eleven months from the Whitney show until Pumping Iron’s release, Zarem worked behind the scenes, building the buzz. He’d arrange for a screening room, invite twenty or so serious hitters from the worlds of art, literature, and finance, and play scenes from the work in progress. He always made sure that one or two members of the media were at these events, even though they were off the record. Often I’d go with him—that’s how I met TV journalist Charlie Rose, for example, whose then wife, Mary, became a financial supporter of the film. Bobby would always introduce the screening with a short talk about bodybuilding as a fascinating link between sports and art or as a leading indicator of the trend to fitness—just enough hype to make the guests feel they were in the vanguard. Afterward, there would be a thousand questions.
I was in awe watching Bobby work the media. He taught me that ordinary press releases were a waste of time, especially if you were trying to get the attention of TV reporters. “They don’t read!” he said. Instead, he knew dozens of journalists and their editors personally. He would customize a story for a particular reporter, call, and say, “I’m sending this over. Please call me back as soon as you get it. If you don’t call back, I’m going to assume you don’t want the story, and then you won’t have much.” Bobby was famous for his long, old-fashioned handwritten proposals. He let me read a four-page letter to the editor of Time explaining why the magazine should do a major story on bodybuilding. Editors and news directors all over New York were willing to meet with him and talk seriously. And if newspapers or TV stations were competing on a story, he would brew up a different angle for each, so they weren’t just following one another. He would study the story, work on it, and talk to people at night—he hung out at Elaine’s, the Upper East Side mixing spot for literati, journalists, and celebrities.
Bobby’s job was promoting Pumping Iron, but I took a page from his book to get recognized for my work in Stay Hungry. Even though the movie had missed at the box office, I’d been nominated for a Golden Globe award for best debut by a male actor. (Hercules in New York had been such a wipeout that Stay Hungry counted as a debut film!) There were four other nominees—including Harvey Spencer Stephens, the five-year-old who played Damien in the horror film The Omen, and author Truman Capote for his part in the comedy whodunnit Murder by Death. Of course this brought out the competitor in me. How could I make sure I stood out? The strategy I hit on was to take out ads in the show business trade papers Variety and the Hollywood Reporter thanking the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, whose members select the Golden Globe winners, for nominating me.
I also invited association members to a dinner and an advance screening of Pumping Iron. Bobby Zarem didn’t really like this idea because my nomination was for Stay Hungry, not Pumping Iron, and he thought that Pumping Iron was too cutting edge for the Hollywood foreign press. But I felt it could only help. For one thing, critics like to see your latest work, even if it’s not actually what’s being judged, because they like to feel they’re voting for someone who is on a roll. Also, in Pumping Iron I was able to be myself much more, so why not give them both: Stay Hungry with my acting and Pumping Iron with my outrageousness? Besides, I figured that the foreign press automatically would be sympathetic toward an immigrant struggling with a sport in America. And even if none of these reasons held up, I was very proud of the work I’d put into Stay Hungry and wanted to do everything possible to call attention to it. A lot of the writers came to the screening, and when it ended, people gave me a big hug and said things like “You were terrific!” and “This is wonderful!” so I knew it had worked.
A week before the January 1977 premiere, Pumping Iron was in the gossip columns because of a lunch that Bobby masterminded at Elaine’s. Delfina Rattazzi was the hostess, I was the guest of honor, and celebrities such as Andy Warhol, George Plimpton, Paulette Goddard, Diana Vreeland, and the editor of Newsweek showed up. But the woman who stole the show was Jackie Onassis. She was known for keeping a low profile and never giving interviews, and I was flattered that she came in spite of the fact that she knew the press would be writing about it. I think she did it partly as a favor—Delfina was now her editorial assistant at Viking Press—and partly out of curiosity, because she enjoyed being involved with art, trends, and new things.
She stayed for the entire lunch, and I got to talk with her for fifteen minutes. JFK had been synonymous with America to me as a kid growing up, so meeting Jackie was like a dream. What impressed me most was her sophistication and grace. She’d obviously come prepared, because she didn’t ask anything clumsy or vague, like “What is this movie about?” Instead, she made me feel that Pumping Iron was important and that she appreciated what we were trying to do. She asked all kinds of specific questions: How do you train? How do you judge a competition? What’s the difference between Mr. Olympia and Mr. America? Would this be something beneficial for my teenage son? At what age can you start with a workout routine? I was predisposed to liking her before we met, and that conversation made me a big fan.
Of course people of her caliber have the social skills to make it seem like they are very much aware of you and that they know a lot about what you are doing. It was very hard to say whether she was truly interested. My guess was that she probably was a naturally curious person. Or maybe she really did think that John F. Kennedy Jr. might like to train. Or maybe she was just doing a favor for Delfina. But she certainly gave Pumping Iron a big publicity boost, and the fact that she brought her son to the New York premiere a week later convinced me that she was genuine.
For the premiere, Bobby Zarem and George Butler pulled out all the stops. They invited five hundred people to the Plaza Theater on East Fifty-eighth Street. There were photographers, TV cameras, police barricades, limos pulling up, searchlights crisscrossing the sky—the works. The temperature was near zero, but a dozen teenage fans were waiting for me and started chanting, “Arnold! Arnold!” when I showed up. I got there early with my mom, who’d flown over from Austria for the event, because I wanted to circulate and kiss all the pretty girls and welcome people as they arrived. For the first time in my life, I wore a tux. I had to get it specially tailored because even though I’d slimmed down to 225 pounds, nobody had a rental that would fit a fifty-seven-inch chest and thirty-two- inch waist.
The crowd was a fantastic medley of writers, socialites, hipsters, entertainers, executives, critics, artists, fashion models, and bodybuilding fans—including Andy Warhol; Diana Vreeland; actresses Carroll Baker, Sylvia Miles, and Shelley Winters; actor Tony Perkins and his wife, fashion photographer Berry Berenson; writer Tom Wolfe; the model Apollonia van Ravenstein; porn star Harry Reems; and half the cast of Saturday Night Live. James Taylor came with his wife, Carly Simon, who was pregnant. She flexed a biceps for the cameras and told a reporter that her hit song “You’re So Vain” wasn’t about a bodybuilder.
The bodybuilders themselves made a dramatic entrance. While everybody was milling around in the lobby sipping white wine, in swept six of the giants from the film, including Franco, Lou Ferrigno, and Robby “the Black Prince” Robinson, who was decked out in a black velvet cape and wearing a diamond earring.
Pumping Iron was finally doing what we’d hoped: bringing bodybuilding into the mainstream. I’d been interviewed in the media all week. And lots of good reviews showed that the critics were getting the message. “This deceptively simple, intelligent movie humanizes a world that has its own cockeyed heroism,” wrote Newsweek, while Time called the movie “beautifully shot and edited, intelligently structured and—to risk what will surely seem at first a highly inappropriate term—charming. Yes, charming.”
The audience at the Plaza liked the movie too, applauding wildly at the end. They stayed in their seats for the bodybuilding demonstration that followed. My main job for the night was to be the emcee. We led off with Franco’s strongman routine, which included bending a steel bar with his teeth and blowing up a rubber hot-water bottle with his lungs. Just before the hot-water bottle exploded, you could see people in the front rows covering their ears. Then the other bodybuilders joined Franco onstage and demonstrated poses as I narrated. At the end, actress Carroll Baker in a slinky dress ran up onstage and started feeling everyone’s triceps, pectorals, and thighs before pretending to faint with ecstasy right into my arms.
My new tuxedo had its second major outing two weeks later at the Golden Globes. The ceremony was at the Beverly Hilton hotel, and again my mom was my date. She spoke only a few words of English and could barely understand what was being said unless I translated. But the hoopla in New York had amused her, and when the photographers yelled, “Pose with your mother!” she grinned and let me give her a big hug. She was impressed that the studio sent a limo to bring us to the Golden Globes. She was really excited about seeing Sophia Loren.
A lot of stars showed up for the Golden Globes because it was less stuffy and more fun than the Oscars. I
