I hated him for humiliating his wife and vowed I would never
pay to see him in another movie ... but I wish him a complete
and speedy recovery ... I would not be happy for the schlub
to die. Best Wishes Arnie, get well fast, and make it right
with Maria.
I still am not going to pay to see you in movies, or any other
right-winger.
Considering all the steroids he's done over the years, I'm absolutely astonished that he's lived to 70!
But even though I'm totally over him as an actor and a celebrity, I wish him a speedy recovery. And I give my deepest sympathy to his nurses.
Arnold has a history of heart problems, springing a congenital heart defect apparently, so mostly to do with that, not steroids.
shareWell he's not going to tell the public that the steroid-laden chickens are coming home to roost, is he?
Maybe he really does have congenital valve problems, maybe he told his publicist to come up with some reason for heart surgery that has absolutely nothing to do with steroids or self-inflicted abuse of the body. We'll never know, until someone writes a posthumous tell-all biography.
He had his first heart surgery in the 90's. Lots of things could be going on, but I think it is a reasonable expectation that if AS was hurt by steroids he would take a political stand on it, or let people know not to do it. Tell all biographies are not necessarily any more reliable than anything else.
shareI don't think I agree with you about Arnold taking an anti-steroid stand if they're responsible for his current illnesses. Maybe he realizes that without steroids he'd still be an Austrian peasant, and maybe he thinks that becoming fabulously wealthy and famous was worth a few sacrifices.
Which is pure speculation on my part, obviously.
Arnold was never a peasant ... a working guy is not a peasant. But, his father was a Nazi apparently.
shareArnold's father was chief of police in a small rural (peasant) town, Arnold grew up without running water or electricity. He's said that Austria has a strong class system, and that with his origins he'd never have been able to rise in the world if he'd stayed in Austria. Bodybuilding was his way up and out, and steroids were his way to being world champion, and the Conan films and everything that came after. So yeah, for all I know he thinks it was all worth it.
I used to be a bit of a fan, but I'm over him. Except maybe as a cautionary tale.
Austrian Archives Reveal Nazi Military Role of Actor's Father
Arnold Schwarzenegger began many years ago to seek the truth about his father's past, according to the founder of L.A.'s Wiesenthal Center.
August 14, 2003
VIENNA — In July 1990, following news reports that his father was a Nazi, movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger approached his friends at the Simon Wiesenthal Center and asked that they find the truth.
" 'I don't know much about my father's past,' " Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Wiesenthal Center, recalled Schwarzenegger's telling him. " 'I don't know if it's good or bad, and I'd like you to find out.' "
Asking the Wiesenthal Center to handle the investigation was a logical choice: The center, named after the famed Nazi hunter, had the resources to conduct such a probe. And it was an institution that Schwarzenegger had financially backed over the years.
After a two-month investigation, in which Simon Wiesenthal was involved, the verdict was in: Gustav Schwarzenegger was indeed a member of the Nazi party; he voluntarily applied for membership in 1938. But there was no evidence that he was a war criminal. Nor had the Wiesenthal Center found any evidence that the senior Schwarzenegger belonged to any of Germany's notorious paramilitary units, such as the Sturmabteilungen (SA) or the Schutzstaffel (SS), which were populated by some of Adolf Hitler's most ardent supporters.
And then there are other points of view on this:
FTR #421 Pump This: The Schwarzenegger File
Introduction: Interrogatory in nature, this program highlights the Nazi family background and Nazi-like affectations of California Gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger. Beginning with discussion of a body building picture in which Schwarzenegger is giving the Nazi salute, the broadcast sets forth numerous accounts of Schwarzenegger’s manifestation of a Nazi/Aryan persona during his bodybuilding days. The discussion also examines Gustav Schwarzenegger’s Nazi background in the Austrian brown-shirts, and the Third Reich’s military police—the latter a key liaison element with the SS mobile killing squads on the Eastern Front. (Gustav–Arnold’s father–was with a unit that was involved in some of the most brutal fighting in Russia.) After examining the strong areas of overlap between the elder Schwarzenegger’s background and the areas projected as repositories of Third Reich postwar underground operatives, the broadcast examines the curiously large influence that Gustav was able to exert on behalf of Arnold’s military career. It appears that Gustav may well have been more than a mere small-town police chief. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a close political ally of and defender of Nazi war criminal Kurt Waldheim, later elected president of Austria. Schwarzenegger has never repudiated his support for Waldheim. Much of the program examines the networking of Bush family ally and investment adviser Allen Dulles and personalities (including Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush and William Casey) that were to become luminaries in the Republican hierarchy. All of these men were involved with the Crusade for Freedom, an illegal CIA/State Department operation in which Nazi and fascist war criminals were brought into the US for political purposes. Many eventually coalesced into the Republic ethnic outreach organization. The key words and concepts to understand in the context of this broadcast are networking, oligarchy, hierarchy. Is Schwarzenegger associated with the Underground Reich? Was his ascension realized through the networking of elements of the American power elite with the Underground Reich?
Program Highlights Include: The Dulles milieu’s vetting of Schwarzenegger’s Nazi pal Waldheim for service with the Austrian government; Austrian ambassador Helene Von Damm’s networking with SS operative Otto von Bolschwing and the Dulles milieu; the Third Reich’s projected use of disabled veterans, the police, women and young girls as postwar underground operatives; legislation that has already been introduced that would allow Schwarzenegger to run for President.
1. Beginning with the first thing that put Arnold Schwarzenegger on Mr. Emory’s “radar screen”, the program highlights a picture from Sports Illustrated that shows “Der Terminator” giving the Nazi salute. (Note that this is NOT a doctored picture. Skeptical listeners are emphatically encouraged to go to a library, secure the original article, and distribute it to media sources.) (“Pex Sell Tix” by Dan Geringer; Sports Illustrated; 12/7/1987; p. 80; [the picture itself is on page 84].)
2. Apparently, this sort of behavior was not unusual for Schwarzenegger.
“ . . . In Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder, he wrote that he was overwhelmed by [Schwarzenegger mentor Reg] Park’s luxurious house, his pool, his antiques, and his servants and that he felt out of place. He did, however, apparently feel quite at home with the South African system of apartheid. According to Rick Wayne, who is black, when they discussed apartheid Arnold said he thought South Africa was right, saying things like ‘If you gave these blacks a country to run, they would run it down the tubes.’ However, Rick was accustomed to Arnold’s reactionary views and quirky ways. He and Arnold had posed together in Munich. In his book, Muscle Wars, a study of bodybuilding politics, Rick recalled that after Arnold had ‘struck a pose reminiscent of the Nazi salute,’ he received less applause from the German audience than he had expected. Arnold’s response was to comment to Rick, ‘These people are nothing without an Austrian to lead them.’”
Arnold: The Unauthorized Biography; by Wendy Leigh; Copyright 1990 by Wendy Leigh; Congdon & Weed [HC]; ISBN 0-86553-216-8; pp. 68-69.
3. “A veneer of Nazism” was viewed by many Schwarzenegger associates as part of Schwarzenegger’s body building persona.
“ . . . On [Joe] Weider’s instructions, [Art] Zeller photographed Arnold constantly. Zeller remembers that from the start Arnold was ready to sacrifice everything to achieve his goals, getting enough sleep and training hard. Always prepared to admit to his deficiencies and to devote himself to eliminating them, Arnold immediately took posing lessons from Dick Tyler. Tyler, deciding that Arnold merited ‘heroic’ music, picked for his posing routine Thus Spake Zarathustra. Years later Tyler commented tha
“ . . . On [Joe] Weider’s instructions, [Art] Zeller photographed Arnold constantly. Zeller remembers that from the start Arnold was ready to sacrifice everything to achieve his goals, getting enough sleep and training hard. Always prepared to admit to his deficiencies and to devote himself to eliminating them, Arnold immediately took posing lessons from Dick Tyler. Tyler, deciding that Arnold merited ‘heroic’ music, picked for his posing routine Thus Spake Zarathustra. Years later Tyler commented that if Hitler had wanted to advertise the Aryan ideal, Arnold would have been its perfect representative.”
Ibid.; p. 87.
4. More about Schwarzenegger’s Nazi veneer:
“Tyler’s remarks may sound a trifle barbed; however, since 1977 rumors have circulated in the bodybuilding world that during the filming of Pumping Iron, the pseudo-documentary film that transformed him into a legend, Arnold said he admired Hitler. When contacted for a newspaper article in 1988, George Butler, the producer and director of the film and still a close friend of Arnold’s today, admitted that during the filming of Pumping Iron Arnold definitely did say that he admired Hitler. Butler then conceded that the remark was cut from the final version of the film, adding that Arnold expressed his admiration of ‘Hitler and Kennedy in almost the same breath as people who were leaders.’ When asked why Arnold admired Hitler, Butler replied that the context in the film was that Arnold was saying he had ‘always wanted to be remembered like the most famous people in history, like Jesus and so on . . .”
Ibid.; pp. 87-88.
5. Manfred Thellig had a similar take on Schwarzenegger’s attitude toward the Third Reich:
“Manfred Thellig, who worked with Arnold in Munich, offers a similar interpretation. According to Thellig, Arnold ‘definitely admires the Teutonic period of the Third Reich. He just loved those leftover relics of the Third Reich in Munich—those Teutonic statues.’ He added that Arnold would say, ‘If I had lived at that time, I would have been one of those Teutonic breeders’ but explains, ‘Whenever he opened his mouth and it sounded like ‘Oh, there is a neo-Nazi,’ this was just playing Tarzan. It wasn’t serious. . .’”
Ibid.; pp. 88-89.
6. Others have seen Schwarzenegger “Sieg Heil”:
“There are, nevertheless, witnesses over the years who have seen Arnold break into the ‘Sieg Heil’ salute and play his records of Hitler’s speeches. Arnold responded to this issue during a 1989 Penthouse interview with journalist Sharon Churcher. According to Churcher, a former associate of Arnold’s during the seventies had heard from a mutual acquaintance that Arnold had Nazi paraphernalia in his apartment. According to the associate, Arnold’s reaction at that time was to claim through Pumping Iron producer George Butler, that his interest ‘was only that of a student.’ Butler, professing to have forgotten the above exchange, says that he had never seen any Nazi paraphernalia at Arnold’s house.”
Ibid.; p. 89.
7. More about the Penthouse article:
“The article goes on to quote Arnold as saying, ‘I totally hate the Nazi period.’ He adds, ‘When you come from a background like Germany or Austria, then you sometimes are joked about and people give you sometimes gifts that maybe had something to do with that [Nazi] time.’ When asked if he kept any such presents, Arnold replied, ‘No. I am so much against that time period. I despise it.’”
Idem.
8. Perhaps he was not “so much against that period”!
“There is yet another possibility. As one bodybuilder, who observed Arnold in America doing the ‘Sieg Heil’ salute commented, ‘It was expected of him.’ Arnold personified Aryan supremacy and Germanic strength of will. To top that, his father had been a member of the Nazi party. Both his heritage and his image were inescapable. Inescapable, but not ineradicable. Yet Arnold, far from underplaying his roots, embraced and advertised them.”
Ibid.; pp. 89-90.
9. More about the reason for Schwarzenegger’s Nazi affectations:
“Essentially always an entertainer, a performer who gloried in satisfying his audience, Arnold must have known that the Nazi aura surrounding him did not displease his admirers. After all, the goal of many bodybuilders is to carve for themselves bodies befitting a master race, and to that end power and dominance are valued above all. Bodybuilding journalist Dick Tyler, who was Joe Weider’s West Coast editor and who met Arnold during his first months in America, sums up the allure of the jackboot in bodybuilding terms: ‘I used to tell bodybuilders, ‘When you go out there, think of yourself as the very best. There is no other. It will come across to the audience and they love it. That’s why they are there. They are sitting there with their skinny bodies and they are looking up at that stage—looking up at their heroes.’ They want that arrogance, and Arnold knew this. You didn’t need to give any advice to him about being arrogant.’
I am a big fan of Arnold as an entertainer and wish him a speedy recovery. Also at the time he was doing Mr. Universe Steroids were legal. Didn't know he did them after they made them illegal.
shareYeah, I have no idea about AS's steroid use, legal, illegal or otherwise. I don't really know much about steroids, but the people who have claimed to have used them do not seem to have had much trouble. People talk about stuff like the know about it ... and it is hard for the experts to agree, so I just blow off folks who claim to know personal details about celebrities or whomever.
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