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Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian-American actor, politician, bodybuilder, and businessman, currently serving as the 38th Governor of California. He was elected in 2003 in a special recall election, removing sitting Governor Gray Davis from office.
Nicknamed the Austrian Oak - and more recently The Governator and Conan the Republican - 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, and Total Recall.
Personal background
Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, Austria, four miles (6 km) from Graz, to a Gendarmerie-Kommandant policeman, Gustav Schwarzenegger (1907-1972) and his wife Aurelia Jadrny (1922-1998).
With 20 dollars in his pocket and speaking no English, he moved to the U.S. in 1968 and became a U.S. citizen in 1983, although he has also retained his Austrian nationality. During this time, he earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Superior where he graduated with a major 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. 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. In April 1997, he underwent an operation to correct a heart valve defect.
His distinctive and oft-imitated accent has led many entertainers and pundits to refer to him simply as "Ah-nuld".
Bodybuilding career
Schwarzenegger first gained fame as a bodybuilder. His well-developed physique earned him the moniker "The Austrian Oak" and won him the titles of Junior Mr. Europe, Mr. World, Mr. Universe (five times) and Mr. Olympia (seven times). The seven wins at Mr. Olympia was a record set in 1980, cementing him as a legend of the sport. The record would remain until Lee Haney won his eighth straight Olympia in 1991. 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 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." 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 20,000GM (US$12,000) libel judgement 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. According to a spokesman, Schwarzenegger has not used anabolic steroids since 1990 when they were made illegal.
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".
Acting career
Schwarzenegger's uniquely muscular appearance earned him several movie roles. His first film appearance was as Hercules in Hercules in New York (1970), credited under the name Arnold Strong, although his accent in the film was so thick that his lines were dubbed. He appeared in The Long Goodbye, and Stay Hungry. Schwarzenegger came to the attention of more people in the documentary Pumping Iron (1977), elements of which were faked to add drama. In 1991, Schwarzenegger purchased the rights to this film, outtakes, and associated still photography that could be embarassing politically. Initially he had trouble breaking into films because agents disliked his surname, muscles and accent.
Schwarzenegger's breakthrough film was Conan the Barbarian (1982), and this was cemented by a sequel, Conan the Destroyer (1984). As an actor, he is most well-known as the title character of James Cameron's cyborg thriller The Terminator (1984). Schwarzenegger's acting ability (described by one critic as having an emotional range that "stretches from A almost to B") has long been the butt of many jokes; he retains a strong Austrian accent in his speech even in roles which do not call for such an accent. However, few of the fans of his work seem to care. He also made a mark for injecting his films with a droll, often self-deprecating sense of humor, setting him apart from more serious action heroes such as Sylvester Stallone, his most prominent contemporary. (As an aside, his alternative-universe comedy/thriller Last Action Hero featured a poster of the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day who in that alternate universe had Sylvester Stallone as its star; a similar in-joke in Twins suggested that the two actors might one day co-star, something which never came to pass).
Following his arrival as a Hollywood superstar, he made a number of commercially successful films: Commando (1985), Raw Deal (1986), The Running Man (1987), and Red Heat (1988). In Predator (1987), another commercially successful film, Schwarzenegger led a cast which included future Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura (Ventura also appears in Running Man) and future Kentucky Gubernatorial Candidate Sonny Landham. Twins, (1988) a comedy with Danny DeVito, was a change of pace. Total Recall (1990), at that time the most expensive film ever, netted Schwarzenegger $10 millon and 15% of the gross, and hid a widely praised, thought-provoking science-fiction script behind his usual violent action. Kindergarten Cop (1990) was another comedy.
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 2 film scripted by Quentin Tarrantino 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. Harry Knowles stated that by this stage Schwarzenegger appeared to be indifferent to his fans and was mostly doing the films for the upfront paycheck he could command in order to support his political ambitions. He starred in 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.
Actor
• Terminator 3/Hard to Kill (2005)
• Around the World in 80 Days (2004)
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
• Collateral Damage (2002)
• The 6th Day (2000)
• End of Days (1999)
• Batman & Robin (1997)
• Eraser (1996)
• Jingle All the Way (1996)
• Junior (1994)
• True Lies (1994)
• Beretta's Island (1993)
• Last Action Hero (1993)
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
• Kindergarten Cop (1990)
• Total Recall (1990)
• Twins (1989)
• Red Heat (1988)
• Predator (1987)
• The Running Man (1987)
• Raw Deal (1986)
• Commando (1985)
• Red Sonja (1985)
• Conan the Destroyer (1984)
• The Terminator (1984)
• Conan the Barbarian (1982)
• The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980)
• The Villain (1979)
• Stay Hungry (1976)
• The Long Goodbye (1973)
• Hercules in New York (1970)
• True Lies 2
Director
• Christmas in Connecticut (1992)
Producer
• The 6th Day (2000)
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