From shoeshine boy to Governor! We will get a lot of this "Horatio Alger" from now on.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER AS ... THE CONTENDER
By Dion Nissenbaum
Mercury News Sacramento Bureau
In an already epic life, Arnold Schwarzenegger -- the self-proclaimed ``Billy Graham of the muscle set'' -- has distinguished himself as a consummate showman and skilled salesman with a singular ability to peddle one compelling product: himself.
Using brawn and brains, the 250-pound ``Austrian Oak'' cast a spell on the fringe sport of bodybuilding before storming Hollywood to become one of the world's best-known celebrities.
Not content to go down in history as Mr. Olympia and the Terminator, Schwarzenegger is turning his intensity on Sacramento with plans to topple Gov. Gray Davis and become California's real-life savior.
``The guy had a dream and every step of the way, every single prediction he made, regardless of how outrageous at the time, he has achieved,'' said Rick Wayne, a retired bodybuilder who has known Schwarzenegger for 35 years. ``And I wouldn't be surprised if he made it as governor.''
A Schwarzenegger victory would cap a storybook life. But even some of his closest friends wonder whether the brash actor with a colorful past is well-suited for this latest role: leader of a battered state that has careened from crisis to crisis.
The 56-year-old Republican has proved himself a master mythmaker who has sidestepped questions about boorish behavior, insensitive jokes and alleged affairs to create a legend. But turning around California's troubled economy will require more than stunt doubles and special effects.
``There's a lot at stake here,'' said producer Mike Medavoy, a Democrat who worked with Schwarzenegger on three films, including ``The 6th Day.'' ``It's our children's future, and we can't take this lightly. It can't be about friendship or stardom. It has to be about who can best serve.
``We've done a lot together and I'm a big booster and fan of his, but I want to be clear: I'm not voting for friendship; I'm voting for governor.''
Schwarzenegger has never had time for naysayers -- and he's not about to listen to them now. The actor-turned-politician, who has declined interviews with California's political writers, is barreling toward the Oct. 7 recall using the same pitch he has used for decades.
``I know how to sell something,'' Schwarzenegger said after announcing his surprise run earlier this month on ``The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.'' ``I had to sell bodybuilding when nobody knew what bodybuilding was in this country -- and we did it. And I had to sell myself as an action hero, which wasn't easy when everyone said, `Hey, your name is Schwartzenstein' or something like that. And you have an accent. You have this overdeveloped body. No one could ever be successful with this kind of a combination. And I did it, because I sold myself to the American people and the people around the world.
``And the same is here. It's up to me to sell to the people and to convince the people that I can do the job.''
Strict upbringing
After seven Mr. Olympia titles, five Mr. Universe trophies, more than a half-dozen blockbuster films, one Golden Globe award (in 1977 for a best acting debut), a fairy-tale marriage to a Kennedy, and celebrity that now commands up to $30 million a film, there are few who doubt Schwarzenegger's talent, charisma or drive.
In many ways, Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger's single-minded discipline stems from his upbringing in Thal, a farming village in southern Austria. His father, Gustav, was a stern police chief who joined the Nazi Party in 1938, four months after Adolf Hitler's Germany annexed its neighbor. Growing up, according to biographer Nigel Andrews, Gustav forced Arnold and his older brother (who later died in a car crash) to shine his shoes and polish his police belt. Sometimes, Gustav would use a belt on his sons for discipline.
Schwarzenegger the salesman first emerged when, as an 11-year-old, he bought ice cream cones for a shilling and sold them to hot summer parkgoers for three shillings.
Although his parents wanted him to play soccer, Schwarzenegger hated sharing the limelight with other competitors and became entranced with bodybuilding -- a sport that allowed him to be the center of attention. As a teenager, Schwarzenegger sat in an Austrian movie theater watching bodybuilding legend Reg Park playing Hercules and set his sights on following Park's footsteps from the weight room to the silver screen.
During a mandatory year in the Austrian army, Schwarzenegger went absent without leave to compete -- and win -- his first bodybuilding competition in Germany. The euphoria wore off when Schwarzenegger was caught returning to base and jailed for seven days.
Being named Mr. Europe Junior only whetted Schwarzenegger's appetite for the spotlight.
``I didn't care if they locked me up for a whole year,'' he wrote in his 1977 autobiography, ``Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder.'' ``It had been worth it.''
In an industry fueled by testosterone, ego and then-legal steroids, Schwarzenegger excelled. His imposing figure sparked growing adoration and fed his ego.
``I knew I was destined for great things,'' Schwarzenegger wrote in his autobiography. ``People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way -- I hope it never will.''
After conquering Europe, Schwarzenegger turned his sights on America.
On the campaign trail, Schwarzenegger has cast his arrival as a Horatio Alger story, suggesting he landed as a penniless immigrant with little more than a gym bag.
The story does not quite match reality. The 21-year-old bodybuilder was already a star overseas who owned a gym in Germany. When he came to California in 1968, he had a job waiting for him, according to interviews and his autobiography.
Joe Weider, founder of the International Federation of Bodybuilders, said he paid for Schwarzenegger to fly from London to Miami to compete in the Mr. Olympia contest, where the young bodybuilder was reduced to tears after coming in second.
Recognizing Schwarzenegger's budding star power, Weider said he set up his Austrian protege in North Hollywood with a car, apartment and $200-a-week salary. (A Schwarzenegger campaign representative said he was paid only $65 a week.)
``Every sport needs a hero, like basketball, baseball and boxing,'' said Weider, who saw sales of his Muscle Power magazine skyrocket when it featured Schwarzenegger. ``You need a hero. I was looking for one.''
Bulking up
Schwarzenegger spent hours at the now-legendary Gold's Gym in Venice, but -- by his own admission -- he also used steroids to bulk up.
``I tried them a couple of times, Arnold tried them a couple of times, but we were really depending on training and didn't rely on them too much,'' said Schwarzenegger's longtime friend, bodybuilding champion Franco Columbu.
But steroids, which have since been banned, were an integral part of the bodybuilding scene, said Bill Howard, a pioneer of the sport who helped create the Muscle Beach scene in Venice. Without steroids, he said, Schwarzenegger could not have created his intimidating form.
``You can't get that structure,'' he said.
Schwarzenegger rose to the top using not just his muscles, but also his head.
By watching his mentors, he perfected the art of psychological warfare, using it time and again to knock his rivals off-balance during competitions. He became the Muhammad Ali of bodybuilding, a man who used his muscles, mind and mouth to rule.
``When you think about it, anyone who wishes to claim the title of champion should be the master of his own mind as well as his sport,'' he wrote in his 1989 ``New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding.'' ``If he isn't, and your psyching him out throws him, then he has no business complaining.''
Schwarzenegger's mental games were captured on the big screen in George Butler's cult-hit 1977 documentary on bodybuilding, ``Pumping Iron.''
In the film, the 28-year-old Schwarzenegger belittles rising star Lou Ferrigno after the younger bodybuilder invites his Austrian idol to breakfast and while the two are preparing for the contest. Ferrigno came in third and Schwarzenegger won his sixth Mr. Olympia title.
Schwarzenegger reveled in his celebrity and status as a sex symbol. During those years, Schwarzenegger admits he viewed women as little more than sexual playthings. He posed for pictures nude and was captured on film smoking pot.
As the champion fine-tuned his body, he was also working out his political beliefs. Living in socialist Austria pushed Schwarzenegger toward conservative politics.
Touchy subjects
Schwarzenegger didn't shy away from controversial views. He often got into heated battles with Rick Wayne -- a black bodybuilder from St. Lucia, a Caribbean island -- about one of the most emotional international issues of the 1970s: racial segregation in South Africa.
Wayne said Schwarzenegger defended the apartheid system and argued that white South Africans could not turn power over to black South Africans without ruining the nation.
``At the time, I just thought he was an out-and-out racist,'' Wayne said in a recent interview.
Schwarzenegger also appeared to have no qualms about telling Jewish jokes to his friends.
Wayne said he watched Schwarzenegger upset Jewish friend Joe Weider to the point of tears with his crass jokes, which included doing an impression of Hitler.
As their friendship evolved, Wayne said he came to understand Schwarzenegger's sense of humor.
Wayne once asked his friend how an Austrian immigrant had conquered Hollywood.
In a moment of ``pure mischief,'' he said, Schwarzenegger stood up, looked him ``straight in the eye and said, `Because I've got the greatest physique in the world, I'm sharp, I'm super talented.' Then he stood up, walked down the hall, looked over his shoulder and said: `And I'm white.' ''
What might have once set Wayne off now leaves him chuckling.
``Today I don't necessarily think he's a racist,'' he said. ``How are you a racist and have a black guy as your friend?''
During those years, Schwarzenegger also demonstrated little tact in discussing homosexuality. He once scolded an interviewer for asking him ``the fag question'' and dismissively told a Newsweek reporter in 1975: ``I know more plumbers who are fags than I do bodybuilders.''
A few years later, however, Schwarzenegger tempered his remarks.
``I have no sexual standards in my head that say this is good or this is bad,'' he said in 1977. ``Homosexual -- that only means to me that he enjoys sex with a man and I enjoy sex with a woman. . . . It's all legitimate to me.''
Schwarzenegger spokesman Sean Walsh said the actor has a mischievous sense of humor, but that some of the tales ``have taken on larger-than-life and urban-myth proportions.''
Public service
Rather than focus on the actor's words, Walsh advised, voters should look at his deeds: supporting the Special Olympics in South Africa with former President Nelson Mandela, donating money to Jewish groups, and backing gay adoption.
``The actions that Mr. Schwarzenegger has taken in these areas are a mountain compared to rare comments of interactions from decades ago,'' Walsh said.
As Schwarzenegger shifted from the macho world of bodybuilding to the politically correct world of Hollywood, the novice actor began to buff his image.
The transformation was no doubt aided by his courtship of Maria Shriver, an up-and-coming television reporter and member of the Democratic Kennedy clan.
The two met at a Robert F. Kennedy tennis tournament in 1977, the beginning of a long relationship that has helped redefine Schwarzenegger. The budding actor admitted that Shriver's family -- her father, Sargent, was the first director of the Peace Corps and a vice presidential nominee -- helped him understand the value of public service.
From the start, the two appeared to be an odd couple.
She was a self-assured Democrat with her own career. He was a conservative Republican with traditional views on women. He told interviewers that Shriver wasn't allowed to wear pants when she went out with him and that children should be ruled ``with an iron fist.''
But the relationship has weathered intense challenges. Rumors of on-set affairs filled tabloid headlines for years. More recently, several female reporters came forward in 2000 to accuse Schwarzenegger of fondling them during interviews, and an actress told a London newspaper that she had a seven-year sexual relationship with the actor.
The actor has dismissed the allegations and -- in the campaign -- sought to focus on his political views.
New Hercules
Following in idol Reg Park's footsteps, Schwarzenegger made his acting debut in 1970 -- as Arnold Strong -- in ``Hercules in New York,'' a schlocky film that exploited his muscles. Seven years later, the actor won his first -- and only -- acting award, a Golden Globe, for his role as an aspiring bodybuilder in ``Stay Hungry.''
But it was the two ``Conan'' movies of the early 1980s that caught the attention of moviegoers and film critics. The fantasy films were the first in a career built on selling himself as a hero who remorselessly strikes down his enemies and exacts his revenge.
Even back then, said Richard Fleischer, who directed ``Conan the Destroyer,'' Schwarzenegger had an unmistakable determination to be the best. ``He knows what his limitations are,'' he said. ``He didn't rest on his laurels, he wanted to work and learn.''
``Conan the Destroyer'' sagged at the box office, but it was quickly followed by Schwarzenegger's most celebrated role as ``The Terminator.'' At the time, Schwarzenegger dismissed the film as science-fiction dreck. But his role as a robotic villain who returns from the future to eradicate mankind's last hope of defeating the cyborgs was his breakthrough.
Working with director James Cameron, Schwarzenegger found his Hollywood persona. His oiled muscles took a back seat to his deadpan delivery and imposing presence.
``The Terminator'' provided Schwarzenegger with one of his signature lines -- ``I'll be back'' -- and propelled him into superstardom.
The film also laid the foundation for the gruesome movies that became a Schwarzenegger trademark. From gunning down his daughter's kidnappers in ``Commando'' to using innocent bystanders as shields in ``Total Recall,'' Schwarzenegger racked up high body counts that enraged anti-violence critics.
For years, the actor dismissed such scorn as fans continued to flock to his films. But as he aged and his wife gave birth to their first child, Schwarzenegger sought to revamp his image yet again. In between shooting his second ``Terminator'' film and the comically violent ``Total Recall,'' Schwarzenegger tried his hand at comedy with ``Kindergarten Cop'' and ``Twins.''
After he filmed ``Last Action Hero'' in 1994, Schwarzenegger rejected the armed version of the first action figure to feature his likeness and had the box stamped with the slogan: ``Play it smart. . . . Never play with real guns.''
``This country is going in an anti-violence direction,'' he said at the time. ``I think America has seen now enough of what violence has done in the cities, and while it was OK for the Arnold of the '80s to kill 275 people on screen, it is not for the Arnold of the '90s.''
``Last Action Hero'' proved to be Schwarzenegger's Waterloo. The film bombed, providing the first chink in the actor's armor.
Father's politics
As his superstardom began to show signs of dimming, Schwarzenegger set his sights on another career change by sizing up the governor's office. As he mulled the future, he began to take a hard look at his past.
In 1990, amid Hollywood chatter about Gustav Schwarzenegger's Nazi past, Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles to uncover what they could about his father.
After an eight-week investigation, the center informed the actor that his father had tried to join the Nazi Party two months before Germany invaded Austria and he became a member after Hitler annexed the country. But the center uncovered no evidence of war crimes.
New documents, reviewed this month by the Los Angeles Times, showed that Gustav Schwarzenegger had been a member of the notorious Nazi Brownshirts. The elder Schwarzenegger joined the elite group after Kristallnacht, a night of terror in 1938 when the Brownshirts ransacked and destroyed Jewish businesses, synagogues and homes across Austria and Germany. He later served with a German army unit deeply involved in some of the most horrendous battles in the war.
The revelations, said center founder Rabbi Marvin Hier, prompted Schwarzenegger to request another investigation of his father.
Even if new evidence surfaces about Gustav, Hier said, the sins ``of the father should not be visited on the son.''
Regret
Hier did voice reservations about Schwarzenegger's controversial 1986 wedding toast to Kurt Waldheim, the former president of Austria accused of concealing his Nazi ties. But he said the actor had been a supporter of the Wiesenthal Center since 1984, long before he asked its investigators to look into his father's military record.
``I do not support what he said at that toast,'' he said. ``I can only tell you one thing: Anti-Semites and bigots don't help Jewish organizations or support the state of Israel.''
Campaign spokesman Rob Stutzman also said Schwarzenegger regrets praising Waldheim, who had been invited to the wedding but did not attend -- sending instead a huge statue of the couple as a present.
``Arnold has said it was a stupid thing to do,'' said Stutzman. ``Obviously if he knew then what he knows now, he would not have offered the toast.''
Schwarzenegger's work with the Simon Wiesenthal Center was part of a push to dive into the public-service world that was the arena of Shriver and her family.
The actor devoted time to the Special Olympics, set up the Inner-City Games Foundation, and signed on in 1990 to be chairman of President George H.W. Bush's council on physical fitness.
After three years working for Bush, Schwarzenegger shifted his focus to California, where he took a similar job for then-Gov. Pete Wilson after ``Last Action Hero'' tanked.
In the actor, Wilson saw a natural politician.
``He genuinely enjoys gripping and grinning and it comes quite naturally to him,'' said Wilson, who is now co-chairman of Schwarzenegger's campaign.
The governor's council on physical fitness gave Schwarzenegger a platform to test his political acumen and develop his leadership style -- which members said was very hands-on.
``Everything we had to discuss or deal with, we'd have to run past Arnold,'' said Donald Demars, executive director of the council, which was set up to promote fitness at schools.
Schwarzenegger pumped in his own money to keep the council afloat, sold off cameo appearances in his movies to raise money, and made phone calls to get friends to donate cash. The council gave Schwarzenegger some exposure to politics, but not enough experience to become a candidate in an era when voters were looking for leaders with experience.
So Schwarzenegger bided his time.
The actor took a more active role in national politics, giving speeches for Republican candidates like former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.
Bipartisan coalition
He spoke out against right-wing extremists in his party and said he was ``embarrassed'' to be a Republican during the impeachment of President Clinton. The actor has proclaimed himself a fiscal conservative and social liberal who supports abortion rights and limited gun control.
Last year, Schwarzenegger took the next step in building his political résumé by spearheading Proposition 49, a ballot measure designed to set aside state money for after-school programs.
Schwarzenegger built a bipartisan coalition to support the successful initiative and impressed many advocates with his political ability.
John Hein, political director of the California Teachers Association, said he watched with amazement the day the actor came to the union office. Star-struck CTA employees brought their friends, children and cameras, jostling for position to meet the Hollywood star.
``That kind of drawing power is an incredible factor in politics,'' said Hein, who said the actor made sure to consult with the powerful, left-leaning teachers union on the initiative.
``I don't have any doubts about his ability to run an effective campaign for governor -- and to govern if he wins,'' he said.
The campaign was widely seen as a cornerstone for a Schwarzenegger run for governor in 2006. But the recall threw those plans into disarray.
As the effort to oust Davis gathered steam, Schwarzenegger began to warm to the idea of jumping into the landmark race as his best shot for circumventing a Republican primary that might be dominated by conservatives.
Schwarzenegger wrestled with the idea and the impact it would have on his wife and children -- two boys, ages 5 and 9, and two girls, ages 12 and 13. And he kept even his closest friends guessing until the last minute.
Columbu said he had lunch with Schwarzenegger hours before he appeared on ``The Tonight Show,'' and his best friend never let on that he was about to shake up American politics with the ultimate psych-out that jarred Davis and left Democrats reeling.
``He will make the greatest governor because he's smart, he has ambition, he has leadership, and he has a vision,'' said Columbu, who now works as a chiropractor in the Los Angeles area. ``He has guts and most of the politicians are just sitting there talking about the past.''
Others who have known him for decades are not so sure.
``Arnold was very much in control of Arnold the commodity so he could push himself,'' Wayne said. ``When it comes to controlling Arnold, when it comes to controlling his world, he's the master. I don't think the governorship is his world.''
Mercury News Staff Writer Eric Nalder contributed to this report. Contact Dion Nissenbaum at dnissenbaum@mercurynews. com or (916) 441-4603.
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