Women Say Schwarzenegger Groped, Humiliated Them
The acts allegedly took place over three decades. A campaign aide denies
the accusations.
By Gary Cohn, Carla Hall and Robert W. Welkos
Times Staff Writers
October 2, 2003
Six women who came into contact with Arnold Schwarzenegger on movie sets, in studio offices and in other settings over the last three decades say he touched them in a sexual manner without their consent.
In interviews with The Times, three of the women described their surprise and discomfort when Schwarzenegger grabbed their breasts. A fourth said he reached under her skirt and gripped her buttocks.
A fifth woman said Schwarzenegger groped her and tried to remove her bathing suit in a hotel elevator. A sixth said Schwarzenegger pulled her onto his lap and asked whether a certain sexual act had ever been performed on her.
According to the women's accounts, one of the incidents occurred in the 1970s, two in the 1980s, two in the 1990s and one in 2000.
"Did he rape me? No," said one woman, who described a 1980 encounter in which she said Schwarzenegger touched her breast. "Did he humiliate me? You bet he did."
Four of the six women told their stories on condition that they not be named. Three work in Hollywood and said they were worried that, if they were identified, their careers would be in jeopardy for speaking out against Schwarzenegger, the onetime bodybuilding champion and box-office star who is now the front-runner in the Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election.
The other unnamed woman said she feared public ridicule and possible damage to her husband's business.
In the four cases in which the women would not let their names be published, friends or relatives said that the women had told them about the incidents long before Schwarzenegger's run for governor.
None of the six women who gave their accounts to The Times filed any legal action against him.
Schwarzenegger's campaign spokesman, Sean Walsh, said the candidate has not engaged in improper conduct toward women. He said such allegations are part of an escalating political attack on Schwarzenegger as the recall election approaches.
"We believe Democrats and others are using this to try to hurt Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign," Walsh said. "We believe that this is coming so close before the election, something that discourages good, hard-working, decent people from running for office."
Walsh said Schwarzenegger himself would have no comment.
The Times did not learn of any of the six women from Schwarzenegger's rivals in the recall race. And none of the women approached the newspaper on her own. Reporters contacted them in the course of a seven-week examination of Schwarzenegger's behavior toward women on and off the movie set.
Schwarzenegger's attitudes about women have been an issue on the campaign trail, where critics have accused him of being misogynistic, based on past statements he has made to various publications. In response, Schwarzenegger has said he respects women and that many of his comments were made in jest or simply meant to be provocative.
Schwarzenegger's conduct toward women also has been widely discussed in Hollywood over the years, notably after a March 2001 article in Premiere magazine called "Arnold the Barbarian." After the article appeared, a number of Schwarzenegger's colleagues wrote to the magazine saying that the story was inaccurate and that Schwarzenegger treated women with respect and kindness.
The earliest incident of the six described to The Times was said to have occurred in 1975 at Gold's Gym near Venice Beach. E. Laine Stockton, then newly married to professional bodybuilder Robby Robinson, said she had gone to the gym to watch her husband work out.
Stockton was 19 at the time. She said she was wearing slacks, tennis shoes and a loose-fitting T-shirt. She said she was not wearing a bra.
As she sat on an exercise bench, Stockton said, Schwarzenegger walked up behind her, reached under her T-shirt and touched her bare left breast.
"The gym is full of bodybuilders and Arnold comes and he gropes my breast — actually touches my breast with his left hand," she said.
She said Schwarzenegger then walked away without saying a word.
Stockton said she does not rule out that Schwarzenegger "may have meant it in playfulness." But she did not take it that way.
"I was just shocked, shocked to the point where I almost didn't know how to react, because it was so out of the blue and so unexpected," she said. "It just completely caught me off guard, and when I finally came to my senses, I immediately went over to Robby and I said, 'Look, Arnold just groped my breast.' "
Robinson, a former Mr. America, Mr. World and Mr. Universe, said he "tried to comfort her."
Robinson has since had a falling out with Schwarzenegger. An African American known as the "Black Prince" during his years on the professional bodybuilding circuit, Robinson has accused Schwarzenegger of racism — a charge that Schwarzenegger's campaign denies.
Robinson said he was upset by what Schwarzenegger had done to his wife, but did not confront him. "What he did was uncalled for, but I couldn't say nothing," Robinson said, explaining that he feared he'd be ostracized by the bodybuilding world.
He said he told his wife to stay out of Gold's Gym.
Robinson and Stockton are now divorced. They were interviewed separately by The Times.
Incident on Street
Another incident described to The Times was said to have occurred in 1980. A former pro beach volleyball player said Schwarzenegger touched her breast on a Santa Monica street.
The woman remembered walking down 19th Street, just off Wilshire Boulevard, when Schwarzenegger spotted her from his car.
"Come here," she recalled Schwarzenegger saying, as he motioned with his finger to the woman, then 22.
The two knew each other. She worked as a waitress at Fromin's deli, she said, a place Schwarzenegger frequented. On an earlier occasion, she recalled, Schwarzenegger had asked her when she was going on break. "We could have a lot of fun in half an hour," she remembered him saying. She said she was both a little scared and a little flattered. "I can't say I wasn't flattered. Arnold invited me to his apartment." She said she declined his invitation.
Schwarzenegger later renewed his invitation, she said, when he spotted her playing in a women's volleyball tournament at Venice Beach. "After the game, he came up to me and said, 'Now you will come to my apartment.' He didn't want to hear no." The woman said she told him, "It's not going to happen."
Now, she said, as she walked along 19th Street, Schwarzenegger conveyed a sense of urgency: "Come close, it's very important." As she drew nearer to his car to hear what he had to say, she recounted, Schwarzenegger "grabbed and squeezed" her left breast.
"If I was a man," she said she told him, "I would bust your jaw."
As tears welled in her eyes, she said, Schwarzenegger laughed. "He thought it was hilarious."
She said she went to her car and "just started crying and crying."
The woman said she told her sister about the encounter, a claim the sister confirmed. She recalled that her sibling was "completely offended."
One of the women in the 2001 Premiere article was British television host Anna Richardson, who accused Schwarzenegger of touching her breast. In an interview with The Times, she reiterated that account.
Richardson said she was interviewing the actor in December 2000 as part of his promotional tour for the movie "The Sixth Day." The interview, to be aired on her TV show "Big Screen," took place in a suite at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
Richardson said she had interviewed Schwarzenegger on previous occasions and that he had been a "perfect gentleman."
"This time around was quite different," she recalled. "He kept looking at my breasts, kept asking if I worked out," she said. "I went to shake his hand and he grabbed me onto his knee and he said, 'Before you go, I want to know if your breasts are real.' "
Richardson, then 29, said she replied that her breasts were real. She said she looked around for help from other people in the room, but nobody came to her assistance. "At that point, he circled my left nipple with his finger and he said, 'Yes, they are real.' " She said he then let her go.
The Schwarzenegger campaign provided a different account.
Sheryl Main, a Hollywood publicist who has worked with Schwarzenegger on many films and accompanied him on his worldwide travels since 1995, said she was present at the interview with Richardson. Main said it was Richardson who provocatively approached Schwarzenegger. She said that after finishing the brief interview, Richardson rose, cupped her right breast in her right hand and said, "What do you think of these?" She then sat on his lap and was immediately escorted from the room, Main said.
She contends that Richardson later concocted her story.
Secretary's Story
A movie studio secretary said Schwarzenegger grabbed her buttocks in the late 1980s.
She said the episode occurred on the Columbia Pictures lot, where she worked. She said she often accompanied her boss, who was also a woman, on visits around the lot. One day the boss asked if she would like to meet Schwarzenegger, who was in a production office.
"It was like, 'Oh, come with me, you can meet him,' " the secretary said.
When they reached the office, she said, Schwarzenegger was seated on a couch. The secretary, then in her 30s, said she sat on a couch opposite Schwarzenegger while the actor and her supervisor talked. When the conversation ended, the secretary said she approached Schwarzenegger to shake his hand and say goodbye.
He remained seated, she said, and he slipped his left hand under her skirt and grabbed her right buttock.
"He just held on. He held on and said, 'You have a very nice ass.' He said, 'I'd love to work you out.' "
"I remember thinking his hand was cold on my butt," she said.
The door was open and the secretary said she remembers seeing a couple of people outside look in — and then quickly look away.
"All I was really thinking was, 'I'd like to go.' I was trying to figure out how to get his hand off my butt and his arm away from me without making a big deal of it. I remember thinking, 'Geez, that's a strong arm.' ... I was just thinking, 'Let me get out of here.' "
She said she looked at the ceiling and looked at her boss, who kept repeating, "We've got to go now. We've got to go now,' and yanking my arm. My boss did the best she could to get me away."
The secretary said Schwarzenegger released her after about 20 seconds.
Later, as they left the production office, the secretary said her flustered supervisor remarked, "Oh, my gosh! I had no idea he would do that." The secretary said she replied: "Oh, well, no big deal."
"I was sort of embarrassed in front of her. It just felt strange."
A day or two later, Schwarzenegger called her boss' office, and the secretary said she answered the phone. "He figured out it was me and he said, 'Oh, you still haven't come to work out with me.' " She said she did not respond and simply put her boss on the line.
Six or seven years later, the secretary recalled, she walked past Schwarzenegger on a studio lot. "No recognition. No looking," she said.
Now 47, she has been in and out of the entertainment business. After a long period of unemployment, she said she now has another secretarial job at a movie studio and does not want to risk losing it by being publicly identified. She also declined to provide the name of her boss on the Columbia lot.
She has, however, recounted the story numerous times through the years — initially as a warning to other women with whom she worked. Yet the secretary said most women she knows in and around the entertainment business were untroubled by the incident.
"I was like, 'He's disgusting, he's revolting.' They said, 'No, he's hot.' The attitude of women was more upsetting than he was."
She also told the story to a friend, Michael Collins, a freelance writer and a director of the Los Angeles Press Club. In an interview with The Times, Collins said that she recounted the episode to him eight months ago — well before the recall race. "She never thought he might run for governor," he said.
'This Is Disgusting'
In late 1990, Schwarzenegger was in the San Bernardino County town of Fontana, shooting "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." According to a female crew member, Schwarzenegger harassed her on several occasions.
She recalled encountering the actor in an elevator as she headed downstairs to the pool of the hotel where the cast and crew were staying. On each occasion, she said, she was wearing a terrycloth robe over a black, one-piece Speedo swimsuit.
"At least three times — if not more — he would end up in the elevator with me, groping me and trying to take my robe off," said the crew member, now 41 and still working in the movie industry.
"He would pin me against the corner in the elevator" and try to take off her robe and pull down the straps of her suit, she said.
The incidents did not last long, she said, because the elevator ride was short.
The woman said her response to Schwarzenegger's actions evolved with each incident. "The first time, you're like, "Oh, my God! I was groped by Arnold Schwarzenegger!' The second time you're like, 'This is disgusting.' The third time you're like, 'Get the ... away from me.' "
She said she told her boss, who advised her, "Just stay away from him."'
After that, the woman said, she would check the hotel hallway before entering the elevator. She said if Schwarzenegger got into the pool, she would get out.
"What could you do? He was the highest-paid actor in the world. I was a peon," she said. "The only thing you could do is stay away from him."
The crew member said she told her husband about the elevator confrontations in 1992 or 1993. "I heard this story a long time ago," her husband confirmed.
The couple spoke with The Times only after repeated assurances that their names would be kept confidential. "I'm a professional in the film business," she said. "I fear retribution."
Another woman, now a wife and mother in her 30s, said she also fell in Schwarzenegger's "sight lines" while working as a crew member on "Terminator 2" in Fontana.
She said Schwarzenegger was sitting in a director's chair, surrounded by three or four other men, waiting for filming to start. It was either late afternoon or early evening, she said.
"I was walking on the set and Arnold called out, 'Come here, you sexy devil,' and reached out and pulled me on to his lap," the woman recalled.
She said he then whispered in her ear: "Have you ever had a man slide his tongue in your [anus]?"
"I didn't know how to react," the woman said. "It was bizarre. What he said was so specifically sexual, it was bizarre.
"I remember looking around and seeing this bank of smiling faces and feeling alone," she continued. The men standing at Schwarzenegger's side, she said, "were in total support mode — of him, not me. It was kind of like everything he did was OK, and isn't it funny and isn't it swell? It was like they were proud of him .... Nobody said, 'What are you doing? Leave her alone.' "
After the incident, she said, she continued on her way. "I didn't fall apart," she said, but added: "It's embarrassing and degrading when you're doing a job."
She did not report the incident, she said, because she was a low-level crew member. "You're in an environment where you just go with the flow." The attitude on the set was: "Isn't it flattering that Arnold is paying attention to you?"
The woman said she recounted the incident at the time to a family member. In an interview with The Times, the family member confirmed being told about the encounter and said, "Arnold thought it was kind of fun to toy with her. It embarrassed her."
The woman said she wished she "wasn't so spineless," but feared that she would be shunned in Hollywood if quoted by name.
"There's an unspoken rule in the industry," she said. "What happens on the set stays on the set."
Nancy Tafoya, who was also on the set of "Terminator 2," recalled her own encounter with Schwarzenegger. Tafoya — who was serving as a legal guardian for 13-year-old actor Eddie Furlong, her nephew and one of the film's key characters — said she was talking with a group of people when Schwarzenegger came up behind her and yanked her long, black hair.
Her head snapped back, she said. Although she was not injured, Tafoya said she was "shocked." The people around her, she said, started laughing.
Tafoya said she was never touched in a sexual manner by Schwarzenegger, but she saw him push his body against a female crew member.
Tafoya said she was about 15 feet from Schwarzenegger when he approached a woman wearing jeans, a shirt and tennis shoes.
She said Schwarzenegger walked across the room and faced the woman. "Then he grabbed both sides of her knees and pushed them apart and started moving his pelvis into her," Tafoya said. "It lasted about 10 seconds." She said the woman laughed nervously, and Schwarzenegger walked away.
"I thought that was incredibly offensive, and I didn't know who I was more annoyed with — him or her," said Tafoya, a social worker. "But when I looked at her, I thought the woman didn't have much choice, because it happened so quick."
Walsh, the Schwarzenegger spokesman, said that the campaign was talking to senior crew members on the "Terminator 2" set to investigate the various incidents cited by The Times.
"We talked to members of the production crew who were in a supervisory role and they said they were not aware" of the alleged improprieties, Walsh said.
Permissive Atmosphere
Some of the dozens of people interviewed for this article stressed that the culture on movie sets tends to be rowdy and permissive. Often, the tone is set by the star, they said.
In Schwarzenegger's case, they said, his sense of humor and language is often outrageous — but not mean-spirited. Many of his colleagues find him to be charming.
"He's fun, extremely intelligent and very professional," said stuntwoman Simone Boisseree, who worked with Schwarzenegger on four films. "I like him as a human being and think he's a decent guy."
Another stuntwoman, Chere Rae Bryson, came away with a different impression after working with Schwarzenegger on the 1990 movie "Total Recall." She said he often used vulgar words for vagina and clitoris during her contact with him during the filming.
"He was crude, boisterous and disparaging around women," she said. "In the makeup room, his language was so bad I turned around and walked out."
Bryson said Schwarzenegger seemed to have toned down his behavior when she worked with him on a second movie, "Collateral Damage," released in 2002.
"People do change as we get older," said Bryson, who was also an actress and Playboy bunny. "All of us, at one time or another, have displayed behavior that I'm sure we're not proud of. Hopefully, he's evolved from that."
Bryson said Schwarzenegger was also on his best behavior whenever his wife, Maria Shriver, was present. The couple were married in 1986. "When Maria was around, he was a gentleman," Bryson said. "When she wasn't around, he was the opposite."
One woman who says she was deeply offended by Schwarzenegger's words was a waitress at the now-defunct Bicycle Shop cafe on Wilshire Boulevard in West Los Angeles, where the actor used to hang out with about half a dozen friends on Sunday mornings in the late 1980s.
"They always sat in my section," she said. The group was friendly and chatty with her, she said, and took their lead from Schwarzenegger. They tipped well, too. "There was definitely harmless flirtation with all of them," said the woman, who also worked sporadically as a TV actress.
One Sunday, she said, she was pouring coffee at the table when Schwarzenegger beckoned her to his side.
"I bent down to listen to him," she recalled. "He said, a little louder than a whisper, 'I want you to do a favor for me.' I thought, OK, maybe he wanted more bread. And he said, 'I want you to go in the bathroom, stick your finger in your [vagina], and bring it out to me.' "
She stood upright. "I was thoroughly disgusted" but said nothing to Schwarzenegger, she recalled. "There was drama in the silence of it," she said. "He looked up, and it looked like I was threatening [him] with the coffee pot."
Everyone at the table then glanced over at the restaurant owner, Andre Driollet. He wagged his finger at the waitress, she said, apparently fearful that she was going to dump the coffee on Schwarzenegger.
"I was so appalled, and when Andre looked at me [as if] to say you better not, I immediately went to him to tell him what happened," she recounted. What Schwarzenegger had said "was above and beyond what was acceptable. I think he should have had hot coffee poured in his lap."
Driollet, who according to a relative is living on a boat in the Caribbean, could not be reached. In an interview with The Times, a friend of the waitress said she told him of the incident long ago.
The waitress said she told Schwarzenegger at the time: "If you're ever some place and some woman throws hot coffee on your head, it will be me." He laughed, she said.
"He thought it was the funniest thing. And then the whole table laughed because, if Arnold laughed, the whole table laughed."
Times researcher John L. Jackson contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/recall/la-me-women2oct02,1,2313555.story?coll=la-home-headlines
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Schwarzenegger: 'I have behaved badly sometimes'
Offers apology to women
SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) --Recall campaign front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger -- following newly published allegations of sexual impropriety -- said Thursday that "wherever there is smoke, there is fire" and that he "behaved badly sometimes" on rowdy movie sets in the past.
"As you know, this morning, they have begun with the tearing down," he said about his political rivals in the campaign to oust Gov. Gray Davis.
"But I know that the people of California can see through this trash politics."
Schwarzenegger's comments followed a Los Angeles Times story published Thursday, five days before the October 7 gubernatorial recall election.
The newspaper said it had interviewed six women who said the actor made unwelcome advances to them in six separate incidents dating from the 1970s to as recently as 2000. Some of the advances -- which allegedly included groping of their buttocks and breasts -- occurred on movie sets, it said.
He said much of what was in the article was "not true," but added, "Wherever there is smoke, there is fire. That's true.
"What I want to say to you is that, yes, I have behaved badly sometimes. Yes it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right that I thought were playful," Schwarzenegger said at a San Diego rally kicking off a four-day bus tour.
"I now recognize that I have offended people and to those people that I offended, I want to say that I am deeply sorry and I apologize."
In the speech, Schwarzenegger vowed to be a "champion of women" if he is elected governor of California.
Pete Ragone, a spokesman for Davis, said it would be up to voters to decide if the accusations were relevant to the campaign.
"The bottom line is that voters need to decide what significance they attach to these stories," Ragone said. Asked if the Davis campaign would use the accusations in its campaign or run ads about Schwarzenegger's character, Ragone responded, "No, what we're talking about here is qualification and who is qualified to lead the state of California."
Earlier, Schwarzenegger spokesman Sean Walsh denied that the actor engaged in improper conduct toward women, and said the claims were an attempt by political enemies to derail his campaign for governor.
This "is a desperate attempt by Democrats so close to the election," the campaign said.
But Ragone said Davis' campaign "at no time referred any women to any media organizations on stories of this nature."
He pointed out that the paper itself acknowledged as much. "None of the women approached the Times on her own, and none was identified by Schwarzenegger's rivals in the recall race," the article said.
Four of the six women would not identify themselves; three work in Hollywood and said they were concerned that doing so could hurt their careers, the paper said.
The fourth woman said she feared that going public could hurt her husband's business and leave her open to ridicule, the paper said.
But in all four cases, friends or relatives said the women had told them about the alleged incidents long before the actor got into politics, the paper added.
The newspaper said it found the women during a seven-week investigation
into the claims.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/02/recall.schwarzenegger/index.html
Arnold the Barbarian: Sex, Pecs and Video Tape
Premiere Magazine , March 2001
By John Connolly
Once, he was a box office terminator. But now that Arnold Schwarzenegger has
lost some of his muscle in Hollywood, stories of his boorish behavior can no
longer be routinely erased. Then again, he'd make a helluva politician.
The tabloid press got a nice Christmas present late last year when Arnold
Schwarzenegger tore through a day of publicity work in London, promoting his
latest film, The 6th Day, which had just opened there. In less than 24 hours,
the star was said to have attempted to, as high school boys used to say, cop
a
little feel from three different female talk-show hosts. The level of
consternation expressed by those who received this hands-on treatment from
the
hulking, Austrian-born international superstar ranged from none whatsoever
(Denise Van Outen of The Big Breakfast invites her guests to lie on a bed with
her and, hence, probably has a rather elastic definition of what constitutes
inappropriate behavior) to irked (on tape, Celebrity interviewer Melanie Sykes
looks a little thrown off after Arnold gives her a very definite squeeze on
the
rib cage, directly under her right breast) to, finally, righteously indignant.
Anna Richardson of Big Screen claims that after the cameras stopped rolling
for
her interview segment, Schwarzenegger, apparently attempting to ascertain
whether Richardson’s breasts were real, tweaked her nipple and then laughed
at her objections. “I left the room quite shaken,” she says. “What was
more upsetting was that his people rushed to protect him and scapegoated me,
and not one person came to apologize afterward.”
No apologies, indeed: A subsequent statement from Schwarzenegger attorney
Martin Singer characterized Richardson as someone trying to get her “15
minutes of fame.” After all, why else would she create such an “outrageous
fabrication” (Singer’s phrase) against a married man—Schwarzenegger has
been wed to NBC’s Maria Shriver since 1986—a father of four, someone who
ceaselessly espouses family values in the press? On the other hand, the stills
of Schwarzenegger grinning as he pats Van Outen’s hip or of his
give-me-some-sugar-baby expression as he tries to draw Sykes close to him are
a
little unsettling. Was Arnold jet-lagged? Going through a midlife crisis?
“You don’t get it,” says a producer who’s
worked with Schwarzenegger.
“
That’s the way Arnold always behaves. For some reason, [this time] the
studio or the publicists couldn’t put enough pressure on the women to kill
the story.”
Terminating bad press was once relatively easy for Schwarzenegger, who for
much
of the ’80s and a good part of the ’90s was a veritable money-making
machine for the studios. And while some of his most recent films have enjoyed
less-than-stellar box office performances, he is still a very huge star and
one
of the highest-paid actors in the world: He reportedly received $25 million
for
his work in the 1999 disappointment End of Days. Accordingly, Schwarzenegger
films are always big-budget affairs; as such, they provide lots of jobs to
lots
of people and generate lots of money to lots of studio suits and other
peripheral players. Arnold is not just a rich movie star; he’s the straw that
stirs the drinks. The sort of person, in other words, who tends to get
indulged. A lot.
“The second I walked into the room,” Anna
Richardson says, several weeks
after the incident, “he was like a dog in heat.” Other stories about
Schwarzenegger tend to fit her simile. During the production of the 1991
mega-blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a producer on that film recalls
Arnold’s emerging from his trailer one day and noticing a fortyish female
crew member, who was wearing a silk blouse. Arnold went up to the woman, put
his hands inside her blouse, and proceeded to pull her breasts out of her bra.
Another observer says, “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This
woman’s nipples were exposed, and here’s Arnold and a few of his clones
laughing. I went after the woman, who had run to the shelter of a nearby
trailer. She was hysterical but refused to press charges for fear of losing
her
job. It was disgusting.”
A former Schwarzenegger employee recalls another incident from the T2 days.
At
the time, director James Cameron was married but having an affair with one
of
the film’s stars, Linda Hamilton. One evening, while riding in a limo with
Cameron, Hamilton, and others, Schwarzenegger suddenly lifted Hamilton onto
his
lap and began fondling her breasts through the very thin top she was wearing.
The witness says, “I couldn’t believe Cameron didn’t have the balls to
tell Arnold to get off his girl. The whole thing made me sick.”
A female
producer on one of Schwarzenegger’s films tells of a
time when her
ex-husband came to visit the set. When she introduced the man to
Schwarzenegger, the star quipped, “Is this guy the reason why you didn’t
come up to my hotel room last night and suck my cock?”
A woman who
went to the set of 1996’s Eraser recalls the friend
she was
visiting there being asked to retrieve Schwarzenegger from his trailer for
a
shot that was ready to roll earlier than expected. “He asked me if I wanted
to meet Arnold, and I said sure. When we opened the door to his trailer, Arnold
was giving oral sex to a woman. He looked up and, with that accent, said very
slowly, ‘Eating is not cheating.’ I met him again about a year later and
asked him, in German, whether or not eating was cheating, and he just
laughed.”
It’s clearly
convenient for a guy who preaches family values in interviews—
particularly when he’s promoting the Inner-City Games Foundation, his youth
charity, and citing single parenting as a major social woe—to have some loose
parameters as to what constitutes cheating on one’s wife. (It depends on
what
your definition of define is.) By some accounts, Maria Shriver has not had
it
all that easy. Two people witnessed an incident at a 7 a.m. tennis game that
Mr. and Mrs. Schwarzenegger were playing at their hotel, during the shooting
of
Total Recall. One of the witnesses says, “Maria started throwing up. She
couldn’t play, and Arnold started berating her and then stomped off the
court. At noon that day, the smiling couple announced that Maria was
pregnant.” Schwarzenegger was also seen carrying on with his Total Recall
costar Rachel Ticotin. A journalist who once accompanied the (then) married
Ticotin and Schwarzenegger on an evening out says, “The three of us had gone
to dinner, where the two of them were all lovey-dovey. We then went to a
nightclub, but I left to go back to the Hotel Nikko México soon thereafter.
When I left them, they were making out and were all over each other on a
banquette. The next day, I saw Arnold and Maria strolling out of the elevator.
Maria gave me the look a married woman does when she knows that you know her
husband is cheating on her. I felt terrible for her.”
A lot of
people must feel the same. A lawyer who frequents Café Roma,
a
Beverly Hills bistro that is a hangout for real and wannabe wiseguys, says,
“ When ever I see Schwarzenegger and his crew [walk into the place], I leave
quickly and go to another restaurant. This guy is a real pig. He will say the
most disgusting sexual things to women he doesn’t know. Everybody knows he
is
Arnold Schwarzenegger. . . . But in any other city, somebody would have cracked
him by now.” In Hollywood, though, nobody cracks a billion-dollar box office
gorilla.
Schwarzenegger’s
extraordinary rise to international stardom can be traced
back to the release of the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron, directed by George
Butler and Robert Fiore. The film, an extension of the book of the same title,
about the world of bodybuilding competitions, portrays Schwarzenegger in a
fascinating light; the practically Machiavellian way he psychs out contest
opponent Lou Ferrigno (the muscleman who later went on to portray the
Incredible Hulk on television) is something to behold. (As is a prior film
of
Schwarzenegger’s, 1970’s Hercules in New York, a no-budget Z-picture that
paired the muscleman, appearing in the title role under the stage name Arnold
Strong, with archetypal nebbish Arnold Stang.)
It wasn’t until 1982’s
Conan the Barbarian that Arnold demonstrated his box
office drawing power. Conan producer Edward R. Pressman says, “We signed
Arnold to a three-picture deal, which called for him to be paid $250,000 for
the first film and the same for each sequel. The movie turned into a monster
hit, and we sold our sequel rights. I’m sure Arnold was able to renegotiate
his salary for the sequels.” Within just a few short years, he was on his way
to becoming one of the highest-paid movie stars in history. Because he has
achieved such an enormous level of respectability and credibility, it’s easy
to forget that early in his Hollywood career, he was seen by many as a walking
cartoon, if not an out-and-out joke. (He might have experienced an unpleasant
frisson while costarring in a 1980 TV-movie biopic of Jayne Mansfield, playing
Mickey Hartigay, Mansfield’s bodybuilder-turned-actor husband, who spent the
latter portion of his acting career in such ultra-shlocky Italian horror pics
as The Bloody Pit of Horror.) As do most megastars, Schwarzenegger has a
retinue of agents, managers, advisors, and hangers-on (to whom he has often
demonstrated great loyalty; his former agent Lou Pitt recalls that über-agent
Mike Ovitz “tried to steal my client Arnold from me any number of times—he
was all over Arnold like a cheap suit!” but that Arnold brushed Ovitz aside,
staying with Pitt for almost 15 years). Still, he has largely made his own
decisions. He has always done it, as the song says, his way. Which is entirely
in keeping with his self-image.
“I was born to be a leader. I love being a leader,” he told Britain’s
Loaded magazine two years ago. He’s not the only person impressed with his
alpha-male mien. “He has a completely single-minded style. It is his agenda
or no agenda,” says a longtime associate of Schwarzenegger’s. A producer
who worked with Arnold on True Lies says, “Arnold is incredible. At one of
the marketing meetings, Arnold got up and spoke and not only knew the direction
we should take in marketing the film, but was so full of confidence, he
inspired everyone in the room.” But confidence can cut a lot of different
ways, and Schwarzenegger’s can manifest itself cruelly. During the filming
of
Terminator 2, Schwarzenegger had a dresser who, it was generally conceded,
had
not been hired for his looks. Often, in front of the whole crew, Arnold would
order the man, “Sit, you ugly dog,” and the man would drop to his knees
like a trained dog. Crew members would laugh, perhaps nervously, but no one
spoke up in protest. The man was finally put out of his misery when a producer
witnessed the spectacle—and fired the man rather than allow him to continue
to be abused by Schwarzenegger.
“I love the fact that millions of people look up to me,” Schwarzenegger
told Loaded. One reason people continue to look up to him is because he—and
the people around him—have been so successful at hiding the real Arnold from
the world. The star cleaned house several years ago, not only letting go of
Lou
Pitt but also longtime publicist Charlotte Parker, who, for years, had
reputedly been a veritable bull when it came to protecting her client. In 1990,
Team Schwarzenegger attempted to derail the publication of an unauthorized
biography of Schwarzenegger by Wendy Leigh. At the time, Leigh was engaged
in a
lawsuit with Schwarzenegger over her contribution to a piece about the star
in
Britain’s News of the World; she was offered a settlement on the condition
that, among other things, she not publish the book. She didn’t accept that
condition; the suit was settled some time later. Charles Fleming reported in
Spy magazine that before Leigh’s book was published, Franco Columbu, a
longtime bodybuilding associate of Schwarzenegger’s, offered Leigh’s
publisher, Contemporary Books, the choice of either a large amount of money
or
an “authorized” bio, written with Arnold, if it would agree to cancel
Leigh’s book. Contemporary Books refused. Once Arnold: An Unauthorized
Biography was published, Parker went into overdrive to bury it. Fleming wrote,
“ When Time did a cover story on Arnold and was granted an interview, Parker
explained that the interview would be ended instantly if the reporters
introduced the subject of Leigh’s book.”
A source
close to Parker says, “When Charlotte couldn’t kill
a story about
one of Arnold’s infidelities, he canned her.” Parker had done her best. The
story was originally slated to be a feature on a television entertainment-news
show; it wound up as a small gossip-column item that didn’t make many waves.
(When Parker, who no longer does publicity for the star or the Arnold Classic,
a Schwarzenegger-affiliated bodybuilding competition, was first approached
about this story, she said that she would answer specific questions; later,
she
politely demurred: “I prefer to not participate in your story.”
Schwarzenegger, too, declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this
article.)
Schwarzenegger and his people have also been able to use the ever-intertwining
tendrils of media conglomeration to their benefit. A onetime reporter for the
now-defunct tabloid TV show Hard Copy recalls, “I had been working on a story
about Arnold’s use of steroids. Hard Copy was owned by Paramount. I was told,
in no uncertain terms, to forget the story. Paramount was afraid that if we
did
the story, they would never get Arnold to do a film.”
The old saw
says that if you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything.
It
is probable that this man, once named chairman of the President’s Council on
Physical Fitness by the first Bush Administration, is not as healthy as he
would like the public to believe.
In April
of 1997, Arnold’s then publicist, Catherine Olim, informed
the world
that Arnold had undergone elective heart surgery to replace an aortic valve,
at
the USC University Hospital in Los Angeles. In a statement attributed to the
then 49-year-old star, he assured his fans, “Choosing to undergo open-heart
surgery when I never felt sick was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I can
now look forward to a long, healthy life with my family.” Olim told the press
that the operation was to correct a congenital heart condition. “Steroids,”
she declared, “have nothing to do with this.”
But Pumping Iron director George Butler, who shot 6,000 still pictures of
bodybuilder Arnold in various poses before he started work on either the book
or the movie, and who has maintained a relationship with Schwarzenegger for
more than 20 years, says, “During the operation, doctors removed his heart
from his body and replaced one of the heart valves with a pig valve. During
his
recovery, he was rushed back to the operating room, where the doctors again
removed his heart and implanted two more pig valves.”
A patient undergoing valve-replacement surgery has several options. An aortic
valve can be replaced by the patient’s own pulmonic valve, after which a
valve taken from a pig replaces the pulmonic valve. Mechanical valves are also
an option. The advantage of using pig valves, according to Dr. Leonard Girardi,
assistant professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Manhattan’s New York Weill
Cornell Medical Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital, is that “you do not
need to be on blood thinners; you could just take an aspirin [which acts as
a
blood thinner] and that would be sufficient.” The kind of medication required
to maintain a mechanical valve, Girardi says, doesn’t jibe well with an
athletic lifestyle. Still, pig valves have a downside: They deteriorate. “A
pig valve, in general, will last an average of 12 years or so. I have seen
them
last as long as 20 years.” This is not necessarily an issue for a patient who
undergoes the procedure at age 78; but Schwarzenegger’s surgery occurred
several months before his 50th birthday.
Carla Ferrigno, the wife of bodybuilder Lou, has, like Butler, known
Schwarzenegger for more than 20 years; she says, “It’s funny how he is
trying to change history.” She says she has spoken to two doctors who were
in
the operating room during Schwarzenegger’s procedures, and the account she
heard squares with Butler’s.
A doctor
who’s friendly with the Kennedys (Schwarzenegger’s
wife is a
Kennedy niece) says he is well-acquainted with the details of the operations
and speculates that Schwarzenegger’s medical problems might be related to his
use of anabolic steroids during the years he was a bodybuilder. Another doctor,
Alan Leshner, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in
Bethesda, Maryland, describes some of the effects of steroid use: “Steroids
interfere with protein function; they work by promoting protein growth and
body
mass. At the same time, they are all related to androgens in one way or
another. So if you put on a big protein load, you could have kidney trouble.
.
. . You could have cardiovascular problems because it affects the heart as
well.”
Over the years Schwarzenegger has either downplayed the amount of steroids
he
used (in a 1987 interview in Playboy, he said, “I don’t worry about it,
because I never took an overdosage”) or skirted the question entirely. But
Wendy Leigh’s book goes into detail about his use of the drug, as does True
Myths, British film critic Nigel Andrews’s book on Schwarzenegger. According
to Andrews, Austrian bodybuilder and trainer Kurt Marnul introduced Arnold
to
steroids in the old country. In the book, Marnul said, “There was no weight
lifter in the world who did not take them. You could get prescriptions for
them
from the doctor. Arnold never took them, though, without my supervision.”
When asked, “Was Arnold taking them?” in Andrews’s book, the late Vince
Gironda, owner of Vince’s Gym in North Hollywood—where Arnold first trained
when he moved to California—replied, “Is a frog’s ass waterproof?”
(Schwarzenegger has hedged about drug use in other ways as well. In the Playboy
interview, he denied ever having used any kind of recreational drug; yet in
Pumping Iron, there’s a sequence showing Arnold basking in the glory of his
Mr. Olympia win, enjoying what George Butler says was a substantial joint.)
Despite the diminishing domestic box office returns of his pictures, studios
still pony up big bucks for Schwarzenegger’s services. He is still slated to
star in Terminator 3, though the possibility of its being made seems to grow
dimmer with every announcement or news story. The fact that his star may be
waning has led to renewed speculation that Arnold the Kennedy might pull a
Ronald Reagan. Schwarzenegger has long espoused right-wing politics—he
campaigned furiously for George Bush in 1988, concocting (or at least
pronouncing) the infamous sound bite, “I only play the Terminator. When it
comes to the American future, Michael Dukakis will be the real Terminator!”
He’s also often hinted that he might eventually seek political office. In the
Loaded article, he said, “In America I could go all the way to Speaker of the
House. I think I could bring a little spice to the job. I think I could put
a
little fire up their asses.” The governership of California has been
mentioned; that would be another jewel in the crown, another fitting step-up
in
a life story so amazing that if you had made it up, nobody would have believed
it. In a recent interview with Christina Valhouli of Salon.com, Schwarzenegger
dances around the question of whether he will run for political office. In
answering her question, “Is it true that you’re thinking of running for
Governor of California?” Schwarzenegger replies, “I have thought about it
many times in the past, but I have no specific plans at this point.” Perhaps
he knows to quit while he’s ahead.
*The husband of journalist Maria Shriver tells Marie Claire magazine that he wears the pants in the family, literally if not figuratively: "I hate pants [on women]," he tells the mag. "This is something I've inherited from my father; he despised pants, and my mother was never allowed to wear them at home. I still feel that way, and neither my mother nor Maria is allowed to go out with me in pants."
SCHWARZENEGGER'S FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES BLAST PREMIERE MAGAZINE
* FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE *
SCHWARZENEGGER'S FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES BLAST PREMIERE MAGAZINE
AND WRITER JOHN CONNOLLY FOR PUBLISHING ARTICLE THEY DENOUNCE AS TOTAL FABRICATION
_____________________________________________________
An Article about Arnold Schwarzenegger appearing in the March issue of Premiere Magazine has raised the ire of Schwarzenegger's friends, physician and co-workers, who blasted the magazine for publishing false statements about Schwarzenegger's health and behavior. Schwarzenegger's former co-stars, such as Linda Hamilton, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sharon Stone, Rita Wilson and Kelly Preston, as well as director and producer James Cameron, have come forward to denounce the Article by John Connolly, titled "Arnold the Barbarian." Well-known producer Arnold Kopelson also weighed in, describing an account of a purported event on the set of Eraser as "a total fabrication."
The Premiere Article written by John Connolly (whose former clients have viewed him as a "consummate liar" as reported in New York Magazine), has been criticized as a work of fiction denounced by a whole host of people who are specifically mentioned in the Article but who were never contacted by Premiere before publication.
Recent articles in US WEEKLY and the LOS ANGELES TIMES also recount the groundswell of support for Arnold voiced by his co-workers and friends, who view the Premiere story as a "hatchet job" with political undercurrents.
The Premiere Article relies largely on unidentified sources in describing alleged instances of inappropriate behavior by Arnold. But the actresses and female producers who worked with him over the years have squarely condemned the Article's false characterization of Arnold's behavior on the set and his treatment of women, sending blistering letters to Premiere Magazine in support of Arnold. Others mentioned in the Premiere story also refuted the reported incidents, which they characterized as ridiculous fabrications.
Arnold's Co-Workers Decry Article As Fictional Gossip-Mongering
Linda Hamilton, who co-starred with Schwarzenegger in both of the wildly-successful Terminator films, denounced as "fantasy" the story of an incident in a limousine in which the Premiere article claimed Arnold lifted her onto his lap in the presence of her then-boyfriend Director James Cameron and others (including Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver). Hamilton stated in a letter she sent to Premiere's Editor in Chief: "Let me be perfectly clear. In my nearly twenty years of friendship with Arnold Schwarzenegger I have never witnessed ANY HINT of the behavior you so carelessly ascribe him. I have known and witnessed Arnold on set as a man who is tirelessly PROFESSIONAL, and in life as a singularly devoted husband, father, and family man." Hamilton went on to describe the publication as "unsubstantiated/gossip-mongering/character-assassinating/smear campaign/tactics."
For his part, Academy Award winning Director-Producer James Cameron (who worked with Schwarzenegger on the blockbusters Terminator, T2 and True Lies) likewise condemned Premiere for its report of the fictional limousine incident. In a letter to Premiere, Cameron described the report as "pure fiction," adding that over the 18 years he has known Schwarzenegger, he has "never seen Arnold act in the coarse fashion [Premiere] describe[s] with any woman, at any time, ever, and most certainly not with Linda Hamilton . . . ." Cameron added: "The situation you describe did not take place, and though I object on principle to your printing of pure fabrication like some cheesy tabloid, I particularly object to the unfair and absurdly off-the-mark picture it paints of Arnold, who is as good a man and human being as I have known."
Jamie Lee Curtis, who won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Schwarzenegger's wife in True Lies, said that the Premiere article "outrages" her. She wrote of Schwarzenegger in a letter to Premiere: "I admire him as a man, husband, father, friend and icon of the power of the American dream. I hold him in the highest esteem." Curtis stated that she worked with Arnold for seven months on True Lies, during which his trailer door was always open. She added that she never observed anything like the behavior described in the article, noting that Arnold's "wife and his family are the most important things to him in the world." Curtis lambasted the article as a "smear campaign" and a "politically motivated hatchet job." Chastising Premiere's publishers, Curtis told them, "you should be ashamed of yourselves."
Rita Wilson, who played Schwarzenegger's wife in the comedy Jingle All The Way, wrote to Premiere that Arnold "has acted only in the most professional of ways" when they worked together. She added that he "always treated me with respect, as well as everyone else on the set. He never stepped over any boundaries or made me feel uncomfortable." Also noting that Schwarzenegger's trailer doors were always open, Wilson said that she was "saddened" by the hurtful article.
Actress Kelly Preston, who has known Schwarzenegger since working with him on the 1988 comedy Twins, also wrote to Premiere to challenge its characterization of Schwarzenegger, stating that she has "never known him to be anything but kind, respectful and a true gentleman." She also described him as "a loving father and devoted husband," adding that she counts her "experience working with him as one of my fondest memories."
Major behind-the-scenes players in Hollywood have also rallied to Arnold's defense.
Well-known Producer Arnold Kopelson, who produced Eraser, challenged the article's account of a purported incident in Schwarzenegger's trailer during that production. Kopelson, who won a Best Picture Academy Award for Platoon, noted Schwarzenegger's professionalism, and described procedures on the movie set which would have made it close to impossible for the reported incident to have taken place. Kopelson cited his extensive presence on the set during which he and Schwarzenegger were "virtually inseparable for major blocks of hours during each day and more often than not, on weekends as well," as support for his conclusion that the incidents described in the Premiere article could not have taken place, since had they occurred Kopelson certainly would either have observed them or would have heard discussions about such improprieties on the set.
What Kopelson did observe were discussions with Arnold exhibiting "only love and respect for Maria and their children." Describing the article as "dribble," Kopelson said that the events described in the article were "inconceivable," and concluded that Premiere's account of Schwarzenegger's behavior is "a total fabrication."
Rae Sanchini, who has been President of Lightstorm Entertainment since 1993 and was Executive Producer of True Lies, and who was an executive at Carolco Pictures when it produced Red Heat, Terminator 2 and Total Recall, wrote to Premiere that "In all this time I have never once witnessed any of the incidents described in your article or any other conduct consistent with the very stilted picture you paint of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Quite the contrary, he has always treated me and the other women producers and executives involved in these various projects with the utmost respect and courtesy." Sanchini continued: "Although I have worked with Premiere on a number of past articles, I was not contacted in connection with this story, and the names of the many other women producers whom Arnold has successfully – and repeatedly – worked with were also notably absent."
Schwarzenegger's long-time dresser, Gregory Allen Hall, who has worked with Arnold for nearly a dozen years, sent his own scathing letter to Premiere's editor after reading the story's account that Arnold had supposedly humiliated him with cruel comments during the filming of Terminator 2, allegedly leading to Hall's termination. Hall denounced the story about him as false, telling the editor, "Mr. Schwarzenegger has been extremely generous to me and aside from being a good boss he is a good friend. While it is true I was fired from a film, nothing else you reported is true. The film was 'True Lies' not 'Terminator 2,' and I was fired by my boss the Costume Supervisor, not a producer and it was Mr. Schwarzenegger who rehired me (as his personal dresser) when he found out I had been fired." Hall went on to chastize the magazine for failing to contact him about the story.
Producers of the London television program The Big Breakfast on which Schwarzenegger appeared with host Denise Van Outen, denounced the claims in the Premiere article that any improprieties took place when Arnold did the show. In fact, they were so delighted with Arnold's appearance that Producer Nicholas Lazarus urged him to return to the show again when his schedule permits, writing "we would dearly love to welcome you back on to The Big Breakfast very soon." Describing Schwarzenegger as a "fantastic guest," he added that Van Outen had no problem with the interview and enjoyed meeting Arnold, stating that they consider him "a great friend of the show."
Renowned Cardiac Surgeon Proclaims Medical "Facts" In Article "Represent No Facts At All"
Schwarzenegger's cardiac surgeon, Dr. Vaughn A. Starnes, also chastised the magazine for its false depiction of Schwarzenegger's 1997 elective heart valve replacement surgery. Schwarzenegger, a former 13-time "Mr. Universe" and 6-time "Mr. Olympia," who has served as Chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness, Chairman of the California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness & Sports, and Chairman of the Inner City Games Foundation, previously sued with successful results when false statements were published about his health. Among other bogus statements in the Article, the Premiere story states that Schwarzenegger had three of his heart valves replaced with pig valves during his 1997 surgery. In fact, however, Schwarzenegger's cardiac surgeon confirmed that the valves used in Schwarzenegger's surgery were human homograft valves, not pig valves, used to correct a congenital defect. During the successful surgery, two, not three, of Schwarzenegger's heart valves were replaced. Dr. Starnes, who serves as Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, wrote to Premiere: "I would like to comment on the medical facts of this article. [¶] First of all, they represent no facts at all." Starnes went on to confirm that Schwarzenegger's "condition was not obtained by the use of steroids" but was rather the result of a congenitally acquired condition. Dr. Starnes also confirmed that Arnold's "outlook is excellent with the expectant duration of this valve to be far in excess than quoted for a pig valve."
Schwarzenegger does not shy away from filing defamation lawsuits in response to false stories about his cardiac health. Most recently, the Berlin High Court in Germany reaffirmed Arnold's victory in a defamation suit he filed against German cardiologist Dr. Willi Heepe, who was ordered to pay Schwarzenegger monetary damages and attorneys’ fees, and to issue a public retraction. And a little more than a year ago, Schwarzenegger settled his $50 Million defamation action against the US tabloid, the Globe, which had published an article falsely stating that Schwarzenegger suffered from a "heart crisis" and was a "ticking time bomb" long after his complete recovery from valve replacement surgery. In addition to payment of an undisclosed amount and a charitable contribution to the Inner City Games Foundation, the former owners of the Globe admitted it made a mistake and published a prominently placed retraction, correction and apology.
Motives & Background Of Writer John Connolly Called Into Question
But while the Premiere Article about Arnold may have garnered some attention, perhaps the real news item is the story that Premiere would rely on having an article written by John Connolly. Connolly was himself the subject of a lengthy magazine article by Christopher Byron in the September 19, 1990 issue of New York Magazine, which reported that Connolly 's former clients viewed him as a "consummate liar." [Byron, Christopher, "Other People's Money, The Curious Saga of the Wall Street Broker Who Informed for the Government While His Clients' Funds Vanished," New York Magazine, 9/17/90, at pp. 40-45.]
According to the New York Magazine article, as well as other sources including legal documents and National Association of Securities Dealers filings, Connolly has been the subject of controversy since the 1980's, when he faced charges for alleged securities violations. Connolly was later reportedly the subject of a federal investigation in New Jersey arising from his alleged use of outdated police credentials to gain access to sealed court records. That incident reportedly resulted in Connolly being forced to resign his job as a staff writer for Forbes Magazine.
Court filings and documents issued by the National Association of Securities Dealers cite instances of censure, fines and permanent injunctions against Connolly arising from his alleged conduct from the mid-1980's through the early 1990's. Charges against Connolly were maintained in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991 by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the State of Florida, and the NASD. In another instance, Connolly settled a dispute with a brokerage customer, signing an agreement in which he admitted that he "knowingly and intentionally violated the express instructions" of his client, and Connolly settled by agreeing to sign a Confession of Judgment in exchange for the client's agreement to "refrain from filing an action against Connolly and refrain from filing a complaint with the appropriate authorities."
SEC and court documents reveal that Connolly was charged with, and allowed a consent order to be issued against him with a Permanent Injunction, arising from a civil complaint that the SEC filed against him. Although Connolly neither admitted nor denied the charges that he violated various securities laws, he consented to issuance of a permanent injunction preventing him from engaging in the sale of securities. Other SEC documents reveal that Connolly has been censured, fined and barred from the Securities business, citing allegations of dishonesty, which included establishing security accounts under fictitious names, establishing an account for his wife and then failing to disclose that relationship, engaging in a scheme of free-riding at three separate brokerage firms, fraudulently concealing material facts, issuing counterfeit subpoenas (which the Board of Governors of NASD held "demonstrates recent deceptive conduct which contradicts Connolly's assertions that his actions since 1986 have been beyond reproach"), knowingly tendering checks in payment for purchases on accounts with insufficient funds, and forging applications and tax forms.
Connolly was most recently in the news in June 2000 after Talk Miramax Books declined to move forward with Connolly's planned book The Insane Clown Posse, which was a planned expose of members of Kenneth Starr's investigative team. Talk Miramax reportedly killed the project after the Drudge Report posted an excerpt from the book on the internet. Media reports at that time noted past controversies swirling around Connolly, including being barred from the securities business and having been the subject of a federal investigation in New Jersey for allegedly using outdated police credentials to gain access to sealed court documents.
Premiere was aware that Talk Miramax had pulled Connolly's Insane Clown Posse project, and was aware of Connolly's history, including his run-ins with the SEC. Why Premiere would entrust the Schwarzenegger story to a reporter with a checkered past like Connolly’s is unknown.
Schwarzenegger's representatives noted that prior to publication of the Article, Premiere's publisher and Connolly refused to disclose any of the story's details despite repeated requests by Arnold's representatives. The result was the sensationalized Article being widely promoted by Premiere in advance of publication in order to maximize sales, after Arnold was denied the chance to comment on the story's specifics prior to publication.
Political Motives?
It is widely speculated that the media attention brought to the Premiere Article was garnered for political purposes by a pair of unlikely bedfellows. Connolly recently failed in his pro-Democratic efforts to publish an exposé of Kenneth Starr's investigative team. The unpublished book Insane Clown Posse was reportedly a behind-the-scenes sex-and-politics attack on Republicans, which publisher Talk Miramax Books declined to publish after salacious excerpts appeared on the Drudge Report.
After the Premiere article hit the stands, a Senior Political Advisor to Democratic California Governor Gray Davis seized the opportunity to exploit Connolly's story about Schwarzenegger. In an apparent effort to serve Democratic political objectives, he sent copies of the Premiere article to media reps throughout the State shortly after Schwarzenegger made statements critical of the Governor's handling of the California energy crisis. After Schwarzenegger's lawyers put the politico on notice not to further disseminate Premiere's defamatory statements about Arnold, the Governor's political advisors mysteriously claimed they had only received the signature page of the lawyer's five-page demand letter. The Governor's advisor then proceeded to send out copies of yet another scurrilous article about Arnold (this one from a tabloid) to political reporters throughout California. Notably, however, fax records confirm transmission of the lawyer's complete missive sent to the Governor's team.
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