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Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian-born American bodybuilder, Golden Globe-winning actor, businessman and politician currently serving as the 38th Governor of the U.S. state of California.

Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, a small village bordering the Styrian capital Graz, and was christened Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger. His parents were the local police chief Gustav Schwarzenegger, and his wife, the former Aurelia Jadrny. They were married on October 20, 1945 / Gustav was 38, and Aurelia was a 23-year-old widow with a son named Meinhard. He grew up in a Roman Catholic family who attended Church every Sunday.

Gustav joined the Nazi party and the SA after the 1938 Anschluss. He had a preference for Meinhard, the elder of the two sons.

Schwarzenegger has reportedly disavowed Nazi views. In later life, Schwarzenegger commissioned the Simon Wiesenthal Centre to research his father's wartime record, which came up with no evidence of atrocities.

He picked up his first barbell in 1960, when his football coach took his team to a local gym. At the age of 14, Schwarzenegger chose body-building over football as a career. Schwarzenegger has responded to a question asking if he was age 13 when he started weight-lifting: "I actually started weight training when I was fifteen, but I'd been participating in sports, like soccer, for years, so I felt that although I was slim, I was well-developed, at least enough so that I could start going to the gym and start Olympic lifting." However, his official website biography claims: "At 14, he started an intensive training program with Kurt Marnul, studied psychology at 15 (to learn more about the power of mind over body) and at 17, officially started his competitive career." In 1961, Schwarzenegger met former Mr. Austria Kurt Marnul, who invited him to train at the gym in Graz.

In 1971, his brother Meinhard died in a car accident. Meinhard had been drinking, and was killed instantly, and Schwarzenegger did not attend his funeral. He was due to marry Erika Knapp, and the couple shared a three-year-old son Patrick; Schwarzenegger would pay for Patrick's education and a life in America. Gustav died the following year from a stroke.

Schwarzenegger served in the Austrian army in 1965, to fulfill the one year of service required at the time of all 18-year-old Austrian males. He won the Junior Mr. Europe contest in 1965. "The Mr. Universe title was my ticket to America — the land of opportunity, where I could become a star and get rich."[16] Schwarzenegger made his first plane trip in 1966, attending the NABBA Mr. Universe competition in London.

He would come in second in the Mr. Universe competition, not having the muscle "definition" of American winner Chester Yorton. He would win the title for the first time in 1967 (he invented new exercises to separate and define his muscle groups), becoming the youngest-ever Mr. Universe at the age of 20. He would go on to win the title an additional four times.Schwarzenegger then flew to Munich, training for four to six hours daily, attending business school and working in a health club, returning in 1968 to London to win his next Mr. Universe trophy.

Schwarzenegger moved to the United States in September 1968 at the age of 21, speaking little English. There he trained at Gold's Gym in Santa Monica, California, under the patronage of Joe Weider. From 1970 to 1974, one of Schwarzenegger's weight training partners was Ric Drasin, the bodybuilder and professional wrestler who designed the original Gold's Gym logo in 1973. Schwarzenegger also became good friends with professional wrestler "Superstar" Billy Graham. In 1970, at age 23, he captured his first Mr. Olympia title in New York, and would go on to win the title a total of seven times.

In 1969, Schwarzenegger met Barbara Outland Baker, an English teacher he lived with until 1974. Schwarzenegger talked about Barbara in his memoir in 1977: "Basically it came down to this: she was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man, and hated the very idea of ordinary life."

Schwarzenegger met his next love, Sue Moray, a Beverly Hills hairdresser assistant, on Venice Beach in July 1977. According to Moray, the couple led an "open relationship":

Schwarzenegger met Maria Shriver at the Robert F. Kennedy Tennis Tournament in August 1977, and went on to have a relationship with both women until August 1978, when Moray (who knew of his relationship with Shriver) issued an ultimatum.

Schwarzenegger may have been an illegal immigrant at some point in the late 1960s or early 1970s, due to violating the terms of his visa.

He has admitted to using performance-enhancing anabolic steroids while they were legal, writing in 1977 that "steroids were helpful to me in maintaining muscle size while on a strict diet in preparation for a contest. I did not use them for muscle growth, but rather for muscle maintenance when cutting up." Schwarzenegger has called the drugs "tissue building." It has been alleged that Schwarzenegger won his first of seven Mr. Olympia titles in 1970 using just 3 Dianabol(Methandrostenolone) per day. As late as 1996, a year before open heart surgery to replace an aortic valve with a human homograft valve, Schwarzenegger publicly defended his use of anabolic steroids during his bodybuilding career.
Schwarzenegger was born with a bicuspid aortic valve, an aortic valve with only two leaflets (a normal aorta has three leaflets), both his father and his brother had the same condition.

In 1970, Arnold Schwarzenegger was known as the World's Strongest Man. He had long wanted to move from bodybuilding into acting, as many of his idols had done, such as Reg Park. Initially, he had trouble breaking into films due to his long surname, "overly" large muscles, and foreign accent, but he was nevertheless chosen to play the role of Hercules (as both Reg Park and Steve Reeves had done) in Hercules in New York. Credited under the name "Arnold Strong," his accent in the film was so thick that producers feared he would not be easily understood by audiences, so they had his lines dubbed after production. His second film appearance was as a deaf and mute hit-man for the mob in director Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye.

Schwarzenegger has been a registered Republican for many years.

In 1985, Schwarzenegger appeared in Stop the Madness, an anti-drug music video sponsored by the Reagan administration. He first came to wide public notice as a Republican during the 1988 Presidential election, accompanying then-Vice President George H.W. Bush at a campaign rally. Attacking Bush's Democratic opponents, he said to the crowd, "They all look like a bunch of girlie men, right?"

Schwarzenegger's first political appointment was as chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, on which he served from 1990 to 1993. Between 1993 and 1994, Schwarzenegger was a Red Cross "ambassador" (a mostly ceremonial role fulfilled by celebrities), recording several television/radio PSAs to give blood. A small amount of interest was garnered by his wearing of a white t-shirt with the Red Cross on it, while posing with a flexed arm; the image made it into several celebrity magazines.

Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy in the 2003 California recall election for Governor of California on the August 6, 2003 episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

As a candidate in the recall election, Schwarzenegger had the most name recognition in a crowded field of candidates, but he had never held public office and his political views were unknown to most Californians. His candidacy was immediate national and international news, with media outlets dubbing him the "Governator" (referring to The Terminator movies, see above) and "The Running Man" (the name of another of his movies), and calling the recall election "Total Recall" (yet another Schwarzenegger starrer) and "Terminator 4: Rise of the Candidate" (referring to his movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). Schwarzenegger declined to participate in several debates with other recall replacement candidates, and appeared in only one debate on September 24, 2003.
On October 7, 2003, the recall election resulted in Governor Gray Davis being removed from office with 55.4% of the Yes vote in favor of a recall. Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California under the second question on the ballot with 48.6% of the vote to choose a successor to Davis.

Schwarzenegger is a dual Austria/United States citizen. Schwarzenegger does not accept his governor's salary of $175,000 per year. Instead, he donates it to charities. Schwarzenegger's endorsement in the Republican Primary of 2008 U.S. Presidential Election was highly sought, but Schwarzenegger remained neutral throughout 2007 and 2008 despite being good friends with candidates Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain. On January 30, 2008, Guiliani dropped out of the Presidential race because of a poor showing in Florida and endorsed McCain. Later that night, Schwarzenegger was in the audience at a Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA. On January 31, 2008, Schwarzenegger endorsed Sen. McCain saying, "It's Rudy's fault!" citing his friendships with both candidates and that he could not make up his mind. Gov. Schwarzenegger's endorsement is thought to be a big boost for Senator McCain's campaign. Both cited their environmental concerns and their concerns for the economy.

He earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Superior, where he graduated Business and International Economics in 1979.

On April 26, 1986, Schwarzenegger married television journalist Maria Shriver, niece of the past President of the United States John F. Kennedy in Hyannis, Massachusetts. The Rev. John Baptist Riordan performed the ceremony at St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church.

The couple have four children:

* Katherine Eunice Schwarzenegger, born December 13, 1989
* Christina Maria Aurelia Schwarzenegger, born July 23, 1991
* Patrick Arnold Schwarzenegger, born September 18, 1993
* Christopher Sargent Shriver Schwarzenegger born September 27, 1997


Schwarzenegger and his family currently live in their 11,000-square-foot home in Brentwood. They used to own a home in the Pacific Palisades. On Sundays, the family attends Mass at St. Monica's Catholic Church. Schwarzenegger has said he believes the secret of a good marriage is love and respect.

Schwarzenegger broke his right femur while skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho with his family on December 23, 2006. Schwarzenegger has twice crashed motorcycles on public highways, injuring himself in the process. Previously, on December 9, 2001, he broke six ribs and was hospitalized for four days after a motorcycle crash in Los Angeles.

Following his move to the United States, Schwarzenegger became a "prolific goal setter" and would write his objectives at the start of the year on index cards, like starting a mail order business or buying a new car — and succeed in doing so. By the age of 30, Schwarzenegger was a millionaire, well before his career in Hollywood. His financial independence came from a series of successful business ventures and investments. In 1968, Schwarzenegger and fellow bodybuilder Franco Columbu started a bricklaying business.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was a founding "celebrity investor" in the Planet Hollywood chain of international theme restaurants (modeled after the Hard Rock Cafe) along with Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Demi Moore. Schwarzenegger severed his financial ties with the business in early 2000. Schwarzenegger said the company had not had the success he had hoped for, claiming he wanted to focus his attention on "new US global business ventures" and his movie career.

Schwarzenegger's net worth has been conservatively estimated at USD $100 – $200 million. Over the years, he invested his bodybuilding and movie earnings in an array of stocks, bonds, privately controlled companies and real estate holdings in the US and worldwide, so his fortune is sometimes estimated anywhere in between USD $800 – $900 million. In June 1997 Schwarzenegger spent $38 million of his own money on a private Gulfstream Jet. Schwarzenegger once said of his fortune, "Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million, but I was just as happy when I had $48 million." "I've made millions as a businessman many times over."