Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

front of the camera was a real declaration of independence.

As soon as we got back to Santa Monica, she set to work making connections and getting the necessary training, much as I had done with my acting. What did it take to succeed in front of the camera? She had to figure that out. What did she need to change about her looks, her voice, her style? What should she keep the same? Her teachers would say, “Your hair’s too big, you have to cut it down. Or can you pull it back? Let’s try that. Your eyes are too strong; maybe let’s tone down the eyes.” There was all this shaping and molding going on. She had to learn what makes you easy to look at and listen to day after day on TV, and not be overly dramatic and divert attention from the news, which should be the focus.

During my Conan shoot in Madrid the following winter, we couldn’t see each other for five months. She mailed me photos showing that she’d lost ten pounds and shortened her hair and put a little wave in it. Conan, meanwhile, had been scheduled and postponed several times. We were supposed to go on location in Yugoslavia in the summer of 1980, but Yugoslavia became unstable due to the death of its dictator, Marshal Tito, in May. The producers decided it would be cheaper and simpler to move the production to Spain in the fall. Then when Maria and I got back from Europe, I learned that the project had been delayed again until after New Year’s.

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This opened the way for a crazy plan that I’d only been toying with up to now: to make a surprise comeback and reclaim the world bodybuilding championship and the title of Mr. Olympia. Bodybuilding had grown tremendously in the four years since Pumping Iron. Health clubs were sprouting up all over the country, and strength training was a key part of what they offered. Joe Gold sold his original gym to franchisers and built a big, new establishment near the beach called the World Gym, which welcomed women as well as men.

The Mr. Olympia competition was thriving. In one of Joe Weider’s periodic pushes to expand worldwide, the International Federation of Body Building (IFBB) was holding this year’s contest in Sydney, Australia. In fact, I was due to work the event as a color commentator for CBS-TV. This would pay very well, but the appeal of doing it melted away once I felt the fire to compete again. The vision became irresistible as it crystallized in my mind. Reconquering the sport was the perfect preparation for Conan. It would show everyone who was the real king—and the real barbarian. Frank Zane had held the title for three years, and at least a dozen contenders were jockeying to win, including guys I saw at the gym every day. One was Mike Mentzer, a five-foot- eight Pennsylvanian with a dark, droopy mustache who’d finished a close second the previous year. He was promoting himself as the up-and-coming guru of weight training and spokesman for the sport and was always quoting the philosophy of the novelist Ayn Rand. Often there were rumors that I would return to competition, and I knew that if I denied everything and waited until the last minute to jump in, the uncertainty would gnaw at people like him.

Maria thought all this was unwise. “You run competitions now,” she pointed out. “You left bodybuilding as the champion and this could turn people against you. Besides, you might not win.” I knew she was right, but the desire to compete wouldn’t go away. “If you have so much extra energy, why don’t you learn Spanish before you go to Spain for the movie shoot?” she said. Having just seen Teddy lose the Democratic presidential nomination, she didn’t want another risk in her life. The night before, she’d freaked when Muhammad Ali, who was coming out of retirement to try to become the first four-time World Heavyweight Champion, was beaten convincingly by the current champ Larry Holmes. It was like that was symbolic.

But I just couldn’t let it go. The more I thought about it, the more I dug in on the idea.

Then one night, to my surprise, Maria turned around. She said that if I was still determined to compete, she’d support me. She became an extraordinary partner.

Maria was the only person I told. Of course Franco guessed. My longtime friend was a chiropractor now and was working as my training partner in preparation for Conan. He’d been saying things like “Arnold, the Olympia is coming up. You must go into it and shock everybody.” Some of the guys in the gym were really uneasy. When they saw me start blasting two-hour workouts twice a day, they couldn’t figure it out. They knew that I was supposed to play Conan, and I’d told them that being ripped was required for the part. Yes, I was going to Sydney, but that was to do TV commentary, wasn’t it? Besides, Mr. Olympia was only five weeks away: nobody could start heavy training this late and get ready! Still, they weren’t sure, and I fed the uncertainty. As weeks passed and the competition drew near, I would drive Mentzer crazy just by smiling at him across the gym.

It was the hardest training I’d ever done, which made it fun. I was amazed by how deeply Maria involved herself in every step, even though she was focused on her own goal. She’d grown up around sports, of course: not bodybuilding, but baseball, football, tennis, and golf, but it is all the same thing. She understood why I had to get up at six in the morning to train for two hours, and she’d come with me to the gym. At dinner she’d see me about to dig into some ice cream, and she’d literally take it away. All the enthusiasm she’d focused on Teddy’s run for president was now transferred to me.

The Mr. Olympia contest was staged in the Sydney Opera House, the spectacular architectural masterpiece shaped like a row of sails on the edge of Sydney Harbour. Frank Sinatra had performed there just before us. It was an honor to appear in such a place—and a sign of how bodybuilding was moving up in prestige. The prize money was $50,000, the most ever offered in a bodybuilding competition, and fifteen champions registered in advance, making it the largest field ever.

An opera house turned out to be the perfect setting because from the day we arrived, the contest was full of drama, emotion, and intrigue. It caused an uproar when I announced that I was there not to observe but to compete. The federation officials had to debate: could a contestant jump in without registering beforehand? They realized there was no rule against it, so I was allowed to participate. Next came a rebellion against certain rules of the competition itself, in the form of a petition signed by all of the bodybuilders except me. The organizers had to negotiate to avoid chaos. After much commotion, they agreed not only to adopt the changes but also asked the contestants to approve the judges.

All this backstage maneuvering brought out a side of Maria that made me think of Eunice in action. Even though Maria tried to separate herself, she had her mother’s political instincts and was wise beyond her years. In politics, when disputes arise and camps form, you have to grasp what’s happening and move very quickly. She was right there with lightning-fast perceptions and really good advice. She talked to the right people and helped me avoid getting isolated or blindsided. She was a total animal. I wondered how someone who had never been involved in the bodybuilding world and who had barely even met the players could step in so quickly and be so effective.

In the end I won my seventh crown as Mr. Olympia. But that victory remains controversial to this day. The judges awarded a split decision, voting 5–2 for me against the closest competitor, Chris Dickerson of the United States. It was the first nonunanimous decision in Mr. Olympia history. When my name was announced, only half the two thousand people in the opera house cheered, and for the first time in my life, I heard boos. Right afterward, one of the top five finishers threw around chairs backstage, while another smashed his trophy to smithereens in the parking lot and yet another announced he was quitting bodybuilding for good.

Training for competition and winning again gave me pleasure, but in hindsight, I have to admit that the episode was not beneficial for the sport. It created a lot of divisiveness, and I could have handled it differently. The old camaraderie of bodybuilding was gone. Eventually I reconciled with all those guys, but with some it took years to patch up.

Conan wasn’t due to start filming in earnest for a couple more months, but I had to fly to London in late October to shoot a preliminary scene. When I arrived, John Milius took one look at me and shook his head. “I’ve got to ask you to retrain,” he said. “I can’t have Conan looking like a bodybuilder. This is not a Hercules movie. I want you to be chunkier. You need to gain a little weight. You have to look like someone who’s been a pit fighter and a warrior and a slave chained for years to the Wheel of Pain. That’s the kind of body I want.” Milius wanted everything to look as consistent as possible. That was logical, even though Conan was entirely a fantasy world. In the scene we shot in England, I was made up to look like Conan the king in his old age, giving a soliloquy meant as the introduction of the film:

“Know, O Prince; that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of … Hither came I, Conan, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, to tread jeweled thrones of the earth beneath my feet. But now my eyes are dim. Sit on the ground with me, for you are but the leavings of my age. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure.”