Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

minuses: although I had a strong philosophy and lot of opinions, my knowledge of issues like jobs, education, immigration, and the environment wasn’t so deep. And, of course, I had no fund-raising organization, no political staff, no experience dealing with political reporters, and no track record in getting elected to anything.

One question that came up was whether to campaign for the governorship in 2002 or wait until 2006. Waiting would give me more time to establish myself in Californians’ eyes as a contender. George Gorton suggested that whenever I ran, a good way to lay the groundwork would be to campaign for a ballot initiative. Among all the states, California is famed for its tradition of “direct democracy.” Under the state constitution, legislators aren’t the only ones who can create laws; the people can too, directly, by placing propositions on the ballot in state elections. The ballot-initiative system dates back to Hiram Johnson, California’s legendary governor from 1911 to 1917. He used it to break the power of a corrupt legislature controlled by the giant railroads. Its most famous modern-day application was in the California tax revolt of 1978. That was when voters passed Proposition 13, a constitutional amendment officially titled “People’s Initiative to Limit Property Taxation.” I’d been in America only ten years at that point, and I remember marveling at how ordinary citizens could limit the state’s power.

If I sponsored a ballot initiative, Gorton pointed out, I could get out in front of the people without having to announce right away for governor. I’d have a reason to build an organization, hold fund-raisers, form alliances with important groups, talk to the media, and do TV ads. And if the initiative passed, it would prove that I could win votes across the state.

But before I tackled any of that, Bob and his colleagues felt they ought to impress upon me what I might be getting into. I was paying them, but they were ambitious guys who wanted to make sure they weren’t wasting time on some Hollywood vanity campaign. In fact, they got ex-governor Wilson himself to deliver the message personally. He took charge of a four-hour strategy session at my office in March 2001. Wilson told me that he hoped I would run and that I had the beginnings of a good team to get it done. But, he added, “You need to be realistic about how this will affect your life, your family, your finances, and your career.” Then he went around the table, and each advisor laid out ways in which my life would change. Don Sipple, a political strategist, talked about how Eisenhower and Reagan had made the transition to political life successfully, while Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura had failed. Perot, a Texas businessman, came from out of nowhere in 1992 to run for president as an independent, and won an astounding 19.7 million votes, or almost one in five votes cast that November. Ventura, my former castmate in Predator and The Running Man, and a former pro wrestler, was midway through a shaky term as governor of Minnesota, after which he would not seek reelection.

The difference between those who adapted and those who didn’t, Gorton said, was a willingness to totally commit. Others talked about how I’d need to put up with media criticism like I’d never imagined; how I’d need to become expert in wonky topics; how I’d need to ask for campaign contributions. I took such obvious pride in my financial independence that they realized the last item would be hard for me.

But what surprised me was the level of enthusiasm in the room. I thought they were going to tell me that this wasn’t right for me and maybe I should try for an ambassadorship or something. That was the way people in Austria had reacted when I said I wanted to be a bodybuilding champ. “In Austria we become ski champs,” they’d said. And it was the way that Hollywood agents had reacted when I said that I wanted to become an actor. “Why don’t you open a gym?” they’d said. But I could tell that these political pros weren’t just stringing me along. These guys knew me from the campaigning I had done for Wilson. They knew I was funny. They knew I spoke well. They saw me as a serious possibility.

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Over the next several weeks, I spent a lot of time out of the state: at an Inner-City Games event in Las Vegas, a Hummer promotion in New York, a visit to Guam, a premiere in Osaka, Japan, and Easter in Maui, Hawaii, with Maria and the kids. But along the way, I started sounding out close friends. Fredi Gerstl, my mentor from Austria, was very supportive. As far as he was concerned, nothing was harder than being a good political leader—so many interests, so many constituents, so many built-in obstacles. It’s like captaining the Titanic as opposed to driving a speedboat. “If you like challenges, this is the best,” he said. “Go for it.”

Paul Wachter, my financial advisor, told me he wasn’t surprised—he’d sensed me getting restless over the past year—but he felt obliged to remind me of the money I’d have to pass up if I switched careers. He really liked seeing those $25 million movie paychecks coming in. He pointed out that if I got elected, I’d have to forgo two movies a year at $20 million or more each, plus spend millions of my own money on personal expenses that would not be tax deductible. It wasn’t a stretch to say that the total cost to me over two terms could be more than $200 million.

Another close friend I wanted to touch base with was Andy Vajna, who with his business partner, Mario Kassar, had produced Total Recall and Terminator 2 and owned the rights to make Terminator 3. Andy is Hungarian-American, an immigrant like me, and besides his success in Hollywood, he owns casinos in Hungary and other businesses here. Also, Andy had worked in government in Hungary and was close to Victor Orban, who became prime minister. I saw Andy and Mario as part of my Hollywood kitchen cabinet for kicking around ideas. So I wanted to sound them out on my running for governor. If they were enthusiastic, I meant to hit them up for a lot of money for the campaign and then have them go out and ask other producers to contribute.

When I went to their office to talk about the governorship in April, 2001, I didn’t expect them to bring up Terminator 3. I’d signed a “deal memo” to star in it if it ever got made, but the project had been in development limbo for years. Andy and Mario had even lost the rights at one point and had to buy them back in bankruptcy court. Jim Cameron had moved on to other projects, and as far as I knew, they didn’t have a director or a script. But as I made my pitch about politics, I saw them looking at me as if to say, “What the fuck are you talking about, running for governor?”

Terminator 3, it turned out, was a lot farther along than I’d thought. A script was almost ready, and, not only that, they’d entered into merchandise and international distribution deals worth tens of millions of dollars. They were planning to start production within a year. Andy was reasonable and friendly but firm. “If you back out, I will get sued, because we sold the rights based on you as the star,” he said. “I’m the last person interested in suing you, but if I get sued, I will have to sue you because I can’t afford to pay all these guys back. With damages! The numbers will be huge.”

“Okay, I got it,” I said.

I pride myself on being able to juggle many tasks, but I could see that running for governor and making a Terminator movie at the same time was a nonstarter even for me. People would think it was totally half-assed.

So now what? I still wanted to do something political. In fact, I was pumped. So when I went back to my political team and broke the news that I couldn’t run, I told them not to stop. I told them that we’d do a ballot initiative instead. They were skeptical about this; it was hard for them to imagine how a person could do justice to a movie and an initiative campaign at the same time. To me, it was no different from what I’d done all my life. I’d gotten a college education while I was a bodybuilding champ. I’d married Maria in the middle of filming Predator. I’d made Kindergarten Cop and Terminator 2 and launched Planet Hollywood while I was the president’s fitness czar. And I had a clear vision of the issue I wanted to pursue.

Working on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports had made me aware of the problem of millions of kids left after school with nothing to do. Most juvenile crime is committed between three and six o’clock in the afternoon. That’s when kids get exposed to mischief, hustling, gangs, and drugs. Experts contended that we were losing our kids not because they were bad but because they were unsupervised. There had long been cops and educators who campaigned for after-school programs, which provided an alternative to gangs and a place for kids to get help with homework. But the legislators never listened. So the cops and educators became my first allies.

As part of expanding the Inner-City Games, I’d created a foundation to make them a nationwide movement and recruited a close friend of Maria’s and mine, Bonnie Reiss, to lead it. Bonnie is a high-powered New Yorker with curly black hair who is funny and fast-talking and almost as fierce an organizer as Eunice. She and Maria met while Maria was in college and Bonnie was in law school and clerking for Teddy Kennedy; the two of them had moved to LA together to work on Teddy’s 1980 presidential campaign. Later Bonnie founded an influential nonprofit called the Earth Communications Office, which focused on raising money for environmental issues. Essentially she became