Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

So I went to General Powell and asked him what he thought of sending over proper weight-training equipment. He loved the idea, and within a few days, I was able to enlist manufacturers to donate forty tons of weight machines, benches, barbells, and other gear for Operation Desert Shield. Sending it aboard a cargo ship would have taken many weeks, so instead Powell and Cheney worked out a way to have it airlifted from Oklahoma along with private contractors’ shipments. Within two weeks, the gear was delivered to the troops, and I started receiving extraordinary letters and photos thanking me and describing how soldiers were training in shifts to maximize access to the new equipment.

I’ve always felt appreciative of the armed forces because I’ve benefited from the American dream, and their courage and dedication is what safeguards it. From my early days as a bodybuilding champion, I made a point of visiting military bases and warships whenever I had the opportunity. As I got into movies, it was natural to add USO appearances to my promotional tours abroad. I often visited marine detachments at American embassies too, in Japan, Germany, South Korea, Russia, and many other countries. There’s no school to teach you how to entertain the troops, but I traded notes with other celebrities like Jay Leno and developed a shtick. I’d talk about my movies, do a little standup (the grosser the better), bring along a new movie for the troops to watch, and maybe hand out some stogies. It was all about pumping them up—and saying thank you. Much later, when I was governor, people in the state capital of Sacramento always asked, “Why do you spend so much time on the armed forces? Why are you fighting for them to get a free education? Why are you helping with their student loans? Why are you fighting for them to get jobs? Why are you fighting to speed up the construction of veterans’ homes and build more veterans’ housing than any governor in California history? Why are you battling to get the establishment to acknowledge post-traumatic stress syndrome and help these young men and women when they come back?” The answer was simple: America wouldn’t be the land of the free if it wasn’t the home of the brave. When you see the work they do and the risks they take, you realize what we owe our military.

Only once at Camp David did I personally witness serious business. The conference room that served as the president’s command center was normally off-limits to guests, of course. But one afternoon in February 1991, while I was visiting and sitting in my room reading a script, the president called. “Come on over, meet the guys,” he said.

They were relaxing around the big conference table taking a sandwich break. He introduced me and said, “You know, we’re making some important decisions about the Middle East war.” The air-attack part of Operation Desert Storm was already under way, and for months the United States and its coalition partners had been massing their armored forces. “Look at these pictures,” the president said, showing me aerial reconnaissance photos. Then he played a video taken with a tanker’s helmet camera, showing how close to the border they were. The tank divisions were maneuvering, feinting attacks on the border and then pulling back, and he explained that one day soon they would just keep going into Iraq and Kuwait. “So they’ll get hit by surprise, and at the same time, they’ll get nailed with—” and he showed me the ship positions in the Persian Gulf where the navy was ready to launch cruise missiles plus an amphibious landing by US Marines. “They’re going to get hit with so much, they won’t believe it,” he said.

The war planning picked up informally around the table where it had left off. The conversation had a kind of intensity and focus that made me think of doctors in an operating room. Yes, they were dealing with life and death, but they’d made decisions like this before and knew what they needed to do. There was no panic. The informal tone was just a reflection of Camp David—it was less fraught than the White House, which was why they loved meeting up there.

When they finished eating, the president said, “Okay, I’m going to take Arnold over and show him this horse, and I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

I left the next day knowing that the ground war was going to start in forty-eight hours. It was a Thursday, and two days later, on February 23, they were going to attack. I walked around thinking, “I know something no one else knows except in that circle. Not the press, nobody.” The fact that President Bush put such trust in me had a powerful effect. I felt there would never, ever be a time, no matter what happened, when I would violate that trust or let the man down.

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The rest of 1991 was golden for me: at home, in my public service work, and in my movies. Terminator 2: Judgment Day opened in theaters on the Fourth of July weekend and quickly became the biggest box-office hit of my career. Just three weeks later, Christina was born. I also became the proud owner of the world’s first civilian Hummer, whose military counterpart, the HMMWV or Humvee, had played a big role in the Gulf War. I’d noticed the Humvee just the summer before, up in Oregon, while we were shooting scenes for Kindergarten Cop. A convoy of US Army Humvees drove by, and I fell in love. It was the best-looking, most rugged SUV I’d ever seen. The Humvee had as standard equipment features that guys would spend thousands and thousands of dollars adding to their Jeeps or Chevy Blazers: oversize wheels and mirrors, high ground clearance, extra lights, including infrared, a brush bar in front, and a winch for hauling yourself out of trouble. The Humvee looked ballsy without having to add anything!

Not only did I want one for myself, but also I knew there would be a ready-made market if I could talk the manufacturer into building a version for the public. That was my sales pitch when I went to see the CEO and other executives at AM General in Lafayette, Indiana, which made Humvees for the military. I finagled permission to buy one, and then turned it over to a company to make it street-legal and civilize the interior, and then sent it back to AM General, saying “Now, copy this.” That’s what it did, and that’s why the Hummer became so closely identified with me when it went on the market.

There was an interesting business adventure that year too. I joined Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis in New York that October for the official launch of a glitzy new moneymaking machine: a celebrity restaurant and merchandising chain called Planet Hollywood. Every celebrity you can think of was there. It was not just an event, it was the beginning of an empire.

The idea was to put Planet Hollywoods all over the world and make them a magnet for people who loved American movie stars. Movie memorabilia and props would be the decor—like Tom Cruise’s flight suit from Top Gun, Jayne Mansfield’s swimsuit from The Girl Can’t Help It, and a motorcycle from The Terminator. The restaurants would host premieres and visits by the stars and sell specially designed jackets, T-shirts, and other souvenirs. It was the brainchild of Keith Barish, a movie producer, and Robert Earl, who had built up the global restaurant business based on music memorabilia, the Hard Rock Cafe. Keith had convinced Robert that Hollywood-themed restaurants could be even bigger than music-themes ones—especially now that the Iron Curtain had fallen and the whole world was wide open to American culture. The two brought the idea to me. “We want you to be our business partner,” they said. “We don’t want a crazy celebrity who doesn’t understand. You have a business mind. And you’re the number one star. If you do this, others will follow.”

I thought the idea made sense, and word got around fast. Pretty soon my lawyer, Jake Bloom, who also represented Sly and Bruce, said they were asking to sign on. “Would you mind if they’re in on it?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” I said. I was especially happy about Sly. Jake knew that Stallone and I had been feuding for years. This went back to the early Rocky and Rambo days, when he was the number one action hero, and I was always trying to catch up. I remember saying to Maria when I made Conan the Destroyer, “I’m finally getting paid a million dollars for a movie, but now Stallone’s making three million. I feel like I’m standing still.” To energize myself, I’d envisioned Stallone as my archenemy, just like I had demonized Sergio Oliva when I was trying to take the Mr. Olympia crown. I got so into hating Sly that I started criticizing him in public—his body, the way he dressed—and I was quoted as bad-mouthing him in the press.

I couldn’t blame him for hitting back. In fact, he’d escalated the fight by secretly feeding negative stories about me to the media. For a while he even paid the legal bills for a British journalist whom I’d sued for libel. But time had passed, I was a lot more confident about being a star, and I wanted to make peace. I said to Jake, “Tell him that he is welcome to be in it, and it’s my way of being gracious and making up.”

So Sly, Bruce, and I became a team. We’d fly to the latest Planet Hollywood opening, greet the local celebrities, wave at the cameras, talk to the press, and do everything we could to reward the loyalty of the fans. On the airplane, Sly and I were smoking stogies and constantly trading jokes. We never talked about the feud. We were typical guys, totally in denial, as if there had never been any problem and nothing had ever happened. That’s how we moved forward.