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Arnold Schwarzenegger

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I consider myself an expert in looking into a particular idea or goal and then going after it without anything else in mind.
Don't ever call me self-made man, because I would not be here if I wouldn't have had parents that were dedicated and gave us the love and affection.

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born 30 July 1947) is an Austrian-born American actor, Republican politician, bodybuilder, businessman, who was the 38th Governor of California.

Quotes

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The most important thing is that we need to be a party that is inclusive and tolerant. We can be those things and be the party we always have been. We need to think about the environment. Teddy Roosevelt was a great environmentalist and people forget Reagan was the one who dealt with the ozone layer with the Montreal protocol. We also need to talk about healthcare honestly. Nixon almost passed universal healthcare. We need to have an talk about immigration and realize you can't just deport people.
We need a comprehensive answer. We also need to stay out of people's bedrooms. The party that is for small government shouldn't be over-reaching into people's private lives.
Mainly, we need to be a party where people know what we are for, not just what we are against.

1970s

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Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder (1977)

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Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder (1977), New York: Simon & Schuster.
  • I used to feel that women were here for one reason. Sex was simply another kind of exercise, another body function. I was convinced a girl and I couldn't communicate on equal footing because she wouldn't understand what I was doing. I didn't have time to take one girl out regularly and go through a normal high-school romance with all its phone calls and notes and squabbles. That took too much time. I needed to be in the gym. For me it was a simple matter of picking them up at the lake, and then never seeing them again.
  • Eventually there was a split between my parents about me. My mother obviously knew what was going on with me and the girls my friends lined up. She never came out and said anything directly, but she let me know she was concerned. Things were different between me and my father. He assumed that when I was eighteen, I would just go into the Army and they would straighten me out. He accepted some of the things my mother condemned. He felt it was perfectly all right to make out with all the girls I could. In fact, he was proud I was dating the fast girls. He bragged about them to his friends. 'Jesus Christ, you should see some of the women my son's coming up with'. He was showing off, of course. But still, our whole relationship had changed because I'd established myself by winning a few trophies and now had some girls. He was particularly excited about the girls. And he liked the idea that I didn't get involved. 'That's right, Arnold', he'd say, as though he'd had endless experience, 'never be fooled by them'. That continued to be an avenue of communication between us for a couple of years. In fact, the few nights I took girls home when I was on leave from the Army, my father was always very pleasant and would bring out a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.

Pumping Iron (1977)

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Pumping Iron (1977). Directors: George Butler, Robert Fiore.
  • The greatest feeling you can get in a gym, or the most satisfying feeling you can get in a gym is the pump. Let's say you trained your biceps: blood is rushing into your muscle, and that would be called a pump. Your muscles get this really tight feeling, like your skin is going to explode any minute [...] It blows air and it feels different, it feels fantastic. It's as satisfying to me as cumming is, as having sex with a woman and cumming. So can you believe how much I am in heaven? I'm getting the feeling of cumming in a gym, I'm getting the feeling of cumming at home, I am, like, getting the feeling of cumming in the gym, I'm getting the feeling of cumming at home, I'm getting the feeling of cumming backstage. When I pump up, when I pose out in front of 5,000 people, I get the same feeling, so I am cumming day and night. It's terrific, right? So I am in heaven.
    • Pumping Iron (1977). Directors: George Butler, Robert Fiore.

Oui interview (1977)

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Online text
  • If a girl comes on strong and says, 'I really dig your body and I want to fuck the shit out of you,' I just decide whether or not I like her. If I do take her home, I try to make sure I get just as much out of it as she does. The word exploited therefore wouldn't apply.
  • Bodybuilders party a lot, and once, in Gold's — the gym in Venice, California, where all the top guys train — there was a black girl who came out naked. Everybody jumped on her and took her upstairs, where we all got together.
  • I get laid on purpose. I can't sleep before any competition and I'm up all night, anyway, so instead of staring at the ceiling I figure I might as well find somebody and fuck... we had girls backstage giving head, then all of us went out and I won. It didn't bother me at all; in fact, I went out there feeling like King Kong.

Time Out interview (1977)

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Time Magazine excerpts
  • What I want to do is make Americans aware that they're fucked-up when they equate everything a person does with some sexual trip. You know, if you hold a pencil in your hand, it's a phallic symbol and you really want to hold a cock in your hand. And a football coach doesn't really want to be a coach, he likes to slap football players' asses...he's a latent homosexual. And it goes on and on and on, all the fucking time.
  • America is so money-oriented. (Thank God! It's always helped me!) But it has its disadvantages because the psychiatrists know their business doesn't mean a thing if there are no sick people around, and so they make everybody feel guilty. You know, all New York City is running to a psychiatrist. All America thinks it has sexual hang ups. Everybody's running to shrinks.
  • Nixon was always being attacked sexually. It was always said that he was a fag and that he had no sexual relations with his wife for 15 years and that was why he liked power. And Hitler had only one ball, and that was why he wanted to conquer the world.

1980s

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  • Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. When you make an impasse passable, that is strength. But you must have ego, the kind of ego which makes you think of yourself in terms of superlatives. You must want to be the greatest. We are all starved for compliments. So we do things that get positive feedback.
  • I was 15 years old and I looked in the mirror. I was standing there in front of the mirror, totally naked. There was one particular part of my body that was bigger than the rest of it. I'm a man of perfection, and so I said to myself, 'I've got to bring the rest of the body up to the standard of this one part.' And so that's when I started exercising. Very simple.
    • The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, 4 October 1984

2000s

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  • My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door, and so was the kid next door. It was just the way it was. Many of the children I've seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-Austrian mentality. Break the will. They didn't want to create an individual.... It was all about conforming. I was one who did not conform and whose will could not be broken. Therefore I became a rebel. Every time I got hit, and every time someone said, 'You can't do this,' I said, 'This is not going to be for much longer, because I'm going to move out of here... of course, I had no plan how.
  • In sports, you learn competition means go after it, win it. And not to let anything else interfere. It's something you learn, and it sticks with you. I consider myself an expert in looking into a particular idea or goal and then going after it without anything else in mind... It's always the same kind of thing. You pick a goal, and then you just go after it, accomplish it, and get satisfaction out of that.
  • I found a new me. When I first came over to America, it was like, 'How can I be rich? How can I build my movie career? How can I become the most muscular man?' It was all about me, and then there was this turn, and I found it was really great to do this.
    • From Cowboys & Indians, the "magazine of the west" (September 2004).
    • Recalling a speech in which his father-in-law, creator of the Peace Corps, urged listeners to "Break that mirror in front of you -- that mirror that only lets you look at yourself."
  • Why not? With my way of thinking, you always shoot for the top.
    • On 60 Minutes, when asked whether he favors amending the U.S. Constitution to allow naturalized citizens (such as himself) to run for president. [1] (31 October 2004).
  • She maybe is Puerto Rican or the same thing as Cuban. I mean, they are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it.
    • Commenting on Bonnie Garcia during a staff meeting (8 September 2006), as quoted in The Los Angeles Times (2006).
  • Going through the pain barrier, that's what makes the muscles grow. There's this pain, this aching, and going on and on and on. That's what divides a champion from a non-champion - having the guts to go through the pain barrier.

Speech at the Republican National Convention (31 August 2004)

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"Schwarzenegger: No country more welcoming than the USA", CNN (August 31, 2004)
  • This is like winning an Oscar!… As if I would know! Speaking of acting, one of my movies was called True Lies. And that’s what the Democrats should have called their convention.
  • When I was on my way to the podium a gentleman stopped me and said I was as good a politician as I was an actor. What a cheap shot.
  • I finally arrived here in 1968 with $20 in my pocket. What a special day it was. I remember I arrived here with empty pockets but full of dreams, full of determination, full of desire. The presidential campaign was in full swing. I remember watching the Nixon-Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend of mine who spoke German and English translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which I had just left. But then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting the government off your back, lowering the taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air. I said to my friend, I said, 'What party is he?' My friend said, 'He's a Republican'. I said, 'Then I am a Republican'. And I have been a Republican ever since.
  • My fellow immigrants, my fellow Americans how do you know if you are a Republican? I’ll tell you how. If you believe that government should be accountable to the people, not the people to the government, then you are a Republican! If you believe a person should be treated as an individual, not as a member of an interest group, then you are a Republican! If you believe your family knows how to spend your money better than the government does, then you are a Republican! If you believe our educational system should be held accountable for the progress of our children, then you are a Republican! If you believe this country, not the United Nations, is the best hope of democracy in the world, then you are a Republican! If you believe that the American Dream can be reachable if you work hard enough to earn it, then you are a Republican! And, ladies and gentlemen, if you believe we must be fierce and relentless and terminate terrorism, then you are a Republican! There is another way you can tell you’re a Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people, and faith in the U.S. economy.
  • To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: ‘Don’t be economic girlie men!’
  • Anyway, my fellow Americans, this is an amazing moment for me. To think that a once-scrawny boy from Austria could grow up to become governor of the state of California and then stand here...then stand here in Madison Square Garden and speak on behalf of the president of the United States -- that is an immigrant's dream. It is the American dream.
  • My fellow Americans, I want you to know that I believe with all my heart that America remains the great idea that inspires the world. It's a privilege to be born here. It's an honor to become a citizen here. It's a gift to raise your family here, to vote here, and to live here. Our president, George W. Bush, has worked hard to protect and preserve the American dream for all of us. And that's why I say, send him back to Washington for four more years!

2010s

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  • The most important thing is that we need to be a party that is inclusive and tolerant. We can be those things and be the party we always have been. We need to think about the environment. Teddy Roosevelt was a great environmentalist and people forget Reagan was the one who dealt with the ozone layer with the Montreal protocol. We also need to talk about healthcare honestly. Nixon almost passed universal healthcare. We need to have an talk about immigration and realize you can't just deport people. We need a comprehensive answer. We also need to stay out of people's bedrooms. The party that is for small government shouldn't be over-reaching into people's private lives. Mainly, we need to be a party where people know what we are for, not just what we are against.
  • I always say don't be afraid of failure, because how far can you really fall? You found out - to the ground. It's right there. Now you know it isn't anything that should scare you. You should be proud that you weren't afraid - not embarrassed that you failed. You could have made excuses not to walk into the door, but you didn't. You knew it would be hard, and it would be uncomfortable, and it might be awkward - and you did it anyway. That's courage. I'm proud of you. The last guy I rooted for broke a world record in the deadlift. You have more in common with him than you think. First, he started out lifting just the bar, too (when you look at him, he may have been 3 months old at that point). Second, imagine his courage. He walked up to that bar in front of a big audience and television cameras, knowing that not only had he never lifted that much before - NO ONE on earth had - and it was highly likely he would completely fail. You may not think about it this way, but you showed that courage, on a smaller level. Finally, I'm rooting for you, too. You took the first step and you fell, but at least you fell in the right direction, so get back up and take the next step. Keep moving forward.
  • For the first time since I became a citizen in 1983, I will not vote for the Republican candidate for President. Like many Americans, I’ve been conflicted by this election – I still haven’t made up my mind about how exactly I will vote next month. But as proud as I am to label myself a Republican, there is one label that I hold above all else – American. So I want to take a moment today to remind my fellow Republicans that it is not only acceptable to choose your country over your party – it is your duty.
    • written Twitter statement reported 8 October 2016 article by Variety, released a day after the release of the Access Hollywood tape from 2005 of an interview of Trump by Billy Bush
  • Don't ever call me [a] self-made man, because I would not be here if I wouldn't have had parents that were dedicated and gave us the love and affection.
  • None of us can make it alone. None of us. [...] I always tell people that you can call me anything that you want. You can call me Arnold. You can call me Schwarzenegger. You can call me the Austrian oak. You can call me Schwarzy. You can call me Arnie. But don’t ever, ever call me the self‑made man. [...] The whole concept of the self‑made man or woman is a myth. Now, I know you are going to say, look, we have read so many stories about you and we saw documentaries where they talk about that you are the model of the American dream and that you’re the perfect example of the self‑made man. Well, let me tell you, I have seen, and heard, and read those stories myself. Enjoyed reading them, but the fact of the matter is, it is not the whole story. [...] And the reason why I want you to understand that is because as soon as you understand that you are here because of a lot of help, then you also understand that now is time to help others. That’s what this is all about. You got to help others. Don’t just think about yourself. Help others. [...] Make sure that it is not about me. That it is about ‘we.’ Turn the ‘me’ into ‘we,’ and I guarantee you that you can change the world.
  • I have a message to the neo-Nazis, to the white nationalists, and to the neo-Confederates: Your heroes are losers. You are supporting a lost cause. And believe me, I knew the original Nazis, because you see, I was born in Austria in 1947, shortly after the Second World War. And growing up, I was surrounded by broken men, men who came home from a war filled with shrapnel and guilt, men who were misled into a losing ideology. And I can tell you: that these ghosts you idolize spent the rest of their lives living in shame and right now, they’re resting in hell.
    • A message for Donald Trump -,ATTN video (August 2017)

2021

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2022

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I Have a Message for My Russian Friends (2022)

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Ever since I was 14 years old, I’ve had nothing but affection and respect for the people of Russia. The strength and the heart of the Russian people have always inspired me. That is why I hope that you will let me tell you the truth about the war in Ukraine.
"I Have a Message for My Russian Friends", The Atlantic (17 March 2022) - video: "Arnold Schwarzenegger tells Putin to 'stop this war'", The Telegraph (17 March 2022)
... to the Russians who have been protesting on the streets against the invasion of Ukraine: the world has seen your bravery. We know that you have suffered the consequences of your courage. You have been arrested. You have been jailed and you’ve been beaten. You are my new heroes. You have the strength of Yury Petrovich Vlasov. You have the true heart of Russia.
  • I have a message for my Russian friends, and for the Russian soldiers serving in Ukraine: there are things going on in the world that have been kept from you,terrible things that you should know about. But before I tell you about the harsh realities, let me tell you about the Russian who became my hero.
  • In 1961, when I was 14 years old, I had the chance to attend the World Weightlifting Championships in Vienna. Yury Petrovich Vlasov won the world-championship title, becoming the first human being to lift 200 kilograms over his head. Somehow, a friend of mine got me backstage. All of a sudden a 14-year-old boy was standing in front of the strongest man in the world. I couldn’t believe it. He reached out to shake my hand. I still had a boy’s hand. He had this powerful man’s hand that swallowed mine, but he was kind. And he smiled at me.
    I never forgot that day. I went home and put his photo above my bed. It inspired me when I started lifting weights, but it angered my father. He didn’t like Russians, because of his experience in the Second World War, when he was injured in Leningrad. (the Nazi army that he was part of did vicious harm to that great city and to its brave people.) My father told me to take Petrovich’s picture down, and to find a German or Austrian hero. But I did not take the photograph down, because it didn’t matter to me what flag he carried.
  • The reason I’m telling you all of this is that ever since I was 14 years old, I’ve had nothing but affection and respect for the people of Russia. The strength and the heart of the Russian people have always inspired me. That is why I hope that you will let me tell you the truth about the war in Ukraine. No one likes to hear something critical of their government. I understand that. But as a longtime friend of the Russian people, I hope that you will hear what I have to say.
  • I spoke to the American people this way last year on January 6, when a wild crowd was storming the U.S. Capitol trying to overthrow our government. There are moments that are so wrong that we have to speak up.
  • I know that your government has told you this is a war to de-Nazify Ukraine. is is not true. De-Nazify Ukraine? It is a country with a Jewish president — a Jewish president, I might add, whose father’s three brothers were all murdered by the Nazis.
    Ukraine did not start this war. Neither did nationalists or Nazis. Those in power in the Kremlin started this war; this is not the Russian people’s war.
  • Let me tell you what you should know. One hundred forty-one nations at the United Nations voted that Russia was the aggressor and called for it to remove its troops immediately. Only four countries in the entire world voted with Russia. That is a fact.
    The world has turned against Russia because of its actions in Ukraine. Whole city blocks have been flattened by Russian artillery and bombs, including a children’s hospital and a maternity hospital. Three million Ukrainian refugees, mainly women, children, and the elderly, have already fled the country, and many more now seek to get out. It is a humanitarian crisis. Russia, because of its brutality, is now isolated from the society of nations.
  • You’re also not being told the truth about the consequences of this war for Russia itself. I regret to tell you that thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed. They’ve been caught between Ukrainians fighting for their homeland and the Russian leadership fighting for conquest. Massive amounts of Russian equipment have been destroyed or abandoned. The destruction that Russian bombs are raining down upon innocent civilians has so outraged the world that the strongest global economic sanctions ever enacted have been imposed on the country. Those who don’t deserve it on both sides of the war will suffer.
  • The Russian government has lied not only to its citizens, but also to its soldiers. Some of the soldiers were told they were going to fight the Nazis. Some were told that the Ukrainian people would greet them like heroes. Some were told that they were simply going on exercises—they didn’t even know that they were going into war. And some were told that they were there to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine. None of this was true. Russian soldiers have faced fierce resistance from the Ukrainians who want to protect their families.
  • When I see babies being pulled out of ruins, I feel like I’m watching a documentary about the horrors of the Second World War, not the news of today.
  • When my father arrived in Leningrad, he was all pumped up on the lies of his government. When he left Leningrad, he was broken physically and mentally. He spent the rest of his life in pain: pain from a broken back, pain from the shrapnel that always reminded him of those terrible years, pain from the guilt that he felt.
    Russian soldiers already know much of this truth. You’ve seen it with your own eyes. I don’t want you to be broken like my father. is is not a war to defend Russia like your grandfathers and your great-grandfathers fought. is is an illegal war. Your lives, your limbs, and your futures are being sacrificed for a senseless war, condemned by the entire world.

2023

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  • I’m sorry for saying those words. I try to be relentlessly positive, but sometimes my mouth gets ahead of me. I should have communicated better.
    • 5 April 2023 tweet in response to Shane Hunter saying he "wasn't a fan" of Arnold saying "Fuck Your Freedom" as quoted by Daniel H here
      • Arnold did not actually say "fuck your freed" as alleged, he said "screw your freedom", see #2021

2024

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Attributed

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Source: Conan the Politician (November 17, 2007)
  • I take steroids because they help me an extra 5 percent. Women take the (contraception) pill. They are somewhat similar. I do it under a doctor's supervision. (1974)
  • Yes I have used them, but no, they didn't make me what I am. Anabolic steroids were helpful to me in maintaining muscle size while on a strict diet in preparation for a contest. (1977)
  • I don't worry about it, because I never took an overdosage. (1987)
  • In those days you didn't have to deal with the black market. You could go to your physician and just say, 'Listen, I want to gain some weight, and I want to take something.' Then the physician would say, 'Do it six weeks before competition, then it will be safe.' And that's what you would do. The dosage that was taken then versus taken now is not even 10 percent. It's probably 5 percent. (1992)
  • I used steroids. It was a risky thing to do, but I have no regrets. It was what I had to do to compete. The danger with steroids is overusage. I only did it before a difficult competition – for two months, but not for a period of time that could harm me. And then afterward, it was over. I would stop. I have no health problems, no kidney damage or anything like that from using them. (1996)

About

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  • That dude [Schwarzenegger] should be unloading trucks in Transylvania. That should have been the height of his success. But because he’s a great man, he had the balls to move to America, became famous for lifting weights. I lift weights. Nobody gives a shit. He lifts weights… [grunts in mock weightlifting strain] “Aah, aah, aah!” Becomes super famous. Did he rest on his laurels? No. Next challenge: “I’m gonna become an actor despite the fact that nobody can really understand me.” Against all odds, he starts making movies. [Imitates Schwarzenegger's stilted voice] “Get down! There’s a bomb. Get out of there!” Becomes one of the biggest blockbuster stars of all time. “What are you gonna do next, Arnie?” “I think I’ll marry a Kennedy.” “There’s no fucking way you can do that.” Bam! he does it. Cherry on top. I’m running for governor of a state I can’t even pronounce, and he wins the election. Why wouldn’t this guy think he couldn’t bang his maid in his own bed and get away with it? This dude has been in the zone for over four decades! Four decades… nothin’ but net. Bang a maid in my own bed? Dude, that’s a layup. Are you serious? I had a hit movie with a midget. I don’t even need a condom.
    • Bill Burr, You People Are All the Same (2012)
  • Anybody here think they could move to Austria, learn the language, become famous for working out, then be a movie star, then marry into their royalty, and hold public office? How many lifetimes would you need… I’m on my third attempt at Rosetta Stone Spanish. All right? How can I judge these guys? I can barely handle the temptations of Facebook.
    • Bill Burr, You People Are All the Same (2012)
  • Yes, his father was a Nazi; yes, he has been a consistent supporter and friend of renowned Nazi Kurt Waldheim. All right, so what if the rumors--confirmed for SPY by a businessman and longtime friend of Arnold's--that in the 1970s he enjoyed playing and giving away records of Hitler's speeches are true?
  • It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences. As the younger, more left-leaning "New Hollywood" generation swept into the industry in the late '60s and '70s, this older group of Hollywood conservatives faded away, never to be replaced. Except for a brief period in the '80s when the Reagan Presidency led to a conservative reengagement with film—with popular stars like Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger making macho, patriotic action films—conservatives appeared to abandon popular culture altogether. In the wake of this retreat, conservative failure to engage with Hollywood now appears to have been recast by today's East Coast conservative establishment into a generalized opposition toward film and popular culture itself. In the early '90s, conservative film critic Michael Medved codified this oppositional feeling toward Hollywood in his best-selling book Hollywood vs. America.
  • Arnold did not see Goyette again until fourteen years later, in 1989
    Goyette says that the coupled renewed their relationship, meeting every spring
    Goyette says the relationship continued generally no more than once a year until 1996
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