ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
Arnold Schwarzenegger, in full Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, (born July 30, 1947,
Thal, near Graz, Austria), Austrian-born American bodybuilder, film actor, and politician
who rose to fame through roles in blockbuster action movies and later served as governor
of California (2003–11).
Schwarzenegger was known as the Styrian Oak, or Austrian Oak, in the bodybuilding world,
where he dwarfed his competition. He won his first amateur Mr. Universe title in 1967. After
moving to California in 1968 to train and compete in bigger events in the United States, he
won four more Mr. Universe titles and then the professional Mr. Olympia title six years in a
row (1970–75) before retiring. He surprised the bodybuilding world by returning to
competition one more time to claim the Mr. Universe title in 1980. Bodybuilding was the
subject of several of his books, including the autobiographical Arnold: The Education of a
Bodybuilder (1977; written with Douglas Kent Hall) and The New Encyclopedia of Modern
Bodybuilding (1998; written with Bill Dobbins).
Schwarzenegger became a U.S. citizen in 1983 and married reporter Maria Shriver in 1986.
During the 1990s he became increasingly active in the Republican Party at both the state
and national levels, and in 2003 he was elected governor of California in a recall election. In
his initial years in office, Schwarzenegger pushed for a number of restrictive measures that
proved unpopular, especially with organized labour. Nevertheless, he was reelected in 2006.
He earned key legislative victories on issues relating to the environment, including a
landmark act to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in California, and successfully advocated
for ballot propositions to reform the state’s redistricting process and political-primary
format.
At the same time, his governorship was encumbered by the state’s
enormous budget deficit, which ballooned to $26 billion in 2009.
Despite a battery of service reductions and salary cuts enacted to stem
the fiscal crisis, the state’s economy continued to struggle, and
Schwarzenegger suffered from consistently low approval ratings.
Because of term limits, he did not run for reelection in 2010. In May 2011 Schwarzenegger and Shriver announced that they were
separating; a few days later it was revealed that he had fathered a child
with a woman who had worked in the household staff. Shriver
subsequently filed for divorce.
In July 2011 a museum dedicated to Schwarzenegger’s life opened in his childhood home in
Thal, Austria. The following year he published the memoir Total Recall: My Unbelievably
True Life Story (written with Peter Petre).