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Born July 30, 1947, in the small Austrian town of Graz, Arnold Schwarzenegger took bodybuilding as his ticket for a better life. Consequently, he went on to win several European contests and international titles (including Mr. Olympia) and then went to the US for bodybuilding exhibitions, billing him immodestly but fairly accurately as "The Austrian Oak."Heading to America hoping to make his fortune, Schwarzenegger landed the title role in the low budget, barely released 'Hercules in New York' (AKA Hercules Goes Bananas) in 1970, billed as Arnold Strong.
The movie highlighted several points: Arnold's impressively sculptured figure, his poor acting skills and his heavy unintelligible accent.
As a result, Arnold abandoned the film industry and returned to bodybuilding, winning a total of seven "Mr. Olympia" titles - a record beaten only recently.
Writers George Butler and Charles Gaines featured him prominently in their book 'Pumping Iron', a comprehensive examination of bodybuilding. He then made a considerable impact in the 1977 film of the same name, and was much talked about.
He was then hired for the part of a bodybuilder (what else?) in the comedy 'Stay Hungry' in 1976 (starring Jeff Bridges and Sally Field). His performance was, in the main, kindly reviewed, but Schwarzenegger's real cinema comeback was when he took the role of the impeccably costumed Handsome Stranger in a cartoonish Western, 'The Villain' in 1979.
<FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2>Schwarzenegger threw himself wholeheartedly into acting, and got his real breakthrough with the title role of 1982's sword-and-sorcery blockbuster 'Conan the Barbarian', and its 1984 sequel, 'Conan the Destroyer'.
