Arnold Schwarzenegger - Total Recall - My Unbelievably True Life Story

Not only did I want one for myself, but also I knew there would be a ready-made market if I could talk the manufacturer into building a version for the public. That was my sales pitch when I went to see the CEO and other executives at AM General in Lafayette, Indiana, which made Humvees for the military. I finagled permission to buy one, and then turned it over to a company to make it street-legal and civilize the interior, and then sent it back to AM General, saying “Now, copy this.” That’s what it did, and that’s why the Hummer became so closely identified with me when it went on the market.

There was an interesting business adventure that year too. I joined Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis in New York that October for the official launch of a glitzy new moneymaking machine: a celebrity restaurant and merchandising chain called Planet Hollywood. Every celebrity you can think of was there. It was not just an event, it was the beginning of an empire.

The idea was to put Planet Hollywoods all over the world and make them a magnet for people who loved American movie stars. Movie memorabilia and props would be the décor—like Tom Cruise’s flight suit from Top Gun , Jayne Mansfield’s swimsuit from The Girl Can’t Help It , and a motorcycle from The Terminator. The restaurants would host premieres and visits by the stars and sell specially designed jackets, T-shirts, and other souvenirs. It was the brainchild of Keith Barish, a movie producer, and Robert Earl, who had built up the global restaurant business based on music memorabilia, the Hard Rock Café. Keith had convinced Robert that Hollywood-themed restaurants could be even bigger than music-themes ones—especially now that the Iron Curtain had fallen and the whole world was wide open to American culture. The two brought the idea to me. “We want you to be our business partner,” they said. “We don’t want a crazy celebrity who doesn’t understand. You have a business mind. And you’re the number one star. If you do this, others will follow.”

I thought the idea made sense, and word got around fast. Pretty soon my lawyer, Jake Bloom, who also represented Sly and Bruce, said they were asking to sign on. “Would you mind if they’re in on it?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” I said. I was especially happy about Sly. Jake knew that Stallone and I had been feuding for years. This went back to the early Rocky and Rambo days, when he was the number one action hero, and I was always trying to catch up. I remember saying to Maria when I made Conan the Destroyer, “I’m finally getting paid a million dollars for a movie, but now Stallone’s making three million. I feel like I’m standing still.” To energize myself, I’d envisioned Stallone as my archenemy, just like I had demonized Sergio Oliva when I was trying to take the Mr. Olympia crown. I got so into hating Sly that I started criticizing him in public—his body, the way he dressed—and I was quoted as bad-mouthing him in the press.

I couldn’t blame him for hitting back. In fact, he’d escalated the fight by secretly feeding negative stories about me to the media. For a while he even paid the legal bills for a British journalist whom I’d sued for libel. But time had passed, I was a lot more confident about being a star, and I wanted to make peace. I said to Jake, “Tell him that he is welcome to be in it, and it’s my way of being gracious and making up.”

So Sly, Bruce, and I became a team. We’d fly to the latest Planet Hollywood opening, greet the local celebrities, wave at the cameras, talk to the press, and do everything we could to reward the loyalty of the fans. On the airplane, Sly and I were smoking stogies and constantly trading jokes. We never talked about the feud. We were typical guys, totally in denial, as if there had never been any problem and nothing had ever happened. That’s how we moved forward.

Even with all this going on, I could feel myself starting to get restless. It reminded me of the restlessness I’d felt after winning my third or fourth Mr. Olympia. All of a sudden the idea of having the most muscular body didn’t mean that much to me anymore. It was a phase I’d gone through and a means to an end: bodybuilding had brought me to America and launched me into the movies. But I grew out of that phase as much as I’d grown out of playing with little wooden trains as a kid. Of course, I always wanted to promote the sport of bodybuilding, and I wanted to promote fitness. But being the most muscular man didn’t mean anything to me anymore.

Becoming the biggest action star had been the next challenge. Eventually I’d accomplished that as well. Then I’d gone another step, into comedies. But I’d always known I’d grow out of that too.

In the seven years between the two Terminator movies, my feelings about the business had changed. Throughout the 1980s, I was enthusiastically grinding out the films. I was gunning for the top, trying to double my salary with every project and have the number one movie at the box office and be the biggest star. I literally hated having to sleep. When I did The Terminator, I dreamed of being able to operate nonstop like a machine. Then I could shoot all night on the set with Jim Cameron, and in the morning just change wardrobe and drive over and do a daytime movie on a daytime set with a daytime director. “Wouldn’t that be cool?” I thought. “I could do four movies a year!”

But now, after Terminator 2: Judgment Day, I saw things completely differently. I had a growing family. I wanted to have a nice life. I wanted to enjoy my wife and kids. I wanted to see Katherine and Christina grow up. I wanted to be able to go to events with them and take them on vacation. I wanted to be home when they came home from school.

So I tried to figure out how to balance my time. I thought that doing one movie a year might be the perfect pace. People now accepted the fact that I was one of the biggest stars, so I didn’t have to prove anything. But they were expecting more movies, so I had to make sure I came back and gave them good ones. If I heard an idea or saw a script that was exceptionally good and triggered something in me, I wanted to be able to make that movie. But there were other opportunities out there as well, and movie acting was no longer enough.

I thought that maybe the way to keep myself interested was to do what Clint Eastwood does and spice up the movie career with directing and producing every so often—sometimes appearing in the movie and sometimes not. And so on. I loved the idea of new challenges, along with new dangers of failure. Clint was one of the very few Hollywood personalities who had his head screwed on straight. He was good in business. He never lost money. He was wise in the ways he invested. He was always getting involved in ventures he felt passionate about, like his restaurant business and his golf businesses in Northern California. From the time I came to America, he was always someone I’d idolized. I didn’t know if I had that kind of talent, but maybe I could try to be like Clint when acting was no longer enough for me and I was looking for the next challenge.

Then there was a completely different path I could see myself taking. Clint had been elected mayor of Carmel, California, his hometown. That too appealed to me, although I did not know at that point which office I might seek one day. Still, I couldn’t help but feel influenced by being around the Shrivers and the Kennedy family, even though we were on different sides of the fence politically.

In November 1991 a surprise push in the direction of running for office came from Richard Nixon. He invited me to stop by his office before a fund-raiser and the opening of a holiday exhibit at his presidential library, scheduled a few hours after the opening of the Reagan library. I knew how Nixon was hated by many people, and I was aware of the Watergate scandal and the hardship it put the country through. Taking that out of the equation, however, I admired him and thought he was a terrific president. I suspect he knew I was a fan, because I’d praised him in the media even at the height of his unpopularity. I especially loved talking about him then because of the side of me that likes to be rebellious and shock people.