US film actor, born near Graz, SE Austria. He took up body-building at the age of 14, winning several Mr Universe and Mr Olympia titles, then starred in a body-building documentary, Pumping Iron (1977). He had various small film roles before he was cast in Stay Hungry (1976), for which he received a Golden Globe as best newcomer. In the 1980s he became established as the leading figure in a new genre of muscular action films, beginning with Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984), which became increasingly technological and violent with The Terminator (1984) and Total Recall (1990). Later films include the comedy Twins (1988), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Last Action Hero (1992), Batman and Robin (1997), and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). He became an American citizen in 1983. A staunch public supporter of the US Republican Party, in 2003 he successfully ran for governor of California. In 2006 he successfully negotiated a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions, making California the first US state to legislate on the expulsion of carbon dioxide and other gases.
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | |
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| 38th Governor of California | |
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Term of office: November 17, 2003 – present |
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| Lieutenant Governor: |
Cruz Bustamante (2003- present) John Garamendi (elected) |
|---|---|
| Predecessor: | Gray Davis |
| Successor: | Incumbent |
| Born: |
July 30, 1947 (age 59) Thal bei Graz, Steiermark, Austria |
| Political party: | Republican |
| Profession: | Body Builder, Actor |
| Spouse: | Maria Shriver |
| Religion: | Roman Catholic |
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (German pronunciation (IPA): [aɐnɔlt aloʏs ʃvaɐtsənɛgɐ]) (born on July 30, 1947) is an Austrian-American bodybuilder, actor and Republican politician, currently serving as the 38th Governor of California.
Nicknamed "The Austrian Oak" in his body building days, and more recently "The Governator" (a portmanteau of Governor and Terminator, after the blockbuster film roles), Schwarzenegger as a young man gained widespread attention as a highly successful bodybuilder, and later gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action film star.
Early life
Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, Austria, a town bordering the Styrian capital, Graz, and christened Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger. In Pumping Iron, Schwarzenegger claimed his reason for not attending his father's funeral was that he was training for a bodybuilding contest, although both he and the film's producer later stated that this story was taken from another bodybuilder, for the purpose of showing the extremes that some would go to for their sport.
As a boy, Schwarzenegger played many sports, but discovered his passion for bodybuilding when in his mid-teens, his soccer coach took the team for weight training.
Schwarzenegger served in the Austrian army in 1965, to fulfill the one-year service requirement expected at the time of all 18 year old Austrian males.
Schwarzenegger made his first plane trip in 1966, attending the NABBA Mr. Universe competition being held in London.
Schwarzenegger moved to the United States in September of 1968, with little money or knowledge of the English language, and trained at Gold's Gym in Santa Monica under the patronage of Joe Weider.
Bodybuilding career
Schwarzenegger first gained fame as a bodybuilder.
In 1967 Schwarzenegger won the Munich stone lifting contest in which a stone weighing 508 German pounds (254kg/560lbs) is lifted between the legs while standing on two foot rests. Schwarzenegger's goal was to become the greatest bodybuilder in the world, which meant becoming Mr. Olympia.
Schwarzenegger continued his winning streak in the 1971, 1972, and 1973 competitions. After the 1974 Olympia, Schwarzenegger announced his retirement from professional bodybuilding. Schwarzenegger had only three months to prepare for the competition after losing significant weight to appear in the film Stay Hungry with Jeff Bridges. After being declared Mr. Olympia for a sixth consecutive time Schwarzenegger once again retired from competition.
Schwarzenegger came out of retirement once more to compete in the 1980 Mr. Olympia.
Schwarzenegger is considered among the most important figures in the history of bodybuilding, and his legacy is commemorated in the Arnold Classic annual bodybuilding competition. Schwarzenegger has remained a prominent face in the bodybuilding sport long after his retirement, in part due to his ownership of gyms and fitness magazines.
Steroid use
It has been claimed that Schwarzenegger won his first of seven Mr. Olympia titles in 1970 with the help of Dianabol . However, some bodybuilders who used the same steroid cocktails as Schwarzenegger in the 1970s dispute the notion that they were used merely for "muscle maintenance".
As recently as 2005, Schwarzenegger has been accused of tacit endorsement of steroid use, because the Arnold Classic competition to which he lends his name does not require testing of contestants.
In 1999, Schwarzenegger sued Dr. Willi Heepe, a German doctor who publicly predicted an early death for the bodybuilder based on a link between steroid use and later heart problems. As late as 1996, a year before open heart surgery to replace an aortic valve, Schwarzenegger publicly defended his use of anabolic steroids during his bodybuilding career.
Schwarzenegger was born with a bicuspid aortic valve;
Acting career
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | |
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| Birth name | Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger |
| Born |
July 30, 1947 (age 59) Thal, Austria |
| Height | 6'2" (188cm) |
| Official site | schwarzenegger.com |
| Notable roles |
The Terminator in The Terminator Detective John Kimble in Kindergarten Cop |
Arnold Schwarzenegger had long planned to move from bodybuilding into a career in acting, as had done many of his idols, such as Reg Park.
Schwarzenegger came to the attention of more people in the documentary Pumping Iron (1977), elements of which were dramatized. In 1991, Schwarzenegger purchased the rights to this film, its outtakes, and associated still photography. Schwarzenegger's breakthrough film was Conan the Barbarian (1982), and this was cemented by a sequel, Conan the Destroyer (1984). In Predator (1987), another successful film, Schwarzenegger led a cast which included future Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura (Ventura also appears in Running Man as well as in the film "Batman and Robin" which Schwarzenegger also starred in) and future Kentucky Gubernatorial Candidate Sonny Landham. Total Recall (1990), at that time the most expensive film ever, netted Schwarzenegger $10 million and 15% of the gross, and was, although violent, a widely praised, thought-provoking science-fiction script (based on the Phillip K Dick short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale) behind his usual violent action.
Schwarzenegger had a brief foray into directing, first with a 1990 episode of the TV series Tales from the Crypt, entitled The Switch, and then with the 1992 telemovie Christmas in Connecticut.
Schwarzenegger's critical and commercial high-water mark was Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Schwarzenegger's career never again achieved quite the same prominence, his aura of box-office invincibility suffering, although True Lies (1994) was a highly popular sendup of spy films, and saw Schwarzenegger reunited with director James Cameron, whose own career had taken off with The Terminator.
Shortly thereafter came Junior, which brought Schwarzenegger his second Golden Globe nomination, this time for Best Actor - Musical or Comedy. Robin Schwarzenegger's film career and box office prominence went into decline.
Several film projects were announced with Schwarzenegger attached to star including the remake of Planet of the Apes, a new film version of I Am Legend and a World War II film scripted by Quentin Tarantino that would have seen Schwarzenegger finally play an Austrian.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has stated in many interviews he never regrets doing a role and he feels really bad when he turns down a role.
Political career
Schwarzenegger is a registered Republican.
Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy in the 2003 California recall election for Governor of California on the August 6, 2003 episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. As a candidate in the recall election, Schwarzenegger had the most name recognition in a crowded field of candidates, but he had never held public office and his political views were unknown to most Californians. Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California under the second question on the ballot with 48.6% of the vote to choose a successor to Davis.
Schwarzenegger's initial days in office were heady, infused with a number of faux pas statements that many attribute to his sense of overconfidence stemming from his entertainment industry clout. Building on a catch phrase from a Saturday Night Live sketch partly parodying his bodybuilding career, Schwarzenegger called the Democratic State politicians "girlie men," a reference from a Saturday Night Live skit called "Hans and Franz", in which Schwarzenegger guest-starred once.
Schwarzenegger later began to feel the backlash when powerful state unions began to oppose his various initiatives.
Schwarzenegger then bucked the advice of fellow Republican strategists and appointed a Democrat, Susan Kennedy, a lesbian, as his Chief of Staff. Schwarzenegger scrambled toward the political middle, determined to build a winning legacy with only a short time to go until the next gubernatorial election.
Schwarzenegger ran for re-election against Democrat Phil Angelides, the California State Treasurer, in the 2006 elections, held on November 7, 2006. Despite a poor year nationally for the Republican party, Schwarzenegger won re-election with 56% of the vote, a margin of well over one million votes, cementing his credentials as a bona fide politician.
Other aspects of Schwarzenegger's life
Personal life
In 1977, Schwarzenegger's autobiography Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder was published. Also in 1977, Arnold Schwarzenegger declared, "Milk is for babies, when you grow up you drink beer" in Pumping Iron, the documentary about bodybuilders that launched the Austrian’s superstar career.
Schwarzenegger became a U.S. citizen in 1983, although he also retains his Austrian citizenship.
In 1986, Schwarzenegger married TV journalist Maria Shriver, niece of the past President of the United States John F.
Business career
By the age of 30, Schwarzenegger was a millionaire, well before his career in Hollywood. His financial independence came from a series of successful business ventures and investments:
In 1968, Schwarzenegger and fellow bodybuilder Franco Columbu started a bricklaying business.
Schwarzenegger and Columbu used profits from their bricklaying venture to start a mail order business, selling bodybuilding and fitness-related equipment and instructional tapes.
Schwarzenegger rolled profits from the mail order business and his bodybuilding competition winnings into his first real estate venture: an apartment building he purchased for $10,000.
Planet Hollywood
Arnold Schwarzenegger was a founding "celebrity investor" in the Planet Hollywood chain of international theme restaurants (modeled after the Hard Rock Cafe) along with Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Demi Moore.
Net worth
Schwarzenegger's net worth has been under-estimated by conservatively using the usual $100,000,000-$200,000,000 (USD) estimate.
Allegations of sexual and personal misconduct
During his initial campaign for Governor, allegations of sexual and personal misconduct were raised against Schwarzenegger (see Gropegate).
Chronologically, they ranged from Elaine Stockton, who claimed that Schwarzenegger groped her breast at a Gold's Gym in 1975 (she was 19 at the time), to a 51 year old woman who said that he pinned her to his chest and spanked her shortly after she met him in connection with production of his film, The Sixth Day, in 2000.
Schwarzenegger admitted that he has "behaved badly sometimes" and apologized, but also stated that "a lot of (what) you see in the stories is not true". This came after an interview in adult magazine Oui from 1977 surfaced, in which Schwarzenegger discussed attending sexual orgies and indulging in drugs like marijuana. Schwarzenegger is shown smoking a marijuana cigarette after winning Mr. Olympia in the 1977 documentary film Pumping Iron.
British television personality Anna Ryder Richardson settled a libel lawsuit in August 2006 against Schwarzenegger and two of his top aides, Sean Walsh and publicist Sheryl Main. Although, during his 2003 election campaign, Schwarzenegger had promised to respond to the allegations of sexual harassment by Richardson and several other women, he failed to do so after being elected.
Allegations of Nazi admiration and support of Kurt Waldheim
Allegations printed on the front page of The Los Angeles Times, based on selective quotation, which Schwarzenegger claimed not to recall, were also made that he at one time admired Adolf Hitler and had praised him as a great propagandist. Although Schwarzenegger's parents were members of the Nazi party (his father, Gustav Schwarzenegger, was also a member of the Sturmabteilung or SA), Schwarzenegger has been a strong supporter of various Jewish groups, and has denounced the principles of the fascist German regime, saying "I have always despised everything that Hitler stands for and what my history of my country stood for".
A March 1992 Spy Magazine article mentions a story confirmed by "a businessman and longtime friend of Schwarzenegger's" -- that in the '70s Arnold "enjoyed playing and giving away records of Hitler's speeches".
Schwarzenegger supported the campaign of his friend, Kurt Waldheim, former UN chief and a former Austrian politician who was accused of war crimes during World War II in Yugoslavia, which resulted in both Waldheim, and his wife, Elisabeth, both of whom belonged to the Nazi Party, being excluded from entering the United States. Schwarzenegger's name remained on Waldheim's campaign posters, even after allegations of Waldheim's war crimes were brought to light. According to Wendy Leigh, author of "Arnold: An Unauthorized Biography", Schwarzenegger was said to have made a toast to his friend which that he would later regret, and which shocked many who were present: "My friends don't want me to mention Kurt's name because of all the recent Nazi stuff ... Garry Trudeau, the cartoonist behind the comic strip Doonesbury, combined the allegations by nicknaming Schwarzenegger "Herr Gröpenführer" (after the early paramilitary Nazi rank Gruppenführer) and depicting Schwarzenegger as a huge, groping hand in his artwork (Trudeau has a tradition of depicting prominent real-world politicians using symbolism, such as showing President George H.W.
The 1993 Sylvester Stallone film Demolition Man jokingly referenced Schwarzenegger as President of the United States. In the film, a future America passed a constitutional amendment to allow naturalized Americans like Schwarzenegger to become President of the United States, and that film referenced a "Schwarzenegger Presidential Library".
In addition, the official strategy guide for the 2000 video game Perfect Dark includes a comic which points to Schwarzenegger as being a U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate in the year 2025. In honor of its most famous son, Schwarzenegger's home town of Graz had named its soccer stadium after him. The Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium, now officially titled UPC-Arena, is the home of both Grazer AK and Sturm Graz. Following the Stanley Tookie Williams execution and after street protests in his home town, several local politicians began a campaign to remove Schwarzenegger's name from the stadium. Schwarzenegger responded, saying that "to spare the responsible politicians of the city of Graz further concern, I withdraw from them as of this day the right to use my name in association with the Liebenauer Stadium", and set a tight deadline of just a couple of days to remove his name. Graz officials removed Schwarzenegger's name from the stadium in December 2005. Pilz claimed that Schwarzenegger's actions in support of the death penalty (prohibited in Austria under Protocol 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights) had indeed done heavy damage to Austria's reputation. Schwarzenegger justified his actions by referring to the fact that his only duty as Governor of California was to prevent an error in the judicial system. Because Schwarzenegger opted in 1997 for a replacement heart valve made of his own transplanted tissue, medical experts predict he will require repeated heart valve replacement surgery in the next two to eight years (as his current valve degrades). Mahathir on Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California, despite allegations about his past: "I think he had every right to contest.
Bibliography
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold: Developing a Mr Universe Physique, 1977 ---- Interview in Oui magazine, August 1977 ---- Excerpts from Time Out (London) interview, 1977 ---- Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder, 1983, Simon & Schuster, 1999, ISBN 0684857219 Nigel Andrews, True Myths of Arnold Schwarzenegger : The Life and Times of Arnold Schwarzenegger, from Pumping Iron to Governor of California, Bloomsbury USA, Revised edition, 2004, ISBN 1582344655 Michael Blitz, Why Arnold Matters: The Rise of a Cultural Icon Karen Brandon, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sexton, Arnold Schwarzenegger (A&E Biography), Lerner Publications, 2004, ISBN 0822522233 Susan Zannos, Arnold Schwarzenegger (Real-Life Reader Biography) Andy Borowitz, Governor Arnold : A Photodiary of His First 100 Days in Office, Simon & Schuster, 2004, ISBN 0743262662 "Arnold Schwarzenegger - Hollywood Hero" DVD ~ Todd Baker "Pumping Iron" (25th Anniversary Special Edition) DVD ~ George Butler Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Internet Movie Database Cinemovie.Info: Arnold SchwarzeneggerOfficial
State of California - Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Schwarzenegger's Official Website (Non-Political) Arnold Schwarzenegger's Official Political Website Citizens to Save California, a broad-based committee supporting the reform agendas of Governor Schwarzenegger and others Official VoteCircle ProfileElection Websites
VoteCircle.com Non-partisan resources & vote sharing network for Californians 2006 Candidates for Governor of CaliforniaUnofficial
Arnold Speaks Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Internet Movie Database Video: Arnold's victory speech (BBC News) "The Governator" A Tribute in Song Arnold Schwarzenegger Political History Arnold Schwarzenegger Height Site (Website dedicated to Arnold Schwarzenegger's height) Arnold Schwarzenegger on AskMen.com CommandoFans.com A website and message board dedicated to the Schwarzenegger film Commando. Arnold and the American dream (BBC News) Greg Palast Arnold Unplugged (exposé on the Schwarzenegger-Enron connection) Arnold Schwarzenegger: King of bodybuilding, movies, politics and media Arnold Schwarzenegger Muscle Gallery - 1300 pictures globalarnold.com (Global Arnold Schwarzenegger fan community) About.com's Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's Newest Democrat ArnoldAloisSchwarzenegger.com A complete fansite with news, vidoes and photo. Arnold Exposed - anti-Schwarzenegger site by Alex Jones|
Preceded by: Gray Davis |
Governor of California 2003–present |
Incumbent |
| Governors of California | |
|---|---|
| Burnett • McDougall • Bigler • J. Johnson • Weller • Latham • Downey • Stanford • Low • Haight • Booth • Pacheco • Irwin • Perkins • Stoneman • Bartlett • Waterman • Markham • Budd • Gage • Pardee • Gillett • H. Brown • Deukmejian • Wilson • Davis • Schwarzenegger |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Schwarzenegger, Arnold Alois |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Bodybuilder, actor, and California politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 30, 1947 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Thal, Austria |
| DATE OF DEATH | living |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
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