No man in the action genre of film made such an impact like Arnold Schwarzenegger did during the late 1980s and 1990s.
(1947 - )
During the 1980s, the motion pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger reportedly grossed $1 billion world-wide. His path from Mr Universe to major Hollywood star was made possible by changes in the movie industry itself; rise of fantasy, science-fiction, and action-adventure genres after Star Wars, the return of heroism on a grand scale after a series of counter-cultural anti-heroes in the 1970s, and the importance of physical cultural in the 1980s. Like Madonna, Schwarzenegger embodies the fantasy of success. This self-made man has literally crafted his own body to the fit appetites of the culture industry and a health-conscious American society, fearful of morbidity while fascinated with the spectacle of mortality. Like Madonna, Schwarzenegger’s charm derives in part from a self-mocking humor which in no way detracts from the appeal of his exaggerated masquerade of gender.
Born in Graz, Austria in 1947, Schwarzenegger grew up idolizing such muscular athletes turned stars as Johnny Weissmuller, Steve Reeves and Mickey Hargitay, who he would later play in a TV movie The Jayne Mansfield Story. In 1968, Schwarzenegger moved to Los Angeles and was groomed by body-building promoter Joe Weider, from whom he borrowed the money for his first of many real estate investments. While making $14,000 a year working as a bricklayer. Schwarzenegger won a string of body-building titles, including multiple crowning as Mr Universe and Mr Olympia.
Schwarzenegger’s early endeavors in movies were inauspicious. His first lead was the title role in a comedy called Hercules in New York (1969), and throughout the 1970s he had small television roles and walk-ons in Hollywood: he can be glimpsed in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973), eagerly disrobing and flexing his pectoral muscles. He garnered more attention in the documentary Pumping Iron (1977), which chronicled his canny drive for the Mr Olympia title, and in Bob Rafelson’s Stay Hungry (1976), a fiction moving picture about the private life of a body-builder and a promoter.
With the boom of post-Star Wars science-fiction and fantasy movies, Schwarzenegger’s ‘ideal’ body gave him an entrée into mainstream film-making with starring roles in the violent sword-and-sorcery dramas Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984). During the same period, the action-adventure genre was established, emerging from the rogue cop policies of Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson and the Reagan – Bush era Rambo cycle which glorified the power of the individual to solve political problems through a combination of extensive firearms and musculature. The spectacular surprise success of motion pictures like Terminator (1984) helped put Schwarzenegger on the map, and he capitalized on his new-found success with a spate of action films: Commando (1985), Raw Deal (1986), The Running Man (1987), Predator (1987), Red Heat (1988), Though not as high-profile as Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo series, these movies nevertheless consolidated Schwarzenegger’s box-office power in an expensive but remunerative genre.
Schwarzenegger attempted to broaden his range by appearing in two comedies, Twins (1988) and Kindergarten Cop (1990), but his roles in the mega-hits Total Recall (1990) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) cemented his stranglehold on the expensive, special-effects-crammed, action genre. Budgets for such epics increased dramatically during the late 1980s, and sequels and stars became necessary to assure box-office draw. Terminator 2 reportedly cost $80 million, a budget that included $14 million for Schwarzenegger – twice the entire budget of the original movie.
After playing the killing-machine-villain in Terminator, Schwarzenegger’s subsequent move to the role of hero necessitated changes in his image. In contrast to his former roles as an ultra-violent hero, Terminator 2 presented a killing machine who befriends the young-boy hero of the future and learns to become kinder and gentler (he no longer kills, only shoots people in the leg), helpfully destroying himself at the movies end in order to save the world. This shift was consolidated in Last Action Hero (1993), which was marketed at a young audience, and in which comedy and self-parody were as important as the violence. Despite its $70 million price-tag the moving picture failed to live up to its expectations, in part because Jurassic Park, which attracted a greater share of media and box-office attention. The movies failure shook Hollywood’s confidence in Schwarzenegger, once considered box-office insurance for expensive motion pictures.
