Nicknamed The Austrian Oak in his body-building days, and more recently The Governator or simply Ahnold, Schwarzenegger as a young man gained widespread attention as a highly successful bodybuilder, and later gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action film star. His most famous films include The Terminator (and its sequels), Predator, Hercules in New York, Conan the Barbarian, True Lies, Kindergarten Cop, and Total Recall. Personal background After working in the United Kingdom for a short time, and with $20 in his pocket, and not fluent in English, he moved to the U.S. in 1968. He became a U.S. citizen in 1983, although he has also retained his Austrian citizenship. During this time, he earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Superior where he graduated with degrees in international marketing of fitness and business administration in 1979. In 1971 Schwarzenegger's brother Meinhard was killed in an automobile accident, and his father died the following year. He did not attend either funeral. In 1977 his autobiography, Arnold: The Education of a Body-Builder was published. In 1986, Schwarzenegger married TV journalist Maria Shriver, niece of late President John F. Kennedy. The couple have four children: daughters Katherine and Christina, and sons Patrick and Christopher. Together, the couple own a home in the fabled Kennedy Compound. His distinctive and oft-imitated accent has led many entertainers
and pundits to refer to him simply as "Ah-nuld". ['are-nulled'] Schwarzenegger has admitted to using performance-enhancing anabolic steroids, writing in 1977 that "[steroids] were helpful to me in maintaining muscle size while on a strict diet in preparation for a contest. I did not use them for muscle growth, but rather for muscle maintenance when cutting up." 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." Even Schwarzenegger has called the drugs "tissue building." In 1999, Schwarzenegger sued 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. Because the doctor had never examined him personally, Schwarzenegger collected a DM 20,000 ($12,000 USD) libel judgment against him in a German court. In 1999 Schwarzenegger also sued and settled with Globe Magazine, a U.S. tabloid which had made similar predictions about the bodybuilder's future health. 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; a normal aortic valve is tricuspid.) According to a spokesman, Schwarzenegger has not used anabolic steroids since 1990 when they were made illegal. In bodybuilder slang, steroids are sometimes called "Arnolds". 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. He has presided over numerous contests and awards shows. For many years he wrote a monthly column for the bodybuilding magazines Muscle & Fitness and Flex. Shortly after being elected Governor, he was appointed executive editor of both magazines in a largely symbolic capacity. The magazines agreed to donate $250,000 a year to the Governor's various physical fitness initiatives. The magazine MuscleMag International has a monthly two page article on him and refers to him as "The King". Schwarzenegger's first political appointment was to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, on which he served from 1990 to 1993. He was nominated by George H. W. Bush, who called him "Conan the Republican". In 2003 two African-American bodybuilders came forward claiming that
Schwarzenegger has a history of making racist comments. Schwarzenegger
has allegedly said ."If you gave these blacks a country to run,
they would run it down the tubes." Schwarzenegger's critical and commercial high-water mark was Terminator
2: Judgment Day (1991). His next film project, the self-aware action
comedy Last Action Hero, (1993), had the misfortune to be released
opposite Jurassic Park, and suffered accordingly. Schwarzenegger's
career never again achieved quite the same prominence, his aura of
box-office invincibility suffering. True Lies (1994) was a popular
sendup of spy films, and saw Schwarzenegger reunited with director
James Cameron, whose own career had taken off with The Terminator.
It was followed by the popular, albeit by-the-numbers Eraser (1996),
and Batman & Robin (1997), his final film before taking time to
recuperate from a back injury. Although Batman & Robin was a famous
disaster, Schwarzenegger emerged largely unscathed. Several film projects
were announced with Schwarzenegger attached to star including the remake
of The Planet of the Apes, a new film of I am Legend and a World War
II film scripted by Quentin Tarantino that would have seen Schwarzenegger
finally play an Austrian. Instead he returned with End of Days (1999)
- an unsuccessful and atypically dark attempt to broaden his acting
range - The 6th Day (2000) and Collateral Damage (2002), none of which
came close to recapturing his former prominence. He starred in the
popularly received Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) and was
slated to star in a possible True Lies 2 and Conan the King, but his
duties as California governor have likely put his movie career on hold
until at least 2007, though producers repeatedly claim he will make
a small appearance in a fourth Terminator film. His last film appearance
to date was a cameo in the 2004 remake of Around the World in 80 Days,
notable for featuring him onscreen with action star Jackie Chan for
the first time. Schwarzenegger is a Republican, unusual among the often heavily Democratic Hollywood community. He describes himself as fiscally conservative and socially moderate. Schwarzenegger backed Republican President Ronald Reagan, whose footsteps he's following—movie star turned politician—while Reagan was in office, and campaigned for George H.W. Bush in 1988. However, he chastised fellow Republicans during the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998. Sensing an opportunity to affect the outcome of the 2004 Presidential race, Schwarzenegger campaigned in Ohio for Republican George W. Bush in the closing days of the campaign. In an interview on October 29, 2002, with MSNBC's Chris Matthews at Chapman University, Schwarzenegger explained why he is a Republican: "Well, I think because a lot of people don't know why I'm a Republican,
I came first of all from a socialistic country which is Austria and
when I came over here in 1968 with the presidential elections coming
up in November, I came over in October, I heard a lot of the press
conferences from both of the candidates Humphrey and Nixon, and Humphrey
was talking about more government is the solution, protectionism, and
everything he said about government involvement sounded to me more
like Austrian socialism. Regarding a run for public office, in 1999, he told Talk magazine that "I think about it many times." He said, "The possibility is there because I feel it inside. I feel there are a lot of people standing still and not doing enough. And there's a vacuum." Venturing into politicsSchwarzenegger was appointed Chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in the administration of George H. W. Bush from 1990 to 1993. During that time, Schwarzenegger traveled across the U.S. promoting physical fitness to kids and lobbying all 50 governors in support of school fitness programs. "He would hit sometimes two or three governors in a day in his own airplane, at his own expense, somewhere around $4,000 an hour," said George Otott, his chief of staff at the time. "When he walked in, it wasn't about the governor, it was about Arnold," said Otott, a retired Marine. "He has what we in the military call a command presence. He becomes the number one attention-getter." He later served as Chairman for the California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under Governor Pete Wilson. Schwarzenegger scored his first real political success on November 5, 2002 when Californians approved his personally crafted and sponsored Proposition 49, the "After School Education and Safety Program Act of 2002", an initiative to make state grants available for after-school programs.
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. His candidacy was immediate national and international news, with media outlets dubbing him the "Governator" (referring to The Terminator movies, see above) and "The Running Man" (the name of another of his movies), and calling the recall election "Total Recall" (ditto) and "Terminator 4: Rise of the Candidate" (referring to his movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). Schwarzenegger was quick to make use of his well-known one-liners, promising to "pump up Sacramento" (the state capital) and tell Gray Davis "hasta la vista." At the end of his first press conference, he told the audience "I'll be back." Schwarzenegger looked to follow in the footsteps of former California governor and one-time movie star Ronald Reagan. However, due to his status as a naturalized citizen, he would not be eligible to seek the Presidency unless the Constitution were to be amended (as proposed in 2000 by Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), and in July 2003 (the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment) by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)). Among his campaign team were actor Rob Lowe, billionaire Warren Buffett, and former Nixon and Reagan aide George Shultz. During the campaign, allegations of sexual and personal misconduct were raised against Schwarzenegger (see Gropegate). Within the last five days before the election, news reports appeared in the Los Angeles Times recounting allegations of sexual misconduct from several individual women, sixteen of whom eventually came forward with their personal stories. 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 a magazine interview from the same era (1975) surfaced in which Schwarzenegger discussed attending sexual orgies and indulging in drugs like marijuana and cocaine.Allegations printed on the front page of The Los Angeles Times, based on selective quotation, were also made that he at one time admired Adolf Hitler and had praised him as a great propagandist. However the full text of the statement from which the quotation was taken significantly reduces the credibility of the allegations. Although Schwarzenegger's father was in fact a member of the Nazi party, 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." 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." Arnold supported the campaign of Kurt Waldheim Former UN chief and a former Austrian politician who was found guilty of war crimes and participating in Nazi activities during World War II. Schwarzenegger's name remained on Waldheim's campaign posters, even after allegations of Waldheim's war crimes were brought to light. Waldheim was also invited to Arnold's wedding with Maria Shriver. These allegations were brought up mainly in the context of his campaign, but they continue to be occasionally used by some critics. Garry Trudeau, the cartoonist behind the comic strip Doonesbury, combined the allegations by nicknaming Schwarzenegger "Herr Gröpenführer" and depicting Schwarzenegger as a huge, groping hand in his artwork. On October 7, 2003, the 2003 California recall resulted in Governor Gray Davis being recalled with 55.4% of the Yes vote. Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California under the second question on the ballot with 48.6% of the vote, defeating Democrat Cruz Bustamante, fellow Republican Tom McClintock and others. In total, Arnold won the election by about 1.3 million votes. He was sworn into office on November 17, 2003. Schwarzenegger's inauguration was opened by Vanessa Lynn Williams, his co-star from Eraser, singing the National Anthem. His children joined others in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, then Maria Shriver spoke and held the Bible while Schwarzenegger was sworn into the office of Governor. He spoke briefly: "Today is a new day in California. I did not seek this office to do things the way they've always been done. What I care about is restoring your confidence in your government... This election was not about replacing one man. It was not replacing one party. It was about changing the entire political climate of our state."
To fulfill the first two points, he urged California voters to pass Proposition 57 and Proposition 58 in the March 2, 2004 election, which authorized the sale of $15 billion in bonds and mandated balanced budgets, respectively. Despite initially tepid support from the public, the combination of heavy campaigning by Schwarzenegger, endorsements from a number of leading Democrats, and warnings about the dire consequences should the propositions fail to pass, led to overwhelming votes in favor of the two propositions. Prop. 57 passed with 63.3% of the votes in favor and Prop. 58 passed with 71.0% in favor. He accomplished the third point when he signed a workers' compensation reform bill on April 19, 2004. Schwarzenegger convinced the Democratic-controlled state legislature to approve the package by threatening to take the issue directly to state voters in a November ballot initiative if the legislature did not act. Schwarzenegger was later criticized for reneging on his campaign pledges not to take money from special interests and for failing to answer directly the sexual harassment allegations raised by the Los Angeles Times immediately preceding the recall election. However, Schwarzenegger made a point shortly after becoming governor of voluntarily attending a training course conducted by the state Attorney General's office on preventing sexual harassment (along with several members of his senior staff). Schwarzenegger continues to collect campaign contributions from private interests at a greater rate than any politician in California history, including Gray Davis, whom he criticized on that very issue. In February 2004 when San Francisco city mayor Gavin Newsom ordered a change in the certificate application documents to allow for same-sex marriages, Governor Schwarzeggger opposed the move as being beyond the powers of the mayor, but also said that he supports gay rights and has expressed support for a law to grant civil unions to gay couples. Also in February 2004, he declined amnesty to convicted murderer Kevin Cooper who had asked him for clemency in his death penalty sentence. Nevertheless, Cooper's planned execution was stayed by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pending a revisiting of evidence. Austrian Green Party spokesman Peter Pilz later called for Schwarzenegger to be stripped of his Austrian citizenship. Pilz claimed that Austrian law forbids any Austrian citizen from taking part in or ordering executions. The Governor has granted clemency or early release to quite a surprising number of convicted felons serving time in state prisons, leading some to believe that he is less "tough on crime" than his Democratic predecessor, who presided over numerous executions. Despite expectations that Schwarzenegger would be vulnerable to opposition critics once taking office, his early governorship showed some successes. He has dealt successfully with California politicians as diverse as John Burton on the left to Tom McClintock on the right. At the end of May, 2004 the Field poll put his popularity at 65%, the highest for a California governor in 45 years, including 41% of Democrats, party adherents of his opposition. By comparison, former United States President Ronald Reagan, known as "the Great Communicator," never hit 60% approval while serving as California governor. In March, 2004 libertarian policy research foundation The Cato Institute rated him 1st in their fiscal policy report card of the nation's governors. In July 2004, however, Schwarzenegger and the state legislature deadlocked, failing to approve the state budget on time. Trying to rouse public support for his position, he compared lawmakers to kindergartners who need a "timeout," and in a rally of supporters called his budget opponents "girlie men" (a reference to a long-running Saturday Night Live skit parodying Schwarzenegger). He said about the legislators: "They are part of a bureaucracy that is out of shape, that is out of date, that is out of touch and that is definitely out of control in Sacramento. They cannot have the guts to come out there in front of you and say, 'I don't want to represent you. I want to represent those special interests: the unions, the trial lawyers.' ... if they don’t have the guts, I call them girlie-men. They should get back to the table and they should finish the budget." The remark became national news and was not received well by his opponents, including gay advocacy and feminist groups who labeled it homophobic and sexist, in spite of his earlier support for gay rights (see the Gavin Newsom incident above), not to mention the legislators themselves. His supporters made "girly men" T-shirts and the Governor continued to use the term, including when he addressed the Republican National Convention, calling critics of the current U.S. economic situation "economic girlie men". Despite what some viewed as political snags during the summer, the Field polls released in August and October 2004 showed that Schwarzenegger's approval rating remained at 65%. Additionally, in October, for the first time in four years a plurality of Californians felt the state was "on the right track". When asked if they would support Schwarzenegger if he could run for president, 50% said they would oppose while only 26% said they would support the governor in a presidential bid.
Schwarzenegger's spokesman responded that Schwarzenegger had not yet had enough time to explain his proposals to voters. The Legislature also shared low approval ratings, with just 24% of voters saying they approve of the job lawmakers have been doing. That represents a drop of 10% since February. The governor has responded that the poll sends a "very clear message to us. They are saying they want us to work together." He has also responded "I know popularity goes up and down... as soon as you start making decisions and strong decisions, sometimes they're not popular decisions." Republicans have claimed that the drop in popularity was due to a multi-million dollar ad campaign by various groups such as unions for nurses, police and firefighters, who opposed his plans for the state pension and his administration's lawsuit to delay implementation of a nurse-to-patient staffing ratio plan. In late June 2005, another non-partisan Field Poll had similar numbers as the earlier one, finding that 57% of California voters are not inclined to elect Schwarzenegger to a second term as Governor in 2006.When asked about the lessons of the poll, Schwarzenegger has responded "People make mistakes sometimes, and I think that we learn. These are very clear messages that we must work together, and so I am looking forward to that." To some degree, Governor Schwarzenegger's unpopularity has to do with his confrontation of three popular labor groups: the nurses, the teachers, and the firefighters. Some unions and activists reacted with anger, and others with humor.
Schwarzenegger drew fire when a second contract, a consulting position, was subsequently discovered in SEC filings, by the L.A. Times. This second contract would net him an estimated $8 million over the next five years. His consulting duties are not clear, except that the job "takes up little time." The New York Times further reported (on July 15) that under the five-year November 2003 contract, signed two days before his inauguration as Governor, "Oak Productions, Mr. Schwarzenegger's company, is to receive 1 percent of the net print advertising revenues of Weider Publications. But the payment must be at least $1 million a year. Mr. Schwarzenegger has also been granted 'phantom equity,' a way of sharing in the growth of the value of the company. The equity could become worth 1 percent of the company's value, which was stated at the time of the contract as $520 million." This contract was seen as a conflict of interest by critics, who note that the magazines receive much of their revenue from advertisements for dietary supplements, a government-regulated industry affected by Schwarzenegger's veto (September 2004) of a bill that would ban schools from accepting sponsorships from firms that make performance-enhancing dietary supplements. In Schwarzenegger's reason for his veto, he drew a distinction between performance-enhancing dietary supplements and steroid usage, which he says is what needs to be prevented in high school students.[34] Supporters point out that he did sign into law a bill that prohibited companies from selling the supplements to minors. Following the accusation, Schwarzenegger responded he would end the contracts with the magazines. In August 2005, the Washington Post reported that American Media had paid former TV actress Gigi Goyette $20,000 to keep silent about a seven-year extramarital affair Schwarzenegger had with her beginning in 1975, when Goyette was 16 years old. Since the age of consent in California is 18 years, Schwarzenegger may have committed statutory rape. In addition, American Media's knowledge of the Goyette affair put it in a position of being able to blackmail Schwarzenegger, providing further reason for Schwarzenegger to align his interests with theirs. Also in August, the Los Angeles Times reported that five non-profit
organizations had collected $3 million, chiefly from large businesses,
in order to help defray Schwarzenegger's personal and political expenses,
including the rent on the $6,000-a-month hotel suite that Schwarzenegger
uses when in Sacramento. The governor's spokeman subsequently reported
that Schwarzenegger had directed the disclosure of the contributors
to the "residence fund". In mid-September, Governor Schwarzenegger announced that he would seek a second term. Schwarzenegger vetoed SB 469 (Bowen) October 7. It would have require people circulating to say whether the signature gatherers are volunteers or are being paid to collect signatures.
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