Word: arnolds
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...Arnold didn't just dream; he made it happen. Like a visionary athlete, artist or businessman (all of which he would eventually become), he devised a plan and climbed the mountain. More precisely, he became the mountain. "My parents wanted me to play soccer or be a skier," he recalls. "But I chose body building. It was a very American sport, and I thought, 'If I do well, it could take me to America.' " It was also a very American way for a boy to create a superman in his own image. Following Nietzsche's law ("That which does...
...Arnold did find fame in the sport. By 1975, long before moviegoers knew of him, he was the lone superstar of body building, earning the Mr. Olympia title an unprecedented seven times, Mr. Universe, five. At the climax of the documentary film Pumping Iron, which chronicles Schwarzenegger's last Mr. Olympia contest before retiring, the announcer tries to work some suspense into his revelation of the winner's name. But when he says, "The one and only . . . ," a broad grin breaks over Arnold's face. Who else could deserve that title...
...reader knows not to raise a skeptical eyebrow when Arnold says something is going to happen. At the time, though, it was as hard to imagine him fitting into mainstream films as it would be to fit his wonderfully preposterous name on a movie marquee. Even after he scored a worldwide hit in his first starring role, as a primeval pillager in Conan the Barbarian, he was still seen as a fluke or a freak. Could this slab of sirloin beefcake act? It hardly mattered. He could fill the film frame superbly. He was also lucky. With the box-office...
...postapocalypse messiah, gave Schwarzenegger a million rounds of ammunition and 75 words of dialogue, most notably the ultimate death threat: "I'll be back." Playing a robot villain, he also played with moviegoers' expectations; they could root for him to die and cheer when he kept coming back. As Arnold recalls, "A studio executive called me after The Terminator and said, 'I can't believe it. I only saw you a few seconds without your clothes on, and they all went for it.' Then all of the sudden I got all of these action scripts that were unrelated...
Scratch a critic and you'll get an admission that Schwarzenegger's films have the quality of ferocity. There is something in Arnold that sparks the pinwheeling imaginations of action directors. They get him to lift trucks, carry huge trees on his shoulder, upend telephone booths with little punks inside. In Mark L. Lester's puckishly violent Commando, he righteously kills dozens of people in his determination to save a single life; as one helpful woman observes of Arnold and his adversaries, "These guys eat too much red meat." John McTiernan's Predator (1987) twists another commando genre into...