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IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING

 
Published June 18, 1993|Updated Oct. 9, 2005

In May, just as the Cannes Film Festival shifted into over-the-top gear, Arnold Schwarzenegger flew into town in his Gulfstream G-III jet and donated a day of his exceedingly valuable time to talking about his latest movie.

Boy did he talk. Schwarzenegger did 82 interviews in 24 hours. "A personal best," he boasted.

Last Action Hero, his $80-million entry into this summer's blockbuster movie stakes, opens nationwide today with the kind of fanfare that might herald the end of a war, the landing of a spacecraft on another planet or the second coming of the deity.

Schwarzenegger, never a man to leave anything to chance, is selling hard. He is to salesmanship what Itzhak Perlman is to the Stradivarius and Mike Tyson is to the knockout punch.

The multimillionaire actor, producer, director, property tycoon, restaurateur, fitness guru and marketing consultant _ the man for whom every Hollywood studio head would unreservedly sell his or her soul _ is a genius.

And his latest endeavor may even be worthy of his talents.

For Schwarzenegger, Last Action Hero _ not the mega-earthquake that many Californians expect to hit sometime in the next decade _ is the Big One.

The $15-million he pocketed for his acting duties will probably be a mere pittance compared to what he is expected to reap from his fat percentage of the worldwide box office take. (His cut will be figured from the gross. That means his take starts from dollar one.)

And then there are the merchandise tie-ins: toys, hamburgers, video games, theme park rides, clothes, books.

But for Tinseltown, Schwarzenegger would be cheap at twice the price. His last four movies took in a total of more than $1-billion worldwide.

Mark Canton, chairman of Columbia Pictures, recently described how he decides which films to "green light": "If the price is right or if Arnold's in it."

But in the United States, Schwarzenegger has become much more than a movie phenomenon. He's a living, breathing embodiment of the American Dream.

As a boy in Austria, with visions of deltoids and stardom in his head, the American way looked good to him. He approved of the message, but found the messenger lazy and undisciplined. He was sure he could do it better.

And he has.

He arrives for his interview impeccably groomed with his muscles rippling and his teeth gleaming. He looks like a race horse confident there isn't a competitor who can beat him, dinosaur or not.

Schwarzenegger is wearing well-creased chinos with deck shoes and a polo shirt strained perilously across his spectacular pectorals.

For him, the business of Hollywood can be summed up in one sentence: "You deliver for them, they deliver for you." He chooses his words carefully as if he were explaining the elementary facts of life to one of his two small daughters.

"It's how well your pictures are doing that makes people bend over backward to cater to you.

"But what's more important is that people trust your judgment. When you say to them, "I want to have the right to do this or this,' they say, "Well, we've worked with him before and he's always made a great contribution to the making and selling of the film' and they give it to you."

What they're giving Schwarzenegger these days is nothing less than the whole store.

John McTiernan (Die Hard, 1988; The Hunt For Red October, 1990) was his personal selection for director.

William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969; All the President's Men, 1976) was his pick for some million-dollar script polishing.

He had co-star approval, promotion-and-marketing approval, script approval. He listened to every bar of the music score. He helped select the posters that will scream the film's name from billboards all over the country.

He even had a say in the movie studio's spending of half a million dollars to paint the Hero logo on the nose of a NASA rocket that will be sent into space.

How far Schwarzenegger has come.

His race up the American success ladder has become legendary.

A poor boy from Austria with nothing but his muscles between him and obscurity, Schwarzenegger arrived in the United States in 1968 with nothing but a gym bag and $20.

He entered the Mr. Universe contest and came in second, whereupon like Scarlet O'Hara, he decided never to be poor again.

The road to riches began with beating every other muscleman in the field. Before he was finished he had won the Mr. Olympia title seven times and the Mr. Universe title five.

In the mid-'70s, he retired from the business of pumping. There were no more heights to scale and he ought, he said, to give someone else a chance.

By then he had his sights on movie glory.

In 1977, he appeared in a documentary called Pumping Iron, about bodybuilders preparing for an international competition. To say he stole the shoe would be like saying Marilyn Monroe photographed well.

What everyone remembered about the film was the "Austrian Oak" _ the witty, charming and charismatic Schwarzenegger.

Hollywood came calling.

Stay Hungry (1976) begat The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980) which begat Conan the Barbarian (1982) which begat Conan the Destroyer (1984) which begat The Terminator (1984) which begat Commando which ultimately begat fame, fortune and marriage to the most eligible royal princess in America: Maria Kennedy Shriver.

Anyway you look at it, his are extraordinary achievements.

Bodybuilders were a joke when Schwarzenegger began his career. Not only would they not have married into America's "first family," they would have been lucky to have been hired to clean the pool.

Schwarzenegger changed all that. And he did it with a great deal of charm and a dose of self-deprecating humor that he often turned on himself.

The formula has clearly worked. He has always been popular with the press. And when there's anything negative _ such as Wendy Leigh's Arnold: An Unauthorized Biography (Contemporary Books, 1991) _ he shrugs it off.

"If it's what I call the "A' press _ a respected writer I read in the New York Times or the Washington Post _ then I take it seriously," he says.

"But if it's the "C' press _ someone who writes for the junk magazines, the unauthorized biographies and all that stuff _ I don't give it much thought."

What he does give a lot of thought to is his future _ although he's somewhat coy about it.

With his party out of power, "Conan the Republican" has seen happier days politically. But this too shall pass. Politics is definitely still on his "to do" list.

So is more directing and producing, and becoming a more skilled actor.

McTiernan, who last directed him in Predator (1987), thinks Schwarzenegger's acting today is a far cry from when he was simply a spectacular part of the scenery.

"I've got the odd sense that if he chose to continue acting _ and I don't know that he will, he could choose 11 other careers _ he might end up maturing into Cary Grant. And that's a long way from bodybuilding," McTiernan says.

A Schwarzenegger who could really act? A sensitive, romantic Schwarzenegger? That could make him worth $2-billion, $3-billion.

How far could he go?

How high can you count?

Sally Ogle Davis contributed to this story.

1993 Ivor Davis

The Line on Arnold

These are just some of the immortal lines from the immortal films of Arnold Schwarzenegger:

"To be or not to be? Not to be ..."

(Just before blowing something up in Last Action Hero, 1993)

"Hasta la vista, baby."

(Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991)

"It's not a tooommahhh!!"

(A headachy John Kimble responding to a student's diagnosis in Kindergarten Cop, 1990)

"Consider that a divorce."

(After shooting "implanted" wife Sharon Stone in Total Recall, 1990)

"Danko"

"You're welcome"

(Soviet police detective Ivan Danko and hotel clerk in Red Heat, 1988)

"Stick around."

(After pinning an enemy soldier to a tent pole with his bowie knife in Predator, 1987)

"You should not drink and bake."

(To wife Blanche Baker, who's just missed him with a cake, in Raw Deal, 1986)

"Let off some steam, Bennett ..."

(After spearing a foe to a boiler with a length of pipe in Commando, 1985)

"I'll be baaack."

"The Terminator, 1984 _ also "Terminator 2" and several other films)

"What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women ..."

(Conan the Barbarian, 1982)

c) 1993, Newsday