Women say Schwarzenegger groped, degraded them
Six women who came into contact with Arnold Schwarzenegger on movie sets, in studio offices and in other settings in the past three decades say he touched them in a sexual manner without their consent.
Schwarzenegger's campaign spokesman, Sean Walsh, said the candidate has not engaged in improper conduct toward women either on the set or off. He said such accusations are part of an escalating political attack on Schwarzenegger as the election draws near.
He said Schwarzenegger would have no comment.
None of the women approached the Times on her own. All were interviewed in the course of a seven-week examination of whether Schwarzenegger had harassed women.
The actor's attitudes about women have been an issue on the campaign trail, where critics have accused him of being misogynistic, based on past statements made to various publications. In response, Schwarzenegger has said that he respects women and that many of his comments were said in jest or simply meant to be provocative.
The earliest incident described to the Times was said to have occurred in 1975 at Gold's Gym near Venice Beach, Calif. E. Laine Stockton, then newly married to professional bodybuilder Robby Robinson, said she had come to the gym to watch her husband work out.
Stockton said she was wearing slacks, tennis shoes and a loose-fitting T-shirt. She said she was not wearing a bra.
As she sat on an exercise bench, Stockton said, Schwarzenegger walked up behind her, reached his left hand under her T-shirt and touched her left breast.
"I was just shocked, shocked to the point where I almost didn't know how to react, because it was so out of the blue and so unexpected," she said.
Robinson, now divorced from Stockton, confirmed the incident in a separate interview.
The next incident described to the Times was said to have occurred in 1980. A former pro beach-volleyball player said Schwarzenegger groped her breast on a Santa Monica, Calif., street. The woman, who worked at a deli Schwarzenegger frequented, said she previously had rejected advances by the actor.
This time, she said, as she walked along 19th Street, Schwarzenegger "grabbed and squeezed" her left breast. "If I was a man," she said she told him, "I would bust your jaw."
As tears welled in her eyes, she said, Schwarzenegger laughed. "He thought it was hilarious."
The woman said she told her sister about the encounter. In a separate interview, the sister confirmed that.
A third woman, British television host Anna Richardson, said she was interviewing the actor in December 2000 as part of his promotional tour for the movie "The Sixth Day." The interview, to be aired on her TV show "Big Screen," took place in a suite at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
After the interview, she said, Schwarzenegger groped her breasts and asked if they were real.
Sheryl Main, a Hollywood publicist who has worked with Schwarzenegger, said Richardson concocted the story.
A movie studio secretary said Schwarzenegger grabbed her buttocks in the late 1980s. She said the episode occurred on the Columbia Pictures lot. When she approached the seated actor to shake his hand, he slipped his left hand under her skirt and grabbed her right buttock.
"He just held on. He held on and said, 'You have a very nice ass.'
"I was trying to figure out how to get his hand off my butt ... I was just thinking, 'Let me get out of here.' "
The secretary said Schwarzenegger released her after about 20 seconds.
She said she told the story to a friend, Michael Collins, a freelance writer and director of The Los Angeles Press Club. In a separate interview, Collins said she recounted the episode to him eight months ago — well before the recall race.
In late 1990, Schwarzenegger was in the town of Fontana, shooting "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." According to a female crew member, Schwarzenegger harassed her on several occasions on an elevator while she was wearing a terry-cloth robe over a black, one-piece Speedo swimsuit.
"At least three times — if not more — he would end up in the elevator with me, groping me and trying to take my robe off," she said. "He would pin me against the corner in the elevator" and try to take off her robe and pull down the straps of her suit, she said.
She said she told her boss, who advised her, "Just stay away from him."
"What could you do? He was the highest-paid actor in the world. I was a peon," she said.
The crew member said she told her husband about the confrontations within a year of when they first met in 1992. "I heard this story a long time ago," her husband confirmed.
Another woman, now a wife and mother in her 30s, said she also fell in Schwarzenegger's "sight lines" while "Terminator 2" was being filmed in Fontana.
A member of the movie crew, she said Schwarzenegger was sitting in a director's chair, surrounded by three or four other men, waiting for filming to start.
"I was walking on the set and Arnold called out, 'Come here, you sexy devil,' and reached out and pulled me on to his lap," the woman recalled, adding that he asked her if she had ever had a certain sex act performed on her.
The woman said she recounted the incident at the time to a family member. The family member confirmed being told about the encounter. The woman said she wished she "wasn't so spineless," but feared she would be shunned in Hollywood if quoted by name.
Some of the dozens of people interviewed for this article stressed that the culture on movie sets tends to be rowdy and permissive. Often, the tone is set by the star, they said.
In Schwarzenegger's case, they said, his sense of humor and language are often outrageous but not mean-spirited. Many colleagues find him charming.
But one stuntwoman, Chere Rae Bryson, came away with a different impression after working with Schwarzenegger on the 1990 movie "Total Recall."
"He was crude, boisterous and disparaging around women," she said.
Bryson said Schwarzenegger was on his best behavior whenever his wife, Maria Shriver, was present. The couple married in 1986. "When Maria was around, he was a gentleman," Bryson said. "When she wasn't around, he was the opposite."
seattletimes.nwsource.com
Looks like Ahnooood has a problem. Do you think that republicans that had a problem with Clinton will hold their noses and vote for Schwarzenegger?
Of course they will!
Orca |
