Arnold Schwarzenegger - Total Recall - My Unbelievably True Life Story

We got in touch with David Crane. He was skeptical. Aircraft leasing deals are the realm of huge financial institutions like GE Capital. Individuals had never done it. “I doubt it, but I’ll check,” he said, promising to ask his clients in Singapore.

A week later, he came back to me. “It’s impossible. You can’t do it. They don’t want any individuals, only institutions.”

“Well, I can understand why,” I said. “They probably think this is some Hollywood schmuck who’s made some money overnight, and all of a sudden he thinks that he can buy a 747. But by the time they put together the deal, his movie falls through or something, and he backs out. They don’t want to deal with these Hollywood drug addicts and weirdos. I understand that. So can we get them to meet? Do they ever come to Los Angeles on business?

“Let me check it out.”

The next day, we learned that his clients had a West Coast trip planned in two weeks and were willing to come to my office. “Ah,” I thought. “As is so often the case, something that is impossible slowly becomes possible.” By the time the Singapore Airlines executives arrived, we’d done our homework, and it was easy to sell them on the idea. I spent the beginning of the meeting reviewing the deal, mainly just to show them that I understood how it worked. You could see them relax right away. After thirty minutes, we were taking pictures together and the deal in principle was done. I gave them Terminator 2 jackets as souvenirs, plus Predator gimme caps and bodybuilding T-shirts. I knew that deep down they were fans.

Now came the hard part—for Paul. Sometimes when you look at a deal and you don’t have all the knowledge or are not overly smart about what’s involved, you see less danger and you’re too willing to take the plunge. I saw just what was in front of me, and it all seemed good. Sure, it also looked and smelled risky. But the more risky things are, the more upside there is.

It was my job ultimately to say, “I like this thing.” It was Paul’s job to make sure it was really okay and that we understood the risks. The idea of owning this giant thing … You are signing documents and you think you have no liability because maintenance and safety are the responsibility of the airline—but was that totally true? Paul uncovered wrinkles that were bizarre. For example, if the plane crashed, you’d certainly have trouble sleeping at night, but at the same time, there was ample insurance to cover the loss. On the other hand, if other Singapore Airlines planes crashed and the reputation of the airline was ruined, then the value of your investment would be hurt. Other airlines might not want your plane after the lease was up and Singapore Airlines gave it back.

“That’s one way this whole thing could go south,” David Crane explained. “You’d be sitting there with a 747 nobody wants and you’d still have to make your payments to the bank.” It was true that the profitability of the investment depended heavily on this so-called residual value. And residual value could be affected by everything from the reputation of the airline, to the state of the world economy, to oil prices, to technological innovation ten years from now. But when I heard David’s worst-case scenario, I had to laugh. “Right!” I said. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen to me.” I just had faith that it wouldn’t.

Finally, we were comfortable with the deal. I was excited. “You should talk to other people in Hollywood,” I told Paul. “They might like the idea too, and you can do a little business.” He actually went and pitched it to five or six top executives and stars but came back empty-handed. “They looked at me like I had three heads,” he told me. “Mostly what I saw in their eyes was fear. Like the whole thing was just too big and too weird for them.”

The plane we ended up with cost $147 million. Before signing the papers, we went to the airport to see it. There’s a picture somewhere of me literally kicking the tires of my 747. We signed all kinds of confidentiality agreements, of course, but the banks couldn’t help themselves, and the news leaked the first day. I loved it because everybody thought I had bought the 747 to fly around in, like the sheik of Dubai. It didn’t dawn on anyone that we’d do such an outlandish deal as an investment. It paid off very handsomely in profits, in tax benefits, and in pride of ownership. I’d hear guys bragging about their new Gulfstream IV or IV-SP, and then I’d get to say, “That’s great, guys. Let me talk about my 747 …” It was a great conversation stopper.

Buying the plane was a happy adventure in an otherwise difficult time. During the filming of Batman and Robin , late the previous year, I’d learned at my annual physical that I would have to make room on my calendar for a major heart operation.

The timing had been a surprise, but the problem itself wasn’t—for twenty years I’d known I had a hereditary defect that would someday need to be repaired. Way back in the 1970s, during one of my mother’s springtime visits, I’d brought her to the hospital because she was feeling dizzy and nauseous. They discovered that she had a heart murmur due to a faulty aortic valve, the main valve leading out of the heart. Eventually it would need to be replaced. Middle age is often when you detect those things, the doctor said, and she was then in her fifties. I was only thirty-one, but they checked me too and found out that I shared the defect.

The doctor had told me, “Your valve won’t need treatment for a long time. We’ll just keep an eye on it.” So every year I would get my heart checked. He would listen to the murmur and say, “There’s nothing to worry about, just stay in shape and keep your cholesterol low” and blah, blah, blah. And I’d push the problem out of my mind for another year.

Eventually, when they told my mother that it was time for surgery, she refused. “When God wants to take me, I’m ready to go,” she declared.

“That’s funny, you didn’t say that when you had your hysterectomy,” I pointed out. “And you’ve fixed every other health problem all along. So why all of a sudden now with the heart are you are talking about God? God is the one who made the science possible. God trained the doctors. It’s all in God’s hands. You can extend your life.”

“No, no, no.” It was one of those Old World things. Still, even without the repair, she seemed healthy enough and was now seventy-five.

But I wasn’t fine. The first sign of real trouble came after making True Lies . I was home swimming laps in the pool and felt this weird burning in my chest. It was a signal that the valve was beginning to fail. The doctor said, “This is now going to deteriorate slowly and then eventually it’s going to deteriorate very fast. We want to catch it just at the beginning of that rapid slide—that’s the best and safest moment to do the repair. If you wait beyond that, the aorta gets affected and the heart gets enlarged, and you don’t want that. But I can’t tell you when that moment will be. It could be next year, it could be five years from now. Everyone is different.”

I didn’t feel any more symptoms and continued doing my thing. I skied, I made movies, I went to Planet Hollywood openings, I did my public service. But at my annual checkup in 1996, the doctor said, “The moment has come. You need heart surgery. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, but do it this year.”

I visited three hospitals to talk to the surgeons. I believe you should get three opinions when facing a big medical decision. The doctor I chose was Vaughn Starnes at the USC University Hospital. He was a trim guy with rimless glasses who was totally matter-of-fact about the problem and the risks. He also could understand where I was coming from.