Arnold Schwarzenegger: The Life and Times of Hollywood’s Most Unlikely Megastar

‘We need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle,’ a furry little creature proclaimed back in 2015. Sitting next to this creature was a tired-looking man dressed in a ridiculous pineapple print shirt. Gasping, the man retreated in mock surrender, chortling like a goofball when his cutesy aggressor revealed that he and his accomplice were only fooling. What they wanted were tickets to see the man’s latest movie, a much anticipated blockbuster known as Terminator Genisys. The two puppets then grew serious, warning the man that if he reneged on his promise they would indeed ‘be back’. Receiving this absurd threat, the man looked terrified. He would then join in with a camp singalong as 80’s pop star Tiffany blared from the car stereo.

This lowbrow farce was an advertisement for a highly successful price comparison website, its regular stars a couple of crazy critters who had long since took the advertising world by storm. I have seen celebrities sell out before – have become desensitised to the trite garbage we are forced to swallow as we are sold everything from life insurance to Scientology – and the fact of the matter is I have seen others sink much lower for a lot less. But it wasn’t the selling out that struck me in this instance; it was the way the star of the advertisement was portrayed and to what end.

So peculiar was this method of publicity that my usual passiveness was disturbed. In cinemas across the globe, this man would soon play an indestructible cyborg charged with saving humanity, and here they were portraying him as a senile buffoon with the integrity of a Japanese game show contestant. It was the equivalent of dressing Mike Tyson in a pink tutu before a heavyweight title fight, or sticking a world leader in a clown costume and sending him on air to declare war against a fellow nation. How could advertising go through with this skit and expect it to prove effective? Then I thought to myself: this is Arnie we’re talking about. How could they not?

For anyone who hadn’t witnessed Schwarzenegger in his prime, this was probably all just a little confusing. Who was this ligneous buffoon with the monotonous Austrian drawl? With that kind of performance, he almost certainly wasn’t an actor. The fact is, for the majority of those watching, the two meerkats were probably more relevant – not to mention more entertaining – but Schwarzenegger had once forged an entire movie career from this kind of self-parody. Sure, his delivery was awkward, his acting as wooden as the biggest oak in the forest, but Arnie was box office, plain and simple, and if you couldn’t drag a passable performance out of him then producers were sure to find someone who could.

Of course, you don’t become a global megastar through sheer dumb luck. In spite of his artistic shortcomings, Arnold would exhibit an almost intangible charisma throughout his expansive career, one that would see his stock rise exponentially as he learned to market himself both onscreen and off, consistently evolving his persona with a mainstream diversity that will likely never be replicated. 80’s America was a period of wild excess. It was the dawn of a new political and economic era in which Ronald Reagan paved the way for celebrity politicians. It was an age of corporate greed and self-styled ‘masters of the universe’, of Ivan Drago and Cold War propaganda. It was the advent of MTV, of celebrity endorsed aerobics and Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n Roll Wrestling. It was the perfect platform for America’s most unlikely megastar.

 

Humble Beginnings

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger would first penetrate the public consciousness after starring in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron, which focused on the 1975 Mr Universe and Mr Olympia competitions, and the Austrian’s rivalry with fellow competitor Lou Ferrigno, who would later find fame as The Incredible Hulk. The son of a former Nazi-turned-police chief, Arnold would use his father’s taunts as motivation for a brighter future, and would find his meal ticket in bodybuilder and former Mr Austria Kurt Marnul. Arnold was so dedicated to building his physique that he would break into the gym to train when it was closed and refused to look at himself in the mirror if he ever missed a session. Although his upper body would develop nicely, his legs would remain painfully skinny, and while others would laugh at the kid with the chicken legs, Arnold would wear pants cut to the thigh for further motivation, the harmful influence of his father still very much a factor. By the time he starred in Pumping Iron he had already won Mr Olympia an incredible six times.

“I can hide my feelings under my muscles. Definitely. I can hide them as long as necessary.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger.

With his docile accent, Arnold hardly seemed like a superstar in the making, but next to his musclebound co-stars the cocksure kid from Thal shone brightest. In spite of his oppressed upbringing Arnold was frank, confident, quick-witted and erudite – all of the qualities required to succeed as a likeable mainstream presence. Grinning earnestly, he fetishized the feeling of ‘the pump’ with a directness that was in equal parts charming and explicit. ‘The greatest feeling you can get in the gym is the pump,’ he said. ‘It’s as satisfying to me as cumming is, you know, as in having sex with a woman and cumming. So you can believe how much I am in heaven.’
It was clear from the very beginning that this was no ordinary personality.

Arnold’s rise to superstardom wasn’t all plain sailing. In 1970, he would make his movie debut with low budget effort Hercules in New York, a movie so devoid of logic it is now regarded as a cult classic by audiences who relish in its silliness, as well as the quite startling ineptitude of its leading man. But Arnold was undeterred by this criticism, and somewhere along the way he realised he could use it to his advantage, approaching later roles with a sense of self-mocking that would one day have writers queuing to produce the kind of inane puns that would become his trademark. During the filming of Hercules Arnold was told – rather bluntly – that he would never be a great actor. For an Austrian kid who would one day govern the state of California, the solution to this assertion was simple: he would become the world’s biggest movie star instead, and boy, did he ever!

 

Move Over Hollywood

James Cameron was one of the first to see Schwarzenegger’s potential. After watching him play the titular role in 1984’s Conan the Destroyer, he would immediately cast the hulking brute in debut feature The Terminator, and although Arnold had his eye on the role of protagonist Kyle Reece, the director was smart enough to cast him as the indestructible cyborg, a part which relied on the actor’s tendency to appear rigid and unnatural. The Terminator would prove to be Arnie’s most valuable role in terms of mainstream momentum, and by the end of the decade he had become a sci-fi icon, landing starring roles in money-spinning blockbusters such as Predator, The Running Man and Total Recall. The fact that he could play a likeable Russian in 1988’s Cold War action comedy Red Heat spoke volumes about his growing popularity with American audiences.

“If my life was a movie, no one would believe it.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold’s marketability would peak at the turn of the 90’s with Terminator 2: Judgement Day, which was then the most expensive movie of all time. In a wicked twist, Arnie would return to the series as the protagonist, a machine sent to protect not eliminate. This was the beginning of a new, bold era for Schwarzenegger. Accepting roles that were more family-friendly, he would quietly lay the seeds for the next stage in his illustrious career.

Arnold’s success at the box office would continue for another decade, but by the turn of the 21st century he was beginning to wind down. The fact was, he was getting too old to be the biggest box office draw, and no longer possessed the superhuman physique which had made him such a potent action hero. He would continue to choose his rolls prudently. Movies like Junior (1994) and Batman and Robin (1997) helping to portray him as a gentle giant with a heart of gold. In the year he became governor of California he would resume his role as the benevolent incarnation of the Terminator character. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was a creative disaster which was panned by critics worldwide, but the actor’s goal had been accomplished. Reprising his most cherished and formidable role he would use his silver screen appeal to portray himself as the perfect political candidate. The box office had spoken and ‘the Governator’ had been elected.

 

The Governator

It wasn’t timing alone that had secured Schwarzenegger’s stint in the municipal hot seat. A staunch Republican, he had rallied for the likes of George H. W. Bush and the Reagan administration before him, the latter giving him the crowd-pleasing moniker ‘Conan the Republican’. With loyalty and hard work, combined with his unprecedented mainstream popularity, Arnie had been marked as a political ally by the ruling elite, a section of society to which he longed to be a part of. Some critics claim that Schwarzenegger had plotted his rise to political power from a very early age, and had actively married into influence in 1986 when he tied the knot with Maria Shiver, the niece of John F. Kennedy. Arnold would later move to distance himself from such accusations, but the proof was in the political pudding; the man was looking to expand his interests.

“I wanted to be part of the small percentage of people who were leaders, not the large mass of followers.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold would prove a relatively successful governor during his two term tenure, his corny movie references and mildly irreverent persona proving to be a winning combination as the Schwarzenegger circus worked its administrative magic. By that point in his life, Arnie had his charm-offensive down to a fine art. The man who had thrilled and entertained us for close to half a century had won our hearts and minds with a cocksure jocularity that was never less than endearing. But most crucially, ‘Arnie’ had done what most other politicians can only dream of. He had become a man of the people as well as an established member of the select few.

 

The Exploitinator

By the time he had left office in 2011, Arnold was 64 years of age. As a scrawny child in small-town Austria he had dreamed big, but never could he have imagined how far his will and determination would take him. Raised under the ilk of a stringent Communist, his dreams had been built on the prospects of wealth and importance, on the chance to shine as a singular entity, and he had used his larger-than-life allure to penetrate the political elite of a foreign land who would accept him as one of their own.

Is Arnold the draw he once was? Of course not. Men are always of a particular time and place. But people of his disposition don’t retire – can’t retire – and inevitably he would return to the silver screen for The Expendables in 2010, a movie which celebrated the genre he had once personified with the dry, self-reflexive wit he had made popular. Stallone may have been the headliner, its supporting cast oozing action movie authenticity, but Arnie was the man the world would pay to see.

Although his mainstream appeal has long-since faded, Schwarzenegger continues to make movies – that’s what he does. Perhaps the joke is wearing a little thin as he enters his autumnal years, but he is somehow able to exploit the world unscathed, has earned the right to fade dishonourably. Arnie is one of those select few who seems to transcend mortality. Everyone dies in a physical sense, but some will live on long after their Earthly carriage has expired, some through talent or beauty, others through acts of universal kindness or bravery, and some, like Arnold, through sheer determination.