Early life
Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, a small village bordering the
Styrian capital
Graz, and was
christend Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger.His parents were the local
police chief Gustav Schwarzenegger (1907–1972), and his wife, the former Aurelia Jadrny (1922–1998). They were married on
October 20,
1945—Gustav was 38, and Aurelia was a 23-year-old widow with a son named Meinhard. According to Schwarzenegger, both of his parents were "very strict". "Back then in Austria it was a very different world—" he says, "if we did something bad or we disobeyed our parents, the rod was not spared [sic]." It was a
Roman Catholic family who attended
Church every Sunday. Gustav signed up for membership of the
Nazi party and the SA after the 1938
Anschluss. At the time of signing up, Austria had not yet been invaded by Germany. Still, after the war, in 1947, Gustav was allowed to work as a police officer as there was no evidence he had committed war crimes. He had a preference for Meinhard, the elder of the two sons. Gustav’s favouritism was "strong and blatant", which stemmed from unfounded suspicion "that Arnold wasn’t his child." Schwarzenegger has said his father had "no patience for listening or understanding your problems…there was a wall; a real wall." Schwarzenegger had a good relationship with his mother and kept in touch with her until her dea Schwarzenegger has reportedly disavowed Nazi views. In later life, Schwarzenegger commissioned the
Simon Wiesenthal Centre to research his father's wartime record, which came up with no evidence of atrocities. At school, Schwarzenegger was apparently "in the middle" but stood out for his "cheerful, good-humored and exuberant" character. Money was a problem in the household; Schwarzenegger has recalled that one of the highlights of his youth was when the family bought a refrigerator.
As a boy, Schwarzenegger played many sports—heavily influenced by his father. He picked up his first
barbell in 1960 when his
soccer coach took his team to a local gym. At the age of 15 Schwarzenegger chose
body-building over soccer as a career. Schwarzenegger has responded to a question asking if he was age 13 when he started weight-lifting: "I actually started weight training when I was fifteen but I'd been participating in sports, like soccer, for years so I felt that although I was slim, I was well-developed, at least enough so that I could start going to the gym and start Olympic lifting.However, his official website
biography claims: "At 14, he started an intensive training program with Kurt Marnul, studied psychology at 15 (to learn more about the power of mind over body) and at 17, officially started his competitive career. During a speech in 2001 he said: "My own plan formed when I was 14 years old. My father had wanted me to be a police officer like he was. My mother wanted me to go to trade school. Schwarzenegger took to visiting a
gym in Graz, where he also frequented the local
cinemas to see bodybuilding idols such as
Reg Park,
Steve Reeves, and
Johnny Weissmuller on the big screen. "I was inspired by individuals like Reg Park and Steve Reeves. When Reeves passed away in 2000, Schwarzenegger fondly remembered him: " As a teenager, I grew up with Steve Reeves. His remarkable accomplishments allowed me a sense of what was possible when others around me didn't always understand my dreams ... Steve Reeves has been part of everything I've ever been fortunate enough to achieve. In 1961 Schwarzenegger met former Mr. Austria Kurt Marnul who invited him to train at the gym in Graz. He was so dedicated as a youngster that he was known to break into the local gym on weekends, when it was usually closed, so that he could train. "It would make me sick to miss a workout … I knew I couldn't look at myself in the mirror the next morning if I didn't do it. Schwarzenegger was asked about his first
movie experience as a boy, he replied: "I was very young, but I remember my father taking me to the Austrian theaters and seeing some newsreels. The first real movie I saw, that I distinctly remember, was a
John Wayne movie.
In 1971, his brother Meinhard died in a car accident. Meinhard had been drinking and was killed instantly, and Schwarzenegger did not attend his funeral. He was due to marry Erika Knapp and the couple shared a three-year-old son Patrick; Schwarzenegger would pay for Patrick's education and a life in America. Gustav died the following year from a stroke.In
Pumping Iron, Schwarzenegger claimed that he did not attend his father's funeral because he was training for a bodybuilding contest. Later, he and the film's producer both stated that this story was taken from another bodybuilder for the purpose of showing the extremes that some would go to for their sport, and to make Schwarzenegger's image more cold and machine-like to fan controversy for the film. Barbara Baker, his first serious
girlfriend has said he informed her of his father's death without
emotion and never spoke of his brother.Over time, he has given at least three versions of why he did not attend his father's funeral.
In an interview with
Fortune Magazine in 2004, Schwarzenegger told how he suffered what "would now be called child abuse" at the hands of his father. "My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door. It was just the way it was. Many of the children I've seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-Austrian mentality. They didn't want to create an individual. It was all about conforming. I was one who did not conform and whose will could not be broken. Therefore I became a rebel. Every time I got hit, and every time someone said, 'you can't do this,' I said, 'this is not going to be for much longer, because I'm going to move out of here. I want to be rich. I want to be somebody'.
Early adulthood
Schwarzenegger served in the
Austrian army in 1965 to fulfill the one year of service required of all 18-year-old Austrian males at the time. He won the Junior Mr. Europe contest in 1965. Schwarzenegger went
AWOL during basic training so he could compete in the competition and spent a week in an army jail: "Participating in the competition meant so much to me that I didn't carefully think through the consequences. When I got to Stuttgart, I was all confused. I forgot my posing routine, I had to borrow posing trunks, but still I won!Contrary to popular belief, it was not Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding debut, which had occurred two years earlier at a minor contest in Graz, at Steirer Hof Hotel (where he had placed second).
"The Mr. Universe title was my ticket to America—the land of opportunity where I could become a star and get rich. Schwarzenegger made his first plane trip in 1966, attending the
NABBA Mr. Universe competition in
London.He would come in second in the Mr. Universe competition, not having the muscle "definition" of American winner Chet Yorton. He would win the title for the first time in 1967 (he invented new exercises to separate and define his muscle groups), becoming the youngest-ever Mr. Universe at the age of 20. He would go on to win the title an additional four times. Schwarzenegger then flew to
Munich, training for four to six hours daily, attending business school and working in a health club, returning in
1968 to London to win his next Mr. Universe trophy.He was still to win the Mr. Olympia title.
Move to the U.S.
Schwarzenegger, making his third and most significant journey of his life moved to the
United States in September 1968 at the age of 21, speaking little
English. He confirms his poor grasp of English: "Naturally when I came to this country, my English was very bad, and my accent was also very strong which was an obstacle as I began to pursue acting. There he trained at
Gold's Gym in
Santa Monica, California, under the
patronage of
Joe Weider. From 1970–1974, one of Schwarzenegger's weight training partners was
Ric Drasin, the bodybuilder and
professional wrestler who designed the original Gold's Gym
logo in 1973. Schwarzenegger also became good friends with professional wrestler
"Superstar" Billy Graham. In 1970, age 23, he captured his first Mr. Olympia title in New York, and would go on to win the title a total of seven times.In 1969, Schwarzenegger met Barbara Outland Baker, an English teacher he went out with until 1974. Schwarzenegger talked about Barbara in his
memoir in 1977: "Basically it came down to this. She was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man and hated the very idea of ordinary life. Baker has described Schwarzenegger as "a joyful personality, totally charismatic, adventurous and athletic" but claims towards the end of the relationship he became "insufferable—classically conceited—the world revolved around him Baker published her memoir in 2006 entitled "Arnold and Me: In the Shadow of the Austrian Oak Although Baker, at times, paints an unflattering portrait of her former
lover—Schwarzenegger actually contributed to the "tell-all" book with a "foreword" and also met with Baker for three hours. Baker claims for example, that she only learned of his being
unfaithful after they split and talks of a turbulent and passionate love life. Schwarzenegger has made it clear that their respective recollection of events can differ. The couple first met six to eight months after his arrival in the U.S.—their first date was watching the first
Apollo Moon landing on television.They shared an apartment in
Santa Monica for three-and-a-half years, and having little
money, would visit the
beach all day or cook
barbecues in the back yard.
[18] Although Baker claims that when she first met him, he had "little understanding of polite society" and she found him a "turn-off", she says: "He's as much a self-made man as it's possible to be—he never got encouragement from his parents, his family, his brother. He just had this huge determination to prove himself, and that was very attractive ... I'll go to my grave knowing Arnold loved me.
Schwarzenegger met his next love, Sue Moray (a
Beverly Hills hairdresser assistant) on
Venice Beach in July 1977. According to Moray, the couple led an "open relationship": "We were faithful when we were both in LA...but when he was out of town, we were free to do whatever we wanted." Schwarzenegger met
Maria Shriver at the Robert F. Kennedy Tennis Tournament in August 1977 and went on to have a relationship with both women until August 1978 when Moray (who knew of his relationship with Shriver) issued Schwarzenegger with an ultimatum. Around this time, Schwarzenegger was prematurely greying and began to dye his hair, afraid of growing old—
steroids were also still part of his life.
Schwarzenegger has said his "big dream" was to move to the U.S. from the age of 10. He questioned what he was doing "on the farm" in Austria, and believed bodybuilding was his "ticket to America": "I’m sure I can go to America if I win Mr. Universe.
LA Weekly said in 2002 that Schwarzenegger is the most
famous immigrant in America, who "overcame a thick Austrian accent and transcended the unlikely background of bodybuilding to become the biggest movie star in the world in the 1990s."
