's always been there. Nothing's happened in the last few days that hasn't happened before. He sees himself as almost mystically sent to America."
Mr. Schwarzenegger has long-professed an interest in politics but his run for governor is coming as his movie career is ebbing. From 1982, with the release of "Conan the Barbarian," to 1991, when "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," was distributed, Mr. Schwarzenegger was one of the world's top stars.
But "Last Action Hero," 1992, was a costly flop that began a career slide for Mr. Schwarzenegger. As he grew older, Mr. Schwarzenegger performed in a series of comedies: "Twins" was successful but "Junior" and "Jingle All the Way" were not. More recently, his action films - "Collateral Damage," "The 6th Day" and "End of Days" - were box office disappointments. His current film, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," has taken in more than $145 million at the box office, but its high costs may not make it very profitable in the United States.
His insatiable appetite for success and his impeccable sense of timing have led him to this moment, says his best friend and former workout partner, Franco Columbu. "He knows how to leave the stage on top," Mr. Columbu said. "He's looking to invent something new."
As a public figure, Mr. Schwarzenegger has a recognizable name that gives him an enormous advantage over most of the 134 other candidates who have been certified to run in the Oct. 7 recall election to replace Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat.
But the scrutiny of Mr. Schwarzenegger has only begun. So far he has not clarified his positions on most public issues, including offshore oil drilling, the state's budget crisis and immigration.
On abortion, however, he has said that he is for women's right to choose. On business, he has said he would bring more of it to the state to generate more revenue. And as for his economic view, Mr. Schwarzenegger was quoted in The Sacramento Bee as saying, "I still believe in lower taxes - and the power of the free market."
Mr. Schwarzenegger is also facing nagging questions about his personal life as well as on the details of his finances.
A detailed profile in 2001 in Premiere Magazine accused Mr. Schwarzenegger of being a habitual womanizer, behaving crudely and cheating on his wife, Maria Shriver. Mr. Schwarzenegger dismissed the assertions as "trash."
The Los Angeles Times, in a recent investigation of his finances, estimated that his fortune far exceeded $200 million. This included real estate investments and a significant ownership in Dimensional Fund Advisors, a mutual fund company in Santa Monica that manages about $40 billion.
Mr. Schwarzenegger has climbed a social as well as political ladder. He used his early fame to get acquainted with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. When "Pumping Iron," was released, Mr. Schwarzenegger told the film's publicity agent, Bobby Zarem, that the one person he wanted to meet was Mrs. Onassis. Mr. Zarem spoke to a friend who worked for Mrs. Onassis. A luncheon meeting was arranged at Elaine's in New York to introduce the relatively unknown Mr. Schwarzenegger to Mrs. Onassis, Andy Warhol and others. A photograph of Mr. Schwarzenegger talking to Mrs. Onassis was widely distributed, and his celebrity grew.
"He took seriously his ability to charm and coax people and do exactly what he wanted," Mr. Zarem said. "He knew 25 years ago where he was going."
Mr. Butler, who still keeps in touch with Mr. Schwarzenegger, put it another way. "Arnold is one of the most political people I've ever met," Mr. Butler said. "Everything he does is political. He has an uncanny ability to go to a meeting, get into an elevator, sit down with people in a restaurant, and immediately assess their strengths and weakness. He manipulates."
Stress and Fantasy Growing Up
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger was born on July 30, 1947, in Thal, Austria, near Graz, and grew up there. His mother was a homemaker.
Wendy Leigh, author of an unauthorized biography of the actor, wrote this year in an Australian newspaper that the elder Mr. Schwarzenegger had a "brutal temper" and "gloried in pitting his two sons against each other." Arnold usually came out the loser in these boxing and running matches. Mr. Schwarzenegger has said that he was raised "under great discipline."
As a boy, Mr. Schwarzenegger found escape in the movie house and became a fan of Reg Park, a body builder who starred in B Hercules movies. Mr. Schwarzenegger would model his life after Mr. Park's. In his 1977 biography, "Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder," Mr. Schwarzenegger said that Mr. Park became his fantasy "father figure."
Mr. Schwarzenegger said his parents ridiculed him and called his dreams of building his body and becoming a movie star a lazy and nonsensical pursuit. "It was a very uptight feeling at home," Mr. Schwarzenegger said in "Pumping Iron." "I always felt I belonged in America."
Mr. Schwarzenegger's luck turned when he met Joe Weider, who had built a worldwide fitness empire and was the power behind the International Federation of Body Building, which sponsored contests like Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia. Impressed with Mr. Schwarzenegger's charm and humor, convinced that Mr. Schwarzenegger was the kind of figure who could turn bodybuilding into a mainstream sport, Mr. Weider brought him to America in 1968.
"I knew, and he knew, that he could be great," Mr. Weider said. "We created Arnold. He was special because he was tall, he had willpower, charm and above all he wanted to win."
At 20, Mr. Schwarzenegger became the youngest man to win the Mr. Universe title, the sport's top amateur prize. (He went on to win four more Mr. Universe crowns.) But initially he could not beat Sergio Oliva, for the professional title, Mr. Olympia. He finally dethroned Mr. Oliva in 1969 at a body building competition held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Mr. Schwarzenegger's movie debut in 1970 was inauspicious. It was the now-forgotten "Hercules in New York" or sometimes called "Hercules Goes Bananas." For the movie, he was renamed Arnold Strong, and played opposite the diminutive actor, Arnold Stang.
Early Appeal of Republicans
Television stirred Mr. Schwarzenegger's interest in politics, and in particular, Republicans. Mr. Columbu said that he and Mr. Schwarzenegger began watching television news in the late 1960's and decided that Republicans were far more appealing than Democrats.
The Democrats, Mr. Columbu said, reminded them of the dreary socialism they had left behind in Europe. The Republicans, he said they felt, were about hard work, self-sufficiency and a muscular foreign policy.
"We were mad at Europe," said Mr. Columbu, who was born in Sardinia. "We were coming here because we thought America was better than Europe. We liked Nixon because he told Europe it had to pull its weight. Basically, Europe was old and you couldn't get anywhere there. America was the place."
In the early 1980's Mr. Columbu, now a chiropractor, invited one of his patients, Dana Rohrabacher, a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, to have dinner with the action hero.
"When I first met him, he talked about how much he loved America, how much he admired Reagan," said Mr. Rohrabacher, now a congressman from Huntington Beach. "I remember him saying, `Dana, some day I'm going to be governor of California and I'm going to call you.' I knew he was a guy going places."
Mr. Schwarzenegger's film stardom led him to meet top Republicans like Mr. Reagan, Vice President George Bush and Pete Wilson, then a senator from California and eventually the governor. Although he keeps a bust of Mr. Reagan in his office, Mr. Schwarzenegger grew especially close to Mr. Bush, admiring his pragmatism and world view and regular style of speech.
Mr. Schwarzenegger's campaign team for the run for governor consists of Mr. Wilson, a Republican whose support for rigid measures to combat illegal immigration contrasted with his moderate approach to abortion and other social issues, and some senior members of his old Sacramento crew, including Bob White, his longtime strategist.
Mr. Schwarzenegger has drawn other powerful and well-know figures to his cause. Warren Buffett, the billionaire financier and a friend of Mr. Schwarzenegger, came aboard as a financial consultant, and George P. Shultz, secretary of state under President Reagan and friend of Mr. Wilson from the Hoover Institute, is helping the campaign.
Also in the foreground is Mr. Schwarzenegger's wife, who is a network television journalist and a member of the Kennedy family, the paragons of Democratic Party politics. Ms. Shriver is said to provide the counterbalance to the Republican strategists. She was said to be displeased with the round of early television show appearances in which her sleepy-eyed husband kicked off his campaign the morning after announcing his intentions on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. As a consequence, Team Schwarzenegger was reshuffled.
"She's looking at it as his wife," said Sheri Annis, a former consultant to Mr. Schwarzenegger. "I don't think she's Hillary Clinton. She's looking to advance Arnold, not herself."
Mr. Schwarzenegger did not vote in the last two presidential elections, according to election records. And over the last 20 years he has given more money to Democrats than Republicans, albeit all of the Democrats are Kennedys.
Some Republican conservatives have held back in supporting Mr. Mr. Schwarzenegger's candidacy. On social policies, at least, Mr. Schwarzenegger seems to hold views that conflict with hard-cover conservatives in the party. His outlook can best be summed up in an interview he gave to The Sunday Telegraph magazine in November 1999 in which he admonished his party members to alter their approach.
The Republican Party, Mr. Schwarzenegger said, "is going to lose until you become a party of inclusion." He went on to say, "that you love the foreigner that comes in with no money, as much as a gay person, as a lesbian person, as anyone else - someone who is uneducated, someone who's from the inner-city."
Getting Into Power Clique
Mr. Schwarzenegger's thin political resumé includes a stint as chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness under the first President George Bush, and sponsor of last year's successful California ballot initiative Proposition 49, which channeled state money into after-school programs. It also introduced him into the Sacramento power clique.
He is involved in numerous charities, including the Special Olympics and the Inner-City Games.
Mr. Schwarzenegger has, in the past, admitted taking steroids to enhance his body building. In 1997, after Mr. Schwarzenegger had heart valve replacements, his doctor said that the damage was not caused by steroid use, but was rather a congenital defect.
Around 1990, at the time he was nominated by the first President Bush to lead the fitness council, and aware that he might seek a political future, Mr. Schwarzenegger went to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles in an attempt to gauge the political consequences of his father's past. He asked officials at the center to investigate his father's ties to the Nazi Party, during World War II.
"He said that for years his father served in World War II, and he wanted to know exactly what he did," recalled Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Rabbi Hier said investigators found that Mr. Schwarzenegger's father had tried to join the Nazi Party in 1938, and was accepted for membership in 1941. He said that investigators found no evidence that the elder Mr. Schwarzenegger had committed war crimes.
"Arnold said, `What did it mean to be a member of the Nazi Party?' " Rabbi Hier recalled. "I explained, `Look, any son who finds that his father was a member of the Nazi Party is not something to be proud of.' "
Since then, Rabbi Hier said, Mr. Schwarzenegger and his wife have become very supportive of the Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance. He said the couple had been the hosts of numerous fund-raising events at their home and had donated more than $1 million to the center.
"No other star has given that kind of money," Rabbi Hier. "He is a friend not only of the center but the state of Israel."
But Mr. Schwarzenegger and Ms. Shriver surprised their friends by inviting Kurt Waldheim, the former United Nations secretary general, to their wedding in 1986. At the time, Mr. Waldheim, who was running for president of Austria, was denying accusations that he had concealed knowledge of war crimes committed by his German Army unit in World War II.
Mr. Waldheim did not attend the wedding, but sent the couple an elaborate gift - life-size papier-mâché statues of themselves.
Ms. Leigh wrote in her unauthorized biography of Mr. Schwarzenegger that he startled guests at his wedding with his nuptial toast: "My friends don't want me to mention Kurt's name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff and the U.N. controversy, but I love him and Maria does, too, and so thank you, Kurt."
Mr. Schwarzenegger, who lives with Ms. Shriver and their four children in an estate in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles, is plainly confident that he will triumph in politics. Just as he has triumphed in body building and the movies. As he said in "Pumping Iron": "I was always dreaming of very powerful people, dictators and things like that. I was just always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years."
Posted by Lisa at August 21, 2003 07:30 AM | TrackBack