Hollywood Is All Eyes as One of Its Own Takes a New Stage
By BERNARD WEINRAUB
HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 7 — George Butler, the producer and director of the 1977 documentary that helped make an Austrian immigrant bodybuilder named Arnold Schwarzenegger a star, today recalled the early days when he met Mr. Schwarzenegger in Brooklyn.
"He was enormously intelligent and enormously crude, and he said then that he had a recurring dream that he would be King of the Earth," Mr. Butler said. "He had a master plan. He wanted to be a movie star, a millionaire and have enormous power."
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Across Hollywood, the one word on people's lips is "Arnold." A former Mr. Universe turned action hero whose movie career was ebbing, Mr. Schwarzenegger, 56, has this largely Democratic community greeting his bid for governor of California with a blend of fascination and, in some cases, derision.
"Ludicrous," said Larry Gelbart, a top film and television comedy writer. "This whole thing has taken on farcical dimensions. He has no experience in governing anything his own career.
"This is the world's fifth-largest economy. Some part of me resents being in California and being a laughingstock, that we would have this Wild West political show here. Larry Flynt is running, too. You can't satirize this. The headlines are satire."
Mr. Gelbart's view seems, at least in Hollywood, unusually dissident. Mr. Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, the television reporter and member of the Kennedy family, are central players in the elite world of West Side Los Angeles — Beverly Hills, Brentwood and the Pacific Palisades. It is a world of rich, sometimes politically engaged and frequently self-important Democrats who have met Mr. Schwarzenegger over the years, seem to like him personally but are now perplexed about what to do next.
"He's a very serious, very smart, very determined guy," David Geffen, the billionaire mogul and Democrat, said of Mr. Schwarzenegger. "I think he'd be very formidable."
Barbara Howar, a novelist who has known Ms. Shriver for years, said the entertainment elite seemed to know four of the major players in the recall election of Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat — Mr. Davis himself; former Mayor Richard J. Riordan of Los Angeles, who is expected not to join the race; Arianna Huffington, the commentator running as an independent, and Mr. Schwarzenegger.
"People are in a quandary," Ms. Howar said. "It's overlapping into their social world and it's hard for them to split their allegiances even along party lines. Riordan and Huffington and Arnold are all at dinner together. They've known each other for years. Their friends and money sources are identical. They're all tap dancing to the same crowd and the same money."
Even his message, voiced on NBC's "Tonight" show with Jay Leno, has a Hollywood ring. Discussing the election, scheduled for Oct. 7, Mr. Schwarzenegger was hardly original. "We're mad as hell and we're not taking it anymore," he said. It paraphrased the line by Peter Finch, as a television commentator having a nervous breakdown, from the 1976 film "Network."
Those who have worked with Mr. Schwarzenegger in recent years said they were not surprised by his announcement. Jonathan Mostow, director of "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," his current movie, said that Mr. Schwarzenegger had showed an unusual interest in electoral politics during filming.
"An endless line of political figures came to the set," Mr. Mostow said. "We had mayors, governors, senators, City Council people from Iowa, Bill Clinton."
As a Republican in the mostly Democratic world of west Los Angeles, Mr. Schwarzenegger is clearly a political aberration, but he seems to have handled it well.
Lionel Chetwynd, a writer and director who is a Republican, said Mr. Schwarzenegger had avoided the stigma of "having identified himself as a Republican — he's very deft at that." Mr. Chetwynd recalled attending a Christmas party with actors like Warren Beatty and others Democrats. "Arnold was the star," Mr. Chetwynd said. "He's made Republicans who have been hiding in Hollywood feel good. He's outed us."
As reported in the book "Pumping Iron," in the early 1970's, Mr. Schwarzenegger said: "I will go into movies as an actor, producer and eventually director. By the time I am 30, I will have starred in my first movie and I will be a millionaire." He also said, "I will marry a glamorous and intelligent wife."
Mr. Butler, the producer and director, met Mr. Schwarzenegger in 1972 at a Mr. America contest in Brooklyn. "Arnold was naïve and ingenuous," he recalled. "He was crafty as all get out. His idea was that money was power. He never looked over his shoulder, he had no sentiment for the past. He was the biggest greenhorn you could ever imagine, but he was very smart and the quickest read I've ever met."
"Running for office?" Mr. Butler added. "Being powerful? For those who knew him back then, we expected this to happen, and it has."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/08/national/08HOLL.html
All Hail Bob, All Hail Bob!
