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Quick Facts
- NAME: Arnold Schwarzenegger
- OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Governor
- BIRTH DATE: July 30, 1947 (Age: 65)
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Graz, Austria
- Nickname: Arnie
- Nickname: The Governator
- Nickname: Conan the Governor
- Nickname: The Running Man
- Nickname: Austrian Oak
- Nickname: Conan the Republican
- Nickname: Styrian Oak
- ZODIAC SIGN: Leo
Best Known For
Arnold Schwarzenegger first gained fame as a body builder, using that as a launching point to become a huge Hollywood star and, later, the governor of California.
Videos see all videos
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Never Satisfied: Why Powerful Men Cheat - Arnold & Maria (3:11)
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Actors Turned Politicians (2:48)
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Never Satisfied: Why Powerful Men Cheat - Preview (BioChannel Special) (2:05)
Never Satisfied: Why Powerful Men Cheat - Arnold & Maria
Arnold Schwarzenegger met Maria Shriver at a tennis match in 1977. After years of rumors that he was aggressive toward women, he announced that he'd fathered a baby with a member of his household staff and separated from Shriver in 2011.
Actors Turned Politicians
As Ronald Reagan asked, "How can a President NOT be an actor?" Since Reagan, Celebrities such as Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger have entered the political arena and run for elected office.
Never Satisfied: Why Powerful Men Cheat - Preview
A preview of "Never Satisfied: Why Powerful Men Cheat, featuring Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Edwards, Tiger Woods, and others.
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Play NowArnold Schwarzenegger. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 02:33, May 21, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/arnold-schwarzenegger-9476355.
Arnold Schwarzenegger. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/arnold-schwarzenegger-9476355 [Accessed 21 May 2013].
"Arnold Schwarzenegger." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 21 2013, 02:33 http://www.biography.com/people/arnold-schwarzenegger-9476355.
"Arnold Schwarzenegger," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/arnold-schwarzenegger-9476355 [accessed May 21, 2013].
"Arnold Schwarzenegger," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/arnold-schwarzenegger-9476355 (accessed May 21, 2013).
Arnold Schwarzenegger [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 21] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/arnold-schwarzenegger-9476355.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, http://www.biography.com/people/arnold-schwarzenegger-9476355 (last visited May 21, 2013).
Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/arnold-schwarzenegger-9476355. Accessed May 21, 2013.
Synopsis
Arnold Schwarzenegger was born on July 30, 1947, near Graz, Austria. He rose to fame as the world's top bodybuilder, launching a career that would make him a giant Hollywood star. After years of blockbuster movie roles, Schwarzenegger went into politics, becoming governor of California in 2003. In 2012, he returned to his acting career, starring with Jean-Claude Van Damme,
Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone in the film The Expendables 2. Within just one week, the movie had climbed to the No. 1 spot at the box office, bringing in nearly $28.6 million.
Early Years
Arnold Schwarzenegger was born on July 30, 1947, near Graz, Austria. Schwarzenegger's childhood was far from ideal. His father, Gustav, was an alcoholic police chief and one-time member of the Nazi Party, who clearly favored Arnold's brother over his gangly, seemingly less athletic younger son.
Gustav is reported to have beaten and intimidated Arnold and, when he could, pitted his two boys against one another. He also ridiculed Schwarzenegger's early dreams of becoming a body builder. "It was a very uptight feeling at home," Schwarzenegger later recalled. So uptight and uncomfortable, in fact, that Schwarzenegger would later refuse to attend the funeral of his father, who died in 1972, or his brother, who was killed in a car crash in 1971.
As an escape, Arnold turned to the movies, in particular Reg Parker, a body builder and star in B-level Hercules movies. The films also helped propel Schwarzenegger's own obsession with America, and the future he felt awaited him there. Getting to his new country was the issue. Schwarzenegger found his answer in Joe Weider, the man behind the International Federation of Body Building, an organization that sponsored contests such Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia.
Weider loved Schwarzenegger's bravado, sense of humor, and the potential he saw in the young body builder. Weider's instincts couldn't have been more dead-on. In all, Schwarzenegger would win an unprecedented five Mr. Universe titles and six Mr. Olympia crowns during his bodybuilding career.
Equally significant, Schwarzenegger, who had immigrated to the United States in 1968, helped propel the sport into the mainstream, culminating in the 1977 documentary, Pumping Iron, which tells the tale of Schwarzenegger's defense of his Mr. Olympia crown.
Making it in Hollywood
Since his first foray to the local movie house in his hometown of Graz, Arnold had dreamed of making it big in Hollywood. With his ascension to the top of the bodybuilding world, it was only a matter of time before he'd move over to the big screen.
After acting in a few small parts, Schwarzenegger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Newcomer for his performance in Stay Hungry (1976). With his intense physical strength and size, Schwarzenegger was a natural for action films. He became a leading figure in several popular 1980s action movies, including Conan the Barbarian (1982). Schwarzenegger also starred as a deadly machine from the future in The Terminator (1984). The science-fiction drama spawned two sequels—Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003).
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