Arnold Schwarzenegger - Total Recall - My Unbelievably True Life Story

I knew I was losing something valuable. My emotions told me we should stay together, while rationally I could see her point. It wouldn’t work in the long run. Barbara wanted to settle down, and I needed to be free to change and grow. The years with Barbara taught me a great lesson: how having a good relationship can enrich your life.

Birmingham turned out to be a small industrial city about the size of Graz, and the shooting of Stay Hungry was the biggest excitement in town. We got there in April 1975, and within a few weeks, you could already feel the sticky summer heat. I loved it there. We shot for three months and got to know the city very well, all the bars and oyster bars and restaurants. The hotel the cast stayed at was great. The people were extraordinarily friendly, and, of course, Charles Gaines was a native son, so we were invited to a lot of parties. Having just broken up with Barbara, I was glad to spend some time away from home.

As soon as I started rehearsing with Sally Field, I saw what Rafelson had been talking about. She was in total command of her craft, and within seconds she could cry or get angry or whatever was required. She was fun to be around too, always bubbly and full of energy. I was grateful to her and to Jeff Bridges for helping me learn. Jeff was very low-key, a little bit of a hippie, into playing his guitar, a comfortable person to hang out with, and very, very patient. I worked hard holding up my end of the deal. I invited other cast members to critique my acting, and I made Jeff promise to tell me what he really thought.

At first it was hard not to take criticisms personally. But Rafelson had warned me that changing careers would be tough. In this world, I wasn’t number one in the universe; I was just another aspiring actor. He was right. I had to surrender my pride and tell myself, “Okay, you’re starting again. You’re nothing here. You’re just a beginner. You’re just a little punk around these other actors.”

Yet I liked the fact that a movie is the effort of dozens of people. You need the people around you for you to look good, whereas bodybuilding is much more me oriented. You have your training partner, of course, but in competition you always want to throw a little shit on the other diamonds to make sure you’re the only one who sparkles. I was ready to get away from that.

In bodybuilding, you try to suppress your emotions and march forward with determination. In acting, it’s the opposite. You look for the sense memories that would serve as emotional keys. To do that, you have to strip away the calluses. It takes a lot of work. I’d remember the flowers I picked for my mother for Mother’s Day, which would remind me of being at home, being part of the family. Or I’d tap into my anger at Joe Weider for reneging on a promise to pay for something. Or I’d think back to when my father didn’t believe in me and said, “Why don’t you do something useful? Go chop some wood.” To live your life as an actor, you can’t be afraid of someone stirring up your emotions. You have to take the risk. Sometimes you’ll be confused, sometimes you’ll cry, but that will make you a better actor.

I could tell that Bob Rafelson was happy with the way things were going because after the first two or three weeks, he stopped checking my weight. I was already back up to 215 by the time we shot the Mr. Universe pose-off. That sequence comes near the film’s end: the bodybuilders in the Mr. Universe contest suspect Joe Santo of having stolen the prize money, and they all spill out onto the Birmingham streets. Once the real bad guy is caught, the bodybuilders notice that they’ve attracted a crowd and spontaneously start a posing exhibition. The crowd gets so into it that soon everybody’s posing in this big, happy climax. Shooting the scene was just like that: the extras and the onlookers in Birmingham got mixed up, and everybody was laughing and doing muscle poses, and Rafelson was on his megaphone shouting, “Please do not touch the bodybuilders.”

George Butler came to Alabama in the middle of all this to turn all my new plans upside down. He’d always talked about turning Pumping Iron into a documentary, but he wasn’t able to raise the money while they were finishing the book. Now things had changed. With all the publicity around Mr. Olympia, the book had become a surprise bestseller. And because I was making a movie with Bob Rafelson, the money was easier to raise. Also, George’s wife, Victoria, was a smart investor, and as long as I was in the film, she was willing to put in money.

“So we can do it!” he announced when we sat down to talk. His idea was to make the documentary hinge on me competing in the next Mr. Olympia contest, which was scheduled for November in Pretoria, South Africa. I had to remind him that I’d shifted my goal to acting and completely changed my training routine. “I’m retired,” I said. “Look, I’ve taken off all this muscle.” The conversation grew pretty heated.

“Well, there is no Pumping Iron if you’re not in it,” George insisted. “The other guys can’t carry the movie with their personalities. You’re really the only one in bodybuilding who brings life to the sport. I need you to be in it. Otherwise I can’t raise the money.” Then he claimed that working on the project would be good for my acting career.

“I don’t need it for my career,” I said. “You can’t get any better than this movie with Bob Rafelson. As soon as I go back, I want to continue with my acting—that’s where the opportunity is.”

George tried playing another card: “We’re prepared to pay you fifty thousand dollars to do this.” This was a number he’d thrown around already the previous year. Back then it sounded good because I was just buying the apartment building in Santa Monica and taking on a lot of debt. And I still liked the idea of that kind of money coming in. At this moment, however, it rubbed me the wrong way. “I don’t really want to go back into competition,” I said.

I didn’t owe George anything, but there was a lot to sort out. He was the best promoter I’d ever met, and I knew he would throw himself into this project. A Pumping Iron film by him would be an opportunity, maybe a great opportunity, to present bodybuilding as a sport to people who normally would never pay any attention. I felt that I couldn’t turn my back on bodybuilding. So much of my life was wrapped up in it and so many friends.

There were business dimensions to think about too. Backstage in Columbus, Ohio, years before, I’d told promoter Jim Lorimer that I wanted to partner with him someday to produce bodybuilding events. After my last Mr. Olympia tournament, I’d called him. “Remember how I said when I retired from competition I’d get in touch?” I asked. We agreed to go into business together, and we were putting together a bid with other investors he knew to make Columbus the home of future bodybuilding competitions. If anyone had the business skill and the connections to bring bodybuilding into the heartland and the American sports mainstream, it was Jim. Of course I still had the Arnold mail-order business, which was now bringing in $4,000 a year and growing.

And I was still attached to Joe Weider. Joe and I had battled—for example, at times he’d gotten mad when I signed up for a competition that he didn’t sponsor. But there was always that father-and-son bond. Joe adjusted to my movie career by covering the filming of Stay Hungry in his magazines. All the fans knew I was retiring, and the way he framed it was “Arnold is going into this other arena, and he is going to carry bodybuilding with him no matter what movie he does, so let’s follow him and support him.” When he realized I was serious about acting, Joe gave up gracefully on the dream of having me take over his business. But he would have freaked if he’d thought he would totally lose me, because I was the goose that laid the golden egg.