Now, I also understood that what worked for Sergio wasn’t necessarily going to work for me. We were more like mirror opposites. I had great biceps and back muscles, but his front deltoids, triceps, and pecs were better than mine. To beat him, I would have to work those muscles much, much harder and do more sets. His other great advantages were years of experience and great natural potential—he was truly an animal. But above all it was the fire in Sergio that inspired me. I said to myself that I would have to step it up.
I knew who would help me do that. I had world-class training partners in California, but almost from the minute I set foot there, I lobbied Joe to bring over my friend Franco. I missed many of my Munich buddies, and they must thought it was strange how I’d disappeared to California. But I missed Franco especially because we were like brothers, and he was the perfect training partner for me. Franco was a foreigner like me, and even in Munich, we both had the immigrant mentality and the same kind of hunger. Hard work was the only thing we could count on. I thought America would be great for Franco like it was for me.
Joe was never going to buy the sentimental argument, so I put it in commercial terms. “Bring Franco,” I told him, “and you’re going to have professional bodybuilding locked up. For years! You’re going to have the best tall man in the heavyweight division”—meaning me—“and the best small man in the lightweight division.” I described how pound for pound Franco was the most powerful lifter in the world (it was true; he could deadlift more than four times his weight) and how he’d been reshaping himself for bodybuilding.
Second, I told Joe, Franco was my ideal training partner, and if we could work together, I’d be an even more successful star. And third, I assured him, Franco was a hardworking guy who wouldn’t take advantage of being in California just to loaf on the beach. He’d been a shepherd, a bricklayer, and a taxi driver. “He is no lazy bastard,” I said. “You’ll see.”
—
Joe dragged his heels. Whenever I brought up Franco, he’d act like he’d never heard the name, and I’d have to make all the arguments again. But finally, in mid-1969, he caved and agreed to invite Franco and pay him the same $65 a week he was paying me. Then right away he started to brag about this fantastic small guy he was bringing from Europe. Except that he was not good with names and still could not quite remember Franco’s. “Guess who we’re bringing over now?” he announced at lunch. “Francisco Franco!”
Artie Zeller, the photographer who’d met me at the airport the year before, happened to be there and corrected him. “That’s the dictator of Spain.”
“No. I mean Columbus is his name.”
“Are you sure?” asked Artie. “Columbus discovered America.”
“No, wait, I mean Franco Nero.”
“He’s an Italian actor. He’s in Westerns.”
“Arnold! Who the hell are we bringing?” Joe finally asked.
“Franco Columbu.”
“Aw, Jesus. Bastard! Italians! Why do Italians have such weird names? They all sound the same.”
I picked up Franco at the airport in my white VW bug. I’d dressed it up with a racing steering wheel by this time, and it looked great. To welcome my friend to America and celebrate his arrival, I thought a marijuana cookie would be best. Frank Zane, the bodybuilder who’d beat me in Miami, had become a good friend and was into baking his own. Every so often he gave me one. “This will be funny,” I thought. “I’m picking up Franco, he’s going to be hungry after his long flight, so I’ll give him half of the cookie.” I wasn’t going to give him the whole cookie because I didn’t know how his body would react.
So when Franco got in the car, I asked, “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, I’m starving.”
“Well, luckily, I have a cookie here. Let’s share it.” The first place I took him was Artie’s apartment. Artie’s wife, Josie, was Swiss, and I thought Franco might feel more comfortable around people who knew German. He spent the first hour after we arrived lying on the rug in their living room laughing.
“Is he always this funny?” Artie asked.
“He must have drunk a beer or something,” I said. “But he is a funny guy.”
“Oh, he’s hilarious.” Artie and Josie were both laughing like hell too. A few days later, I asked Franco, “You know why you were laughing so much?” and told him about the cookie.
“I knew there was something!” he said. “You’ve got to give me more of that because it felt so good!”
It turned out, though, that Franco had developed a severe reaction to a smallpox vaccination he’d received just before leaving Munich. His arm swelled up, he had fever and chills, and he couldn’t eat. This went on for a couple of weeks. I was making him protein drinks every few hours. I ended up bringing a doctor to the apartment, because I was scared Franco was going to die. The doctor promised that Franco would eventually be fine.
I’d done such a great sales job with Joe Weider that he was eager to meet Franco and see how muscular he was. But my friend had shrunk from 170 pounds down to around 150. Joe would come over, and I’d hide Franco in the bedroom and tell Joe, “Oh, Franco, he’s so busy, he went over to Gold’s again to work out.” Or “Yeah, yeah, he really wants to meet you, and he wants to look perfect, so he’s on the beach getting a tan.”
The plan was always for Franco to room with me. My apartment had only one bedroom, however, so I kept the bedroom and he slept on the pull-out couch. The place was so small that there wasn’t even enough wall space to put up posters. But in Munich, I’d lived in a closet in the gym, so this was pure luxury to me. Franco felt that way too. We had a living room and a bedroom, and there were curtains. The beach was only three blocks away. Our bathroom had a sink, a toilet, and a bathtub with a shower, far better than what we’d had in Europe. No matter how small the place was, we felt like we’d really arrived.
I had visited Franco many times at his room in Munich. He always kept the place extremely clean. So I knew he’d be a great roommate, and that’s how it worked out. Our place was immaculate. We vacuumed regularly; the dishes were always done, with nothing piling up; and the bed was always made, military style. We were both into the discipline of getting up in the morning and straightening up before you leave the house. The more you do it, the more automatic it becomes, and the less effort it takes. Our apartment was always way cleaner than anyone else’s I went to, men or women. Especially women. They were like piglets.
Franco was the chef and I was the dishwasher, that was the deal. It didn’t take him long to find all the Italian joints to buy his spaghetti and his potatoes and his meat. As far as supermarkets were concerned, though, he turned up his nose. “Ah, the Americans,” he’d say. “You gotta go in the little store, the Italian store.” He was always coming home with small food packages and jars and saying, “You only get this in an Italian store.”
We were very happy in the apartment—until the landlord kicked us out. He knocked on the door one day and said we had to leave because it was only a one-bedroom. It was considered suspicious in those days in Southern California to have two guys sleeping in a one-bedroom place. I explained how Franco slept on the living room couch, but he just insisted, “It’s really intended for one person.” We wanted a bigger place anyway, so we didn’t care. We found a beautiful two-bedroom apartment nearby and moved there.
The new place had wall space for us to decorate, but we had nothing to put up; I sure didn’t have the money to buy art. Then one day in Tijuana, I saw this cool black-and-white poster of a cowboy with two guns drawn. It cost just $5, so I bought it. When I got home, I put it up on the wall with Scotch tape. It looked beautiful hanging there.
Then Artie came over. As soon as he saw it, he started snorting and acting pissed off. “Ugh,” he said, “what a fool.”
I said, “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, Reagan, I mean, Jesus.”
“That’s a great picture. I found it in Tijuana.”
He said, “Do you know who this is?�
�
“Well, it says below, ‘Ronald Reagan.’ ”
“He’s the governor of the state of California.”
I said, “Really! That’s amazing. That’s twice as good. I have the governor of the state of California hanging here.”
“Yeah, he used to be in Westerns,” Artie said.
—
With Franco as my training partner, I could concentrate on my competition goals. I was determined to win the IFBB Mr. Universe title that I’d failed to get in Miami. That loss to Frank Zane still stung so much that I didn’t want to just win the contest; I wanted to win it so decisively that people would forget I’d ever lost.
Then I planned to go over to London and win the NABBA Mr. Universe again. That would give me, at age twenty-two, four Mr. Universe titles on both sides of the Atlantic, more than anyone ever in the sport. It would gain me back the momentum I thought I’d lost, the halo of inevitability that put me in the spotlight and blew people’s minds. And most important, it would broadcast that the only two bodybuilding champions the world should be looking at were Sergio Oliva and me. That was my goal: to make the leap from being one of the six or eight top guys to one of only two. It was my responsibility to pull this off; it was what I’d come to America to do. If I accomplished it and solidified my position in the bodybuilding world, from then on, I would be on a roll. Nobody would stop me.
After that, the next big goal would be to beat Sergio and win the Mr. Olympia title. I wasn’t going to make the mistake I made going into Miami, where I thought I could coast to a victory. I trained as hard as I could.
Holding the Mr. Universe competition in Miami had been an experiment for the Weiders, and for 1969 they moved it back to New York. To pump up the excitement, they’d also scheduled the Mr. America, Mr. Universe, and Mr. Olympia competitions to take place on the same day, back-to-back-to-back in the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the largest performance venue in Brooklyn.
I’d been featured and hyped nonstop all year along with the other top bodybuilders in Joe’s magazines, but Mr. Universe was my first major competition since the previous fall. I was eager to see how my newly Americanized body would go over with the judges and fans. The contest went even better than I’d planned. In one of the strongest fields ever, I ran over all the rest. Thousands of sets on Joe Gold’s machines had helped me define my muscles to the point where neither the big guys nor the small guys were much of a threat. Plus I had a California tan!
Winning was such a high that I thought again about the Mr. Olympia event. What if I’d underestimated the progress I’d made? If I beat Sergio in that, I would be king!
The morning of the contest, he showed up in his trademark flashy clothes: a custom-tailored checked suit and vest, dark tie, black leather shoes, a mod hat, and lots of gold jewelry. We teased each other while we sat watching the Mr. America preliminaries.
“Hey, Monster, you in shape?” I asked.
“Hey, baby, you gonna see somethin’ tonight, I tell you,” Sergio said. “You gonna see it, but you ain’t gonna believe it. Ain’t nobody gonna believe it.”
Finally, we were warming up backstage. Sergio was famous for his lengthy pumping-up routine, during which he always wore a long butcher’s coat so the rival bodybuilders couldn’t see his muscles. When the time came for us to go onstage, he took off the coat and walked ahead of me down the hall. Of course, he knew I’d be checking him out. Very casually, he lifted a shoulder and spread out the biggest lat muscle I’d ever seen. It was the size of a giant manta ray. Then he did the same thing with the other shoulder. His back was so huge it looked like it was blocking all the light in the hall. It was a really effective psych. I knew right then that I was going to lose.
We each posed, first me and then Sergio, and we each had the house screaming and stomping. Then the judges, announcing that they couldn’t decide, called us back onstage to pose simultaneously. Someone shouted, “Pose!” but for a minute, neither of us budged—like we were daring each other to go first. Finally, I smiled and hit my double-biceps pose, one of my best. That brought a roar from the crowd. Sergio answered with his trademark two-arm overhead victory pose. Again the crowd went nuts, chanting “Sergio! Sergio!” I executed a chest pose, which he started to match but then thought better of it, shifting to a “most muscular” shot. More screams for Sergio. I did my best trademark pose—the three-quarters back—but that wasn’t enough to turn it. He was simply still ahead of me.
I just kept smiling and hitting poses. I’d already done what I came to do, and I was much better off than the year before. I’d run over everybody except him. I could say to myself, “You did great, Arnold, and Sergio’s days are numbered.” But for now he was still clearly the champ, and when the judges declared for him, I gave him a big hug onstage. I thought Sergio deserved all of the attention. I was much younger, and I’d be number one in no time, and then I would enjoy all of this attention. In the meantime, he should have it. He was better.
—
That fall, Joe Weider launched me on phase two of my American dream: getting into movies. When word got around that some producers needed a bodybuilder to star in a film, Joe recommended me.
What happened with Hercules in New York was like one of those Hollywood fantasies. You come off the boat and walk down the street, and somebody says, “You’re the one! You have the exactly the look!” and offers you a movie role. You hear it all the time, but no one knows if it’s true.
As a matter of fact, former Mr. America Dennis Tinerino, whom I’d upset in 1967 to win my first Mr. Universe competition, had already been offered the part. Dennis was a legitimate champ: he had bounced back to win the amateur Mr. Universe title in 1968. But Joe didn’t want him to get the role because Dennis worked mostly with the other bodybuilding federations. So he called the producers and told them that in Vienna I had been a Shakespearean actor, and they should dump Dennis and take me. “I know Tinerino won the Mr. Universe, but Schwarzenegger won it three times,” he said. “You will get the best bodybuilder in the world. Schwarzenegger is your guy. He is extraordinary. His stage presence is outstanding.”
There is no such thing as an Austrian Shakespearean actor. It doesn’t exist. I didn’t know what the hell Joe was talking about, but he told them he was managing me and didn’t allow them to talk to me. He was worried that I couldn’t speak English well enough, so when they said they wanted to meet me, he said, “No. Arnold’s not around yet. He will be coming soon.” All this really cracked me up. Eventually we went to see the producers, and Joe told me not to say much. The next thing I knew, I got the job. Joe knew how to sell.
After the Mr. Olympia competition, Franco and I went to London, where I won the NABBA Mr. Universe competition again, setting the record as the first bodybuilder to win four Mr. Universe crowns. Then I flew back to New York to become the new Hercules.
Hercules in New York was a low-budget spoof on the big sword-and-sandal epics. The idea was that Hercules gets bored living on Mount Olympus and rides a stray lightning bolt to present-day New York, even though his father, Zeus, forbids him to leave. He makes friends with a guy named Pretzie, a nebbishy character who runs a pretzel cart in Central Park. Pretzie tries to help Hercules adjust as he gets mixed up with gangsters, fights a grizzly bear, rides his chariot through Times Square, descends into hell, figures out how to buy lunch from the vending machines at the Automat, and gets involved with the pretty daughter of a mythology professor. Just as Hercules is adapting to life in the big city, Zeus runs out of patience and sends some other gods to fetch him back.
It was not a bad concept, putting Hercules in modern New York City, and the movie was very funny, especially Arnold Stang, the comedian who played Pretzie. He was so little and I was so big. I found the experience daunting, I have to admit. I thought it would take me at least until I was thirty to be in a movie. But here I was at twenty-two, in America, starring as Hercules. How many people got to live this kind of dream? “You should be happy!” I told myself.
At the same time I thought, “But I’m not ready. I haven’t even learned about acting!”
If I’d had acting experience, it would have been a lot better. The producers hired an acting coach and a dialogue coach, but two weeks with them couldn’t make up for my lack of English and lack of experience. I wasn’t up to par. I had no clue what this type of performance should involve. I couldn’t even understand all the sentences in the script.
The guy who played Zeus was a TV soap opera veteran named Ernest Graves. I remember cracking up in the middle of filming a scene because he produced this huge God voice for a speech he was supposed to give, and it was so different from the voice of the guy I’d met in the makeup trailer. He really got into it, and that was funny to me. But, of course, you’re not supposed to laugh on the set. You’re supposed to help the other performers and really buy into what they say. That’s the whole concept of being supportive. When you’re not on camera, and the camera is behind your shoulder, you stay in character, act your part, giving it everything you have in order to draw the best out of the actor who is being filmed. That is so important, but I had no clue. When something struck me as funny, I just laughed.
On the second-to-last day, I finally felt it, what acting is about. We were shooting a sentimental scene where Hercules and Pretzie are saying good-bye. I really got into it, just like they always talk about in acting. The director came over afterward and said, “I got goose bumps when you did that.”
“Yeah, it was strange,” I said. “I really felt that scene.”
“You’re going to be good. I think you’ll have an acting career because as time went on with this project, you really started to get how to do it.”
One of the producers asked if they could bill me as Arnold Strong—nobody could pronounce Schwarzenegger, he said, it was a ludicrous name, and besides putting Arnold Strong and Arnold Stang on the poster would be funny. When they edited the film, they dubbed another actor’s voice over mine, because my accent was too thick for anybody to understand. Maybe the best thing about Hercules in New York was that for many years it wasn’t even shown in the US: the production company went bankrupt, so the film went on the shelf before it could be released.
Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story Page 12