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100%.

There's two ways that you can move the weights.

One of them is physically and the other one is mentally.

So, in order to really get mentally ready for it, you have to do just many reps with 300.

Or with what are you supposed to do?

315.

Yeah, so you have to go and because you have to let the mind know not to go and have fear of the 315.

So what I usually did was when I was training for powerlifting, was I was to, let's say, my max, let's say, was at a competition,

515.

And so I try to do as many times as I can 500.

Yeah.

So I did 500 in the gym, then I waited a little bit,

and then I did again one rapid 500.

Same day?

Then they waited, yeah, you know, just kind of like waiting around five minutes later, so

schmoozing a little bit, and then, okay, then the guys were coming and says, okay, let's do another one, that's another one, and then we were just going, doing it again.

And so he gets us mentally used to the 500, so in a way, you feel like, and this is all happening subconsciously.

It's not like consciously, consciously too, but I mean, the important thing is that you lie down eventually eventually on a bench and you say, I have that nailed.

Yeah.

Because as soon as you say, let me try,

it's not quite cutting it.

The try.

I mean, trying is good, but I mean, you got to do it.

Because then you feel the fear if you're not ready.

The fear factor, that's why I say psychologically, it's the important thing is to just do it, you know, just for your head, to do it as many times as possible.

So you go, and we went, you know, once or twice a week, we went to the ultimate weight, and then we just stayed on that, whatever that that weight is that day and then just stay on and do the heavyweight the heavyweight the heavyweight just one rep yeah and when we normally train we you go or go up to three reps so you go let's say in your case you did three for uh

285

so you do then three reps and you keep doing three reps and keep doing three reps then eventually the next week you go to just for one rep

Yeah, so that's what you do.

It's just kind of doing the mind game because our mind is really the thing that holds us back.

Your mind is fascinating.

Well, it's fascinating, but I try to work on it all the time because I figured it out on my own.

I said, look, this is like really weird because

I was doing weightlifting competitions all the time as a kid because I joined a weightlifting club

in Graz.

So there was no bodybuilding club.

So we had to weightlift.

And then after we went through the weightlifting routine and the weightlifting training, then we could go go into chin-ups or do some incandes presses or do some lateral raises or biceps curls and stuff like that.

But first we had to do the weightlifting.

So we were competing pretty much every second weekend, going from one town to another, kind of competing against

the town weightlifting club.

And so there was, so you kind of

eventually figured out, you know, that why is it that you get to the weight and you say, oh, I'm going to do that.

This is going to be great.

And you pound it out.

You clean it up, boom, and you have it over in your chest.

And then, boom,

you pound it out.

And it's a winner.

And then you put on five more pounds on it.

And all of a sudden it doesn't work.

That's what happened.

And then you realize, wait a minute.

Okay.

I went down to the bar

and I,

that second, as I grabbed the bar, I was wondering, can I do it or not?

And that's what fucked me.

So I realized that the mind mind was the thing, not the body.

The mind just says, it says, well, maybe not.

And I said, what the hell is that?

So, okay, how do I now get the mind ready for that?

So, this is how you then work on it on yourself.

And everyone operates differently, but I mean, that's what I did.

I realized that the mind is so important to really lift the ultimate weight and also important to motivate you to get to the gym, and also important to stay in there for more than two hours.

Like, we were competing in bodybuilding, and then weightlifting, and then powerlifting.

So we had to train more than two hours.

So, I mean, how do you make yourself do that?

And that's when you then come up with all the various different principles that you need in order to

carry you through.

But then your mind also, because you would, you're psychologically, you would do something in competition too, right?

Because it seemed like you always had an upper hand on your competition when you guys were leading up to it in backstage.

You were doing something different.

Well, again, I think that

when you compete,

there is a competition, a psychological kind of a little warfare going on.

Sure.

You know, and we have seen that very well, I think, in the 60s with Muhammad Ali in boxing.

Right.

You know, that boxing was not just boxing.

You know, I think that Ali taught us all that there's another dimension to that, which was, you know, the psychological warfare that goes on, or the selling of the sport itself, that you can, you know, box as well as you can.

But if you're not a really good salesman and if you don't create a certain personality that people get,

kind of fall in love with, that you don't really have much.

You know, that you will have your 10,000 people at the boxing arena, and that's it.

But, you know, Alif figured out how to get 25,000

and how to get 50,000 and how to fill a stadium.

And it was all a psychological thing that they did.

And so I did the same thing in bodybuilding.

I just tried to figure out: okay, what are the vulnerabilities that those guys have?

And then I would just,

you know, use that.

And you would gas them up sometimes.

Because I've seen clips where you're like, wow, you look really good, man.

I'm worried about you.

And you could tell that that guy was like, wait, what?

You were Lou Frigno.

And Lou Frigno's dad is gold.

Yeah, exactly.

And I was trying to,

there was a two-pronged agenda.

There was the one to win, and the other one was to kind of be entertaining for pumping iron.

And so I was trying to kind of show people how you can kind of slowly talk an entire family into losing.

And so it's awesome.

But this is like.

Started out early already, you know, by telling them about, you know, it's just, you know, I seem as if I drag them in by talking about my mother because they're Italians and they love family.

Yeah.

You know, and the Farignos still loved family, and they always left talking about the family and the daughter and the son and the mother and the grandmother and the grandfather and the father and all of that stuff.

So I said, yesterday I called my mother.

And I said, oh,

we're really looking forward to, you know, seeing her one day and all that.

I said, Yeah, she comes to America regularly.

I said, But I told her, I said, I won.

And she said, But the competition is tonight.

I said, I know.

I said, But I mean, I just told her, I said, But I don't know if I can reach her tonight after the competition.

I said, I told her, I won.

She says, Congratulations, Adam.

And he said,

It was like, kind of like made them all look at each other, kind of, oh, Jesus.

I don't know if you'll be able to reach her later, so I just wanted her to know I won.

Exactly.

And so it was stuff like that.

It was kind of all a mind fuck kind of a thing, you know, and just to to play with the mind a little bit and uh and uh Lou got all confused and uh yeah that's what that's but like I said, a lot of it was kind of show was was was for the for the pumping iron, for the cameras and all that stuff.

And and for some reason, though the the funny thing about it is is that the Lou

has never really trusted me ever again since that moment.

I mean,

imagine a fifty years.

This has been fifty years ago.

I mean next year, fifty years.

And

we are very good friends.

And

we play chess together and we hang out together and we schmooze together and have gossip sessions, go to the gym together.

But every time I say something, I say, I said, you know,

I know it's foggy today, Louis, but the sun is going to come out.

I guarantee you within the next two hours, he would go, like,

he would kind of look around.

Is he putting me on here?

Then he looks up.

No, I don't think so.

You know, kind of like, I don't think the son is coming.

I think you're putting me on or something.

So he just, no matter what I say,

you know, he kind of like is always doubting it and it's always kind of questioning it.

You know, all that.

But I mean, he's a great guy.

And I really got to appreciate Lou because he was one of the very few bodybuilders that was willing to work,

to work his ass off.

You know, not only in the gym, but I mean also to the various different jobs he had.

I mean, he was a sheep metal worker, he was a welder,

he was playing football up in Canada, he was trying to join a football team up there and become a footballer.

He went into the professional wrestling and he worked his ass off there and weightlifting.

I mean everything that he did.

And then

in the movies, you know, he played the Hulk

and he did really a great job there.

And

then after that that gig was over after years and years and years of the Hulk, he then became a personal trainer and he was training celebrities here in Hollywood.

And he was going like from house to house.

He never shied away from working.

You know, not like, I'm a star now.

I don't have to work.

For him, the most important thing was to provide for the family and to go and and to do the work.

And I really loved it because

I would say like half of the bodybuilders are lazy bastards.

You know, they're just, I mean, the ones that I hung out with, they wanted to be on the beach

and they wanted to just hang out and they just wanted to get a tan.

And then when Franco and I started our construction business, I said, come on guys, we need some work.

I said, we just had the earthquake here in Los Angeles.

We need to rebuild some of the patios and the fireplaces and the chimneys.

And they would come and they would just...

They would just work one direction, this direction, and then they will work.

They put the bricks on it.

I say, guys, you got to turn around and do it the other way, too.

No, no, but the sun is coming from here.

I want to get a tan.

I want to get tan.

They were just there to get a tan.

Lazy bastards, right?

And they said, Franco, I've always said, You lazy bastards, get out of here.

You know, we always did the work.

But I mean, it was,

so it's great when you see a bodybuilder like Franco Colombo or like Lou Ferrigno that really were working hard.

I love that.

Because

I always say in my book, Be Useful, I always say, you know, that one of the principles is work your ass off.

And be useful.

Be useful, exactly.

Because you're talking about Franco.

And Tom is my best friend.

And Franco is your best friend.

And I can tell stories about Tom

of what I love about him and why he makes me, why he's my friend.

And I was wondering, I read your letter you wrote when Franco passed away last night in bed.

I was having a glass of wine.

And I got emotional.

I went, oh man, I'm going to do that for Tom when he dies before me.

But I would love for you to tell a story of this device.

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I would love for you just to tell a story about Franco that maybe you haven't told or like what you loved about him or just anything.

Well, Franco was basically half animal, half human.

You know, so he was like, no one could figure it out because he was like he had this unusual strength and this unusual abilities.

Like who would just hang upside down on his toes on a ginner bar?

I could never hold myself with my toes.

He did.

It was like a gorilla.

And then the way he was like going going from bar to bar with his hands, he had this unbelievable power.

It was like a monkey.

And so he was doing things and the kind of lifts.

I mean, think about the guy lifted like 750 pounds deadlift and he weighed like 180 pounds.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

It's ridiculous.

Crazy.

And doing like with 100 pound lateral raises and stuff like that that I used for dumbbell presses.

Barely could do that with 100 pounds.

And he would do lateral raises.

I mean, it's just crazy, crazy strength.

And

Franco came from Sardinia, and the way he grew up was kind of like

also very primitive, out in the farm, and he was like on a ranch, and he had to go and take the sheep up to the mountains, and he had to figure out himself how to go and feed himself while he's up there for a few days.

So he had to kill animals and do all kinds of live,

like a really primitive kind of a thing.

And so it was like all kind of very strange, but it made him kind of like a person that had no fear of anything.

And so when he, when I brought him to America, I tried to, you know, Joe Wheeler brought me over to America first because I was like the big bodybuilder.

I weighed 250 pounds.

I just won Mr.

Universe for the second time.

I was 21 years old.

I'm this new sensation.

You know, this farm boy from Austria, let's call him the Austrian oak to create a little bit of drama type of thing, right?

And so it was all that, so, but then Franco was a little guy, but powerful and just thick.

And so I had to convince Joe Wieder, I said, you got to bring over Franco too.

We're a perfect team.

It was like the original twins type of thing, right?

And so Franco, Joe Wieder, would always say, nah, he's a little guy, come on, why do you want to bring him over?

We have so many little guys around here, you know.

This showed the way he talked, you know, with his Canadian Jewish accent.

And

so I said, no, you got to bring Franco over.

He's like,

there's no one here in America I can guarantee you that it's like Franco.

I said he can outlift anybody, he can outpose anyone, and he's going to win Mr.

Universe.

I guarantee you that he's on his way to win everything.

And then Joe Bida eventually brought him over.

And so Franco and I, we then continued training together here.

And within one year of being here, he won the Mr.

Universe Candace in the amateur category.

The year after that he won the Mr.

Universe Professional, then Mr.

World, Mr.

Eventually Mr.

Olympia and all that stuff.

And then

Franco is the kind of a guy that, because there was no money in bodybuilding.

So

Franco and I, we were just saying, hey, we're from Europe.

We're not one of those lazy fucks, you know, that just want to hang around and do nothing.

I said, let's get our act together and just let's educate ourselves.

Let's go to college, educate ourselves.

Franco loved, of course, chiropractic and medical stuff.

So he went to chiropractic college.

I went to study business.

And on the side, we started working.

And Franco, of course, was a bricklayer and a masonry worker and cement worker and stone worker from Italy.

So I said, Franco, I said, we should start a business here.

And then, of course, we put an ad in the LA Times,

Italian and European masonry work experts and all of this shit.

I didn't know anything about masonry.

So

we put the ad in.

The next day after the ad came out, we had the earthquake in Los Angeles.

I mean, can you think about that?

And then, all of a sudden, everyone called us and they said, oh my God, you got to come over.

You got to rebuild our chimney.

You've got to rebuild our patio.

The patio has a big crack here.

The wall has a big crack.

The wall around

the house fell down and blah, blah, blah.

So Frank and I, we were doing bits left and right and going around so there's all kinds of places in LA that you and Franco rebuilt yeah there's a matter of fact there's a famous

there's a famous wall down in Venice right not far from here that Frank and I was one of the first walls that we built that's still standing there exactly the way it was and I mean why don't you reopen that

50 years ago that that wall more than 50 years ago this wall was built and it's still standing there not moved an inch nothing changed it's gonna be there like the Roman walls you know it's going to be there for thousands of years.

No one except someone tears it down.

But I mean, I tell you, so our workmanship was good, but I learned everything from Franco.

Franco would go in here, the Mustang, and he would pick up a wheelbearer and he would pick up a cement mixer, one of those little machines, and he would just tow it to the construction site.

And then I would be in charge of mixing the cement.

He would show me what the combination is, how much water, how much sand, how much

sand and water and all the stuff and concrete that we put in there, and then mix it up, and then help him with that.

And then he taught me how to do the bricklaying and all those things.

And so we made money.

We made $5,000

together a week.

I mean, I have to imagine it's a lot of money in the 70s, $5,000.

I mean, it was like a lot of money.

So we put, you know, literally $1,000 or $1,500 aside.

And I started saving up money like that.

And that's how I eventually, in 1974, had enough money to put down twenty seven thousand dollars for an apartment building in

santa martica yeah a six-unit apartment building on 19th street in santa martica because i i knew that you had done that did you was that from studying business or did you always go i'm going to do real estate no i think it was the kind of thing as an immigrant yeah yeah if you were an immigrant yeah that uh had its act together and he was willing to work and not live off the state or the country or something like that we were kind of like,

I had a friend who was a Czechoslovakian immigrant, then another guy that was a Polish immigrant.

Every one of them had a little kind of one had

kind of like a twin-unit apartment building with just two units.

Another one had like eight units, another one had six units.

So they talked to me in, they say, Arrod, don't buy a house.

You gotta buy an apartment building because that gives you money and you can then pay it off with the rent that the people are paying and the value goes up much more than the house and blah, blah, blah.

And so then I got a real estate agent that all of them used, which was an a Lebanese woman.

Olga was her name.

And she was like this little.

It was like Danny DeWider Height.

And uh and she will be she also was an immigrant.

So I think that she knew that we were hardworking and that we wanted to invest our money and we wanted to make our money one dollar turn into two.

And so she helped us find those apartment buildings.

They were available, and so she got this.

So she found me one that cost $240,000.

And so I had $27,000 to put down.

Then he had $37,000 down.

So Joe Weider gave me $10,000 for the third deed.

So he put up that $10,000.

So I paid him back within a year.

So now I had this was my building, and he didn't have anything to do with it anymore.

And then a year later, I sold it for almost $400,000.

Wow.

So, I mean, imagine by putting $27,000 to $37,000 down altogether, I went from $240,000 to $400,000,

$160,000 primary.

For a year.

And in two years, basically.

And then they deduct the real estate fee.

It was the best return that you can think.

But I didn't take the money because I didn't want to pay the income tax at this point.

So I did trading up.

Trading up exactly to a 12-unit apartment building, then eventually to a 36-unit apartment building, and to a 48-unit apartment building.

So then it started growing, and then they started getting into

buying office buildings, old office buildings on Main Street here in Santa Monica that were decrepit and that had artists in it.

And we then turned them into kind of like offices for banks and for real estate offices and stuff like that.

Redid the space and started making a lot of money on that.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

I got to ask you this because I was so fascinated by this when I was watching your doc series

on Netflix.

Is that, you know, growing up, like we all were, we knew about your bodybuilding, but we all became like obviously super fans from the movies.

And there's, you know, there's no social media at the time.

You don't have access to information.

So you see the story.

And one of the things I was most fascinated by was the rivalry with Stallone.

Because when you're a kid, you go, you kind of go, you know,

you imagine, I wonder what there was.

Like, I wonder if they like each other.

And this is like seeing this was the first time you guys talked about

verifiably that you guys had a real rivalry.

Right.

And like,

how did it originate?

Like, what made you guys, you know, was it just the fact that you're competing in the box office or was it like deeper than that?

No, I think that it was kind of what the rivalry was there.

But it was

I think the whole thing was my fault in a way.

Well, because I remember that at one time was really stupid

and

a journalist

asked me some questions about Sly

off the record

and I did not know that she had the tape recorder on the side of her purse running and then printed the whole thing.

And so it was not meant to be like that.

And then, of course, he was very angry, and that kind of flared up the competition.

And so at that point, you know, the trust was gone.

And,

okay,

let's make this an open kind of a thing.

Yeah.

Let's go all out.

And so we did for years.

We went just kind of like out, trying to outdo each other with movies.

But I think, as he said in an interview, and I totally agree with him, that it was actually healthy,

even though we went a little bit beyond what we should have done.

But

it was healthy because it did motivate me, and I felt kind of like, oh, yeah, I mean, the guy is really ripped, you know, and Rambo too.

I mean, Frank Stallone kind of redefined definition

because he was so disciplined with his diet.

And so that motivated me then when I did my next movie, Commando, that okay, I have to go and look like that too.

And so, you know,

I mean, I always had like a body fat of around, you know, 8-9%.

But I went down to 7%.

I'm sure that he was down to 5%.

Really?

I don't really know exactly how to do it.

And you guys were really.

So it was like, I got pushed by him, and then I got really cut.

And people then said afterwards, wow, you're really cut.

And then that pushed him for his next movie when he did Rocky.

Oh, look at how much bigger Arnold was than me.

I got to get bigger.

And so we kind of motivated each other.

And it was also, like I said, the competition was so stupid that it was like two little children.

Right.

It was like unbelievable for mature, supposedly grown-up guys that they like, who has a bigger knife

in their movie?

Yeah.

So that was very important.

Then we measured the length of the knife and how many teeth does it have on it, right?

And

who kills more creatively with that knife?

That was very important.

Do you just slice someone's neck very quickly, or do you stab him three times and then slice the neck?

So, all of this was very, very important.

Then it was like analyzing each other's guns.

Then we had to do the research.

What shells did come out of that?

What shells did this gun fire, what is this gun used for?

Then someone said, well, slice gun is you normally used

on a helicopter.

And I said, well, I said, why don't we go, since I was a tank driver in the army, why don't we get a machine gun from a tank?

I said, they are bigger than from a helicopter.

I said, that's what I'm going to have in Predator.

And so we got a big gun that you normally can hold.

And it's stupid stuff like that.

And then, you know, I counted, he was like killing 46 people, so I had to kill 64 people.

Just turned the number around.

And

it's just crazy.

It's just dudes being dudes, basically.

Yeah, exactly.

That's right.

And

out came, you know, this real great, great action movies that he did fantastic action movies.

I was doing fantastic action movies.

But I always felt like I was kind of like behind.

Because, I mean, he was like...

Really?

Oh, it was like, well, just think about it.

I remember that was like, I was getting a million dollars dollars now for Conan number two.

Right?

This was 1983.

Yeah.

And then I'm reading, I said, Sly just made a deal to get five million dollars for a movie.

So I said, what the fuck?

And then it's like, okay,

I'm a fifth.

This has to stop.

So I worked my way up and I did everything I could.

Eventually the next movie, I got three million.

Then it was like always doubling.

Then it was $6 million.

And so this is how I got up.

And then eventually,

I remember I got $10 million,

I think it was for total recall.

And it was in 1989.

And

Sly signed a deal for

one of his movies, the number three,

for $15 million.

Jesus Christ, I can't catch up what is going going on here.

There was always some number that was bigger than mine.

And then eventually, I think we ended up both at $20 million as kind of like our standard salary.

And there we were together now of a sudden.

This was like in the 90s.

And

then I did

Batman and Robin, where I got $30 million.

They wanted me so bad for that movie because I didn't want to really play the villain,

Mr.

Freeze.

And so they know, we give you $25 million.

And I said, no, $25 million is petty cash.

What's the matter with you guys?

And you know, it's okay.

So then they call me back like a month later and they say, We give you $30 million, plus, we give you points and backhand, and blah, blah, blah.

So I said, okay, I do it.

You know, I doesn't have $30 million.

So I said, this is kind of my way to pay back for all the tortures over the years that he got more than I did.

So this is how the composition went.

It's interesting that you still remember all those numbers.

Yeah.

Like, because we can tell you what we made at clubs, what we made at theaters, what we made at arenas.

You don't forget.

I still remember when I had a mail order business.

You see, so I started out because everyone always asked me about how do you train, how do you do your biceps, how do you get the peak on your biceps, and how do you do this with the separation on the rear deltoid and the separation on your back and the traps and this and that.

So everyone wanted to know kind of the inside scope.

I couldn't sit there for everybody.

I did seminars around the world, but I couldn't just answer everyone's questions.

So I said, myself, I'm going to come out like Charles Atlas did, you know, like way back when, with those Charles Atlas courses, right?

You know, where you kick sand in someone's face, and the next year you come back and you get the he-man, and you pay back for that, and you grab the girl, and all that stuff.

So, anyway, so it was the idea.

So, I just started doing those

courses and how to get the peak,

the bicep, and how to get the

chest like a fortress, and all these kinds of titles, right?

And Joe Weeder helped me with that.

He was very generous.

And so we started advertising those booklets.

And I made, I remember now,

still the day that one weekend I was like counting order checks and everything like that.

And we made that month $1,600.

We were talking about

in the 70s, early 70s, huge money, $1,600.

So now, of course, it would take $400 out of $1,600 to fill the orders.

Because you have to print the booklets and you have to send it out and all that stuff.

But the rest of us was profit.

So this is the way I saved money.

I mean, every dollar was important to me.

And to do the work, and I was doing it myself, stuffing the envelopes, bringing it to the post office, and mailing it out, and all of this kind of stuff.

It was really good learning experience: how to get, you know, get a business license, how to pay the taxes, and how to make a deal with the IRS.

And they say, you know, what is your estimated income?

And you tell them, you know, this is what I think we make.

Okay, this is what you pay on taxes and all this stuff.

So it was fantastic.

And I was always saying to Frank, I said, can you imagine how easy it is in America?

You just go to the IRS and you say, this is the amount of money to make.

And first of all, they believe you.

It was not that we wanted to cheat because we had no idea.

So we just say,

good.

I think with the construction side, we maybe make $2,000 a week or so.

I said, but if you make more, then we'll let you know.

And so they said, okay, the estimated taxes is this.

And it was like, you know, on the business license we got immediately.

No one asked us if we have a master's degree in masonry work or something like this, like they would do in Europe.

You know, so the whole thing is just different.

So we were just always so happy that America helped us give us the opportunities

to be able to work and give it the opportunities to be useful.

Because this is the key thing.

Everyone always was positive here in America.

No matter what we said, we would say, I would say,

I'm going to win Mr.

Olympia 10 times.

They say, oh, that's fantastic.

I mean, you really have a great goal.

In Europe, they would say, you're fucking crazy.

I mean, you're the Grisen Van Syndic, which means that you're kind of like,

you know, crazy,

you think you can do anything.

But I mean, here it's always the positive attitude.

And so we adopted that.

And since then, I have become, maybe I was once negative, I don't know, but I became positive.

I said, that's such a great way.

Because in my family, everything was, my father says, is, where do you want to go and build those muscles?

It's a neuphrenon.

You know, only showing off.

What are you going to do with that?

Be useful.

Come on.

Do something.

I mean, go in there and shovel some coal or some snow in the winter for some poor people or something like that.

It was always negative.

You know, you're never going to make it in all this stuff.

And here everything is positive.

People build up.

They go to the football games with their children and they go and say, oh, you're going to make it.

You're going to score today.

You're going to do this and that.

That was fantastic.

And even me, when I went with my kids...

to the soccer games, I said, hey, don't worry about it.

You didn't kick a goal, but you were really good.

Next time you're going to kick that core, it says, just don't trip over young balls.

You've got to be great.

So, I mean, it's just a much more positive kind of country, the way we look at things and the way people build each other up.

It's better to be also, because like, especially in entertainment, you know, you can surround yourself here with negative people.

There's a lot of negative people around.

It's like you just try to embrace being around positive people.

It's just a lot of people.

Yeah, yeah, but you don't want to hang out with too many entertainers anyway.

That's true.

You know,

I think that's just hanging out with normal people.

Yeah.

I mean, I love coming to the Gold's gym, right?

These are normal people.

A guy comes to me and he says, oh, yesterday,

I was like, unbelievable.

I put this new roof on this guy.

And blah, blah, blah.

I said, are you a roofer?

Yeah, yeah.

I've been a roofer for seven years now.

I have now these two guys, 20-year-old guys, that make $200,000 a year

just because they're also now in the roofing and they're helping me with the roofing.

So you get ordinary people talking about ordinary things and ordinary struggles.

I love that.

You know, a woman coming over, oh, I just was laid off.

I was in the movie business, and now they made this deal, now they're making less movies.

And you hear

the problems that people have and

how they can still fit into workouts every morning.

You know, sometimes I'm here at 6 in the morning, sometimes I come at 10 in the morning, I come at different times.

But it's really interesting to listen to people, ordinary people.

I don't like hanging out with show business people because

sometimes they're a little lost, I think, you know, with their mind and where they think they're going to go with

their careers and the hang-ups that they have and all of that stuff.

By the way, I wanted to add because you were talking about your mail order business back then, that now you have the daily newsletter that goes out.

Well, his app, your app, the pump, is fucking awesome.

Well, thank you.

Your workouts.

I did your first workout.

Of course, I did advanced weight muscle building.

I expect nothing less.

Thank you.

Bench, T-bars, squats,

flies.

I mean, it's a great workout.

And the schmooze, the weekend schmooze, is fucking so great.

Well, I tell you,

it doesn't surprise me that you like it because you and I, as you know, we worked out here.

Yeah.

And we had a great workout together.

And yes, we...

try to have fun.

And I mean, you're a comedian, so of course you have to do the schmooze and

the funding lines and all of that stuff.

But I mean it was so great to see you actually working out and to have the strength and to have the energy and to do the reps and to be interested in doing the reps the full way.

You know, because we all know we talked about that, how every rep in bodybuilding and in weight training has a flexing motion and a stretching motion.

So if you do a chin up, so coming all the way down is the stretch of the lats, but then going all the way up is the flex of the back.

So it is always with the biceps the same.

When you curl up, that's the flex.

When you let the weight down, that's the stretch of the bicep.

And so you were fascinated with that whole principle and all that stuff and got right away into it.

So I could tell that you would be interested in it and you will continue on with the workout.

Oh, the workouts are amazing.

My dad's 70.

My dad's your age, 77.

Yeah.

And he just got into working out because of getting out of a chair.

Right.

And I was like, dad, you got to get the pump.

You got to get the pump.

It's just, it's such a great.

Can I tell you what's fascinating about you?

Your book is amazing.

Your book is amazing.

I'm saying this.

If you have a high school child getting ready to go to college, buy them this book.

This book is a guideline of how you should live your life.

But I couldn't stop thinking that it's so rooted.

All of your philosophies about life are so rooted in working out.

Like the way you look at everything is

you got to have, you got to have struggle to have growth.

You've got to everything,

you're the way you look at the world with just optimism and or selling, withhold some stuff first.

It's really amazing.

Working out informed all of you, I think.

Well, it helped me in learning about life.

Because, like you just said, there's so many kind of

similarities when it comes to the actual body and to the muscles versus your brain.

I mean, you know,

if you learn quickly, and hopefully one learns quickly, that the more you struggle with resistance, the more the weights you use, the more you go through the pain period

after you do like eight reps and you can't do any more, then you just do the forced reps, which are the most painful ones.

and that really differentiates you from the guy that is going to make it to the guy that's going to lose and so then you cut to the mind and i said well wait a minute isn't it weird that the mind is exactly the same way that the mind also needs suffering the mind needs also struggle setbacks and that you have to climb back up again that's what makes you strong It's like Nietzsche said, that what does not kill you will make you stronger.

And this is exactly what it is.

It's all about, you know, that people should look forward to the struggle because the struggle makes you tougher.

And so don't shy away from that.

It's part of life and it will make you grow.

It's that simple.

It makes the muscle grow the more you have resistance and it will make your mind grow and the psychologically will become stronger the more you struggle.

What

exercise...

I'm going to be all exercise questions.

You look great, by the way.

You look transferred.

You're amazing.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

I mean, it's because I think you've always been like the walking advocate for health and fitness for years and years.

But I think, you know, one of the things is like as people age, so many people go, you know, stay away from training.

Like, you just see it all the time.

But you're somebody who obviously you're like the standard for lifting, but you still train.

And it's like something where I feel like somebody who's who is getting into their 50s or 60s and 70s, it's like you keep training and you're like, you you look great man.

But I cannot even take credit for it because you know the people always say just a discipline.

I have no discipline.

It's just who you are.

I'm addicted.

Oh, you're addicted.

It's an addiction.

It's kind of like I cannot even imagine

the mornings without riding down to the gym with the bike and then working out.

If I don't have it, like sometimes it doesn't work out because there's a morning schedule right away or something like that.

Then I miss it all day and I'm kind of lost in a way.

So it's like it's an addiction.

So I think that for my entire life, the 60 years that I've been working out now, it's all because it's an addiction.

It's kind of like, I have to.

I have to go to the gym in order to feel good.

And because it's I always tell people, I said, the difference is like when I come down with my bike, it's like going through a black and white movie.

Then as soon as I work out and I ride back my bike to to the hotel and I have some breakfast, it becomes a colorful movie.

It becomes colored.

Everything is more beautiful.

Everything is brighter.

I look at life differently.

Everything is positive and everything like this.

So it's just that the workout and having done now something for yourself and having pumped up and having struggled a little bit, it makes you feel good for the rest of the day.

Yeah.

So this is what I needed.

You were at the precipice of bodybuilding and working out.

what exercises showed up in your career that you were like, you're like, wait, what are they?

I heard you talk about tricep extensions one time.

I think they might have been in your book.

And I was like, well, all the exercises showed up.

Like all the stuff we just know as.

I still do Arnold Presses and you created that.

But like what other exercises showed up when you were working out and you're like, oh, this is brand new and I love it.

Well, first of all, let me tell you, I was so fortunate that I worked out out and began my workouts in a weightlifting club.

Why?

Because I learned quickly that the basic exercises are extremely important.

You know, like deadlift, the curl, the barbell curl,

bench press, incline press, dumbbell press, deadlift.

All of this stuff is basic stuff that has nothing with machines, but it's just with basic weight.

That if you build that and if you really use that,

that you really can build the body everything from ground up.

Those are the basic exercises or cleaning the weight and

pressing it, snatching the weight up in one motion.

All of this stuff is just so good.

You know, so that to me was always the key thing.

I always tell people, you know, you always learn how to do everything the perfect way for the rest of your life with the other machines because you know the basic exercises.

So, to me, the basics are the most important thing.

Then, the other thing is, when you talk about what I found out, was

I said,

I was looking at my bicep, and I said, Well, whenever I go like that, it flexes.

I turn the wrist, and the bicep flexes.

I said, So, therefore, the motion is not just up and down, but it's also to turn the wrist.

So, now I put an inside of the dumbbell

an extra two to five pounds.

So now when I curl up like that, I struggle turning the wrist, and therefore I get more of a cut and more of a height in my bicep.

So this was something that no one could see because no one counts the blades and says, why is Arnold using on the left side only four plates and then on the right side there's five plates or something?

They don't do that, right?

So you can do that in a a very, very subtle way.

And then eventually I started explaining it.

I said, Look, I figured this out a long time ago.

And I looked at the anatomy book and even talked about it.

That one of the jobs that the bicep says is to turn the wrist.

And so I said, Well, here we are.

I mean, we got to go and load up on the inside and do the turning of the dumbbell.

So there are certain things that you can't do with just having a barbell because you don't turn.

So people that are using a barbell and using a bridge, a bench,

can only get a certain size bicep, but never can really get the height.

So the height and the peak you only can get if you turn the wrist.

With dumbbells.

If you use dumbbells, exactly.

Wow.

That's right.

These are the little things that you learn.

And the key thing is also when eventually when you get into competition, that you really figure out your own body.

Because there is no routine that is exactly the same for everybody.

You know, this is like buying gloves or buying shoes.

There's different sizes and the different colors and all that stuff.

And the same is with the working out that

you brought, like for instance Franco, he had shorter thighs.

So therefore he never had to do as much squats as I had to do.

I had long legs, so I had to do twice as much legwork than Franco did.

So we, even though we trained together, we sometimes split, and Franco was working more on calves or working more on his kind of like biceps problems that he had, that I didn't have, and I had leg problems that he didn't have, and stuff like that.

So you have to kind of realize that everybody is built differently, and everyone has different needs.

And this is exactly the same with, again, with everything.

You cannot go and have one way of teaching someone a language.

There are some people that are doing much better when you give them pictures and show them, you know, what the words are.

Sometimes when you have them watch TV, sometimes when you have conversations.

Everyone operates differently.

And so this is what you have to realize that everyone is somewhat different.

There are some common rules, but don't get stuck on those.

Just figure out yourself what works for you.

Wow.

I wanted to ask you this because I've always been fascinated.

Everybody who's ever trained, played sports experiences cramps at some point, right?

Like you've had, and there's, you know, it's usually that you're depleted from sodium and and you need electrolytes in your system.

Do you, would you guys cramp in bodybuilding shows?

Because you're flexing so hard.

I always wondered.

Well, there was this problem at the day of the competition.

And the reason was because you're trying to get rid of the fluid in your body.

So doing exactly that, what you shouldn't do.

I mean, you should do it in order to win,

but you shouldn't do it because of health reasons.

It's not really good.

And then you're going to have to cramp stage.

So there's guys that actually have huge cramps on stage.

They do.

I've seen that.

And

this is also the time when you tell people

to kind of lay off water so that they do cramp up and you win.

And you win.

How would you not have them?

Like, what's the way that you do?

Well, I just never went that extreme with the whole thing.

So I said to myself, you know, if I lose because I have too much fluid, I'd rather keep a little bit of fluid.

And because I know I have to do

the pre-charging sometimes take three hours.

So that means that you're posing for three hours.

Yeah.

You know, legs and calves, and show me your back.

And then these idiots ask you the same thing again.

Oh,

number seven, at number nine, number two, number one.

You come together, stand together closely, and now do a back pose.

Okay, didn't we just do a back pose?

You know, it's like for the 15th time.

And it says, okay, turn around.

Now we want to see a side chest pose.

And then, okay, now let's see the vacuum.

And it's sucking your stomach, you know.

And

so you do this over and over and over because they want to compare.

with the different guys, right?

And not just always the same.

And so you stand out there for hours, and now you go back at night when it's the final round and

you get judged by your posing and by your total performance.

So So now you have to do it again.

So you can get cramped up.

So the key, though, is like, don't be so dramatic with.

Don't be so dramatic.

I, for instance, I remember in 1980 at the Mr.

Olympia, I came third in the pre-judging

because I still had too much fluid.

And the judges came to me and says, Ah, I'm sorry to tell you, but you're not going to win tonight.

And I said, oh shit.

I said,

what's wrong?

He says, you're not as sharp as you were the last time we saw you.

This is, of course, now five years later.

I know that we understand that.

But I just want you to know

it's not going to happen.

So I went literally into a sauna when I went back after the pre-charging.

I went into a sauna at the hotel and I posed for an hour to sweat out more fluid.

And then I went back at night and I was sharper.

And then I did my best job with the posing routine and I ended up winning.

Wow.

Yeah, so but I mean, so this is, so you have to really find that

the right level so you don't kind of like cramp up and you can't pose anymore and lose,

but still have, you know, kind of be sharp enough.

Yeah.

Who are your, I feel like I know this a little bit, but if you had to have your top five heroes that gave us the guy we got today.

Because when I got the Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, I'm going to be very honest.

I was like, maybe I'm gay.

Because I couldn't stop looking at your body.

And I was like, this is like, I mean, this is why.

And when I work out, I watch, I put the documentary, your documentary on Netflix.

I put it on.

It inspires me.

But you draw inspiration from men, like I do.

And I know you did.

So who are your top five Hall of Fame dudes that gave us the guy we got today?

Well, I mean, I think that the first one was Reg Park.

Reg Park.

And Steve Reeves.

These were guys that did Hercules movies

and that inspired me to get a body like that, but also inspired me to have a vision beyond my career, which was to get in the movies.

So to me, that...

That's fucking fascinating.

I never realized that.

Yeah, to me, that was very, very important.

That I said to myself, when I started reading about the Reg Park and about Steve Reeves in the magazines, it was very clear that these guys won Mr.

Universe not only once, but I mean like Reg Park won it three times, Mr.

Universe.

And then China Chitta in Rome, which was the town where they did the movies,

they discovered him and they brought him down to Rome and they had him do Hercules movies.

And

he made several Hercules movies.

And I said to myself, that's what I have to do.

I have to get that good.

I have to win Mr.

Universe so many times so that they would notice me also.

And blah, blah, blah.

And also

it gave me a vision.

So Reg Park and Steve Reeves was the number one, the guys that were very important.

Mohammed Ali was very important because

when I came to the United States, I hung out with him.

And he was a very generous guy, and he loved, he was fascinated with bodybuilding, even though he didn't want to work out with weights.

But he was fascinated by that whole thing.

He always had me push him around.

He loved, and he

said to his guys, he says, watch this, watch what Ara does.

He says, push me against the wall.

And then I would grab him and then push him against the wall.

And then he would say, see, guys, see what I'm saying?

How strong he is?

Can you believe that?

I mean, in order to say, he just loved it.

And he also, you know, just loved calling me Schwarzenegger.

I mean, it was like, as a matter of fact, we just saw a playback on one of the interview shows where the interviewer said, next coming out is Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And he says, yeah, Schwarzenegger.

And he said, I didn't say that.

The interviewer said, I didn't say that.

I didn't say that.

And he says, no, no, no, this is,

he says, we're coming out Schwarzenegger, and he said, mumbles, Schwarzenegger.

And he did it with me also.

He would say this guy says, he's one of us guys.

He said, he said, just look at his name, Schwarzenegger.

And he said, unbelievable.

And he said, it's one of us, you know, and

he just loved me.

So I watched him all the time.

And I went one time.

I mean,

people always talk about, you know, he gives away money.

But I saw him one time on the airport giving $100 to some guy that was begging for money.

He didn't even look how much money he had in hand, he just gave it to him.

And he says, That doesn't mean anything.

He says, I'm not into money.

He was never into that.

So he was like a very, very kind of generous person.

And I realized that how generous he was, but he started his foundations then, started giving money away, and he was always thinking about a bigger cost than boxing was.

And

then he also learned from him how he sells boxing through his personality.

And so I wanted to do the same thing.

So the purse went up, you know, from $2 million for a fight to $5 million for a fight, $10 million for a fight.

It was all because of personalities and who draw the most.

And so I wanted to do the same thing in bodybuilding.

So he was a kind of an example for me for generosity and being smart and being beyond just the sport and really not just beating up, but he always said he said, you know, there's a time where you beat up on guys and put them down, he but there's a time where you lift up the whole sport.

And this is the most important thing.

And I want to do the same thing.

Okay, I want to pump up and I want to go and win and destroy my competition.

But then there was a time also to build the whole sport up and to make it actually a bigger sport, offer more cash prizes and all that.

So they were very important with that.

But then when I got more and more into a kind of life and

the global thinking, I think people like, for instance, when I met my father-in-law, Sergeant Shriver,

he taught me a lot about generosity, about this service and giving back to the community, giving back to your town and to your state and to your country in some way.

And he was, of course, the president of Special Olympics.

And his wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, started Special Olympics.

So I got involved with Special Olympics.

So he taught me about service and all of that stuff.

So he became kind of a mentor.

Ronald Reagan became a mentor because to me, I was always a Republican, right?

And so when Nixon was campaigning in 1968 against Humphrey, and he talked about, you know, get government off your back and less taxes and a strong military, strong law enforcement, I said, this is me.

I love this guy.

And then Humphrey talked more like a socialist in Austria, right?

So I didn't like that.

So

I said, what party does he belong to?

He said, Republican.

I said, well, then I'm a Republican.

And so I followed Reagan, of course, and I was campaigning for Reagan.

He became one of my heroes.

And then Gorbachev became one of of my heroes, you know,

because he was able to recognize that communism doesn't work.

And to have the boss

to be president of Russia and to say, communism doesn't work.

Let's dismantle this whole thing that doesn't work.

I mean, it's like unheard of.

I've never heard of anything like that.

And he had the boss to do that.

So I said to himself, that's courage.

I admire that, you know, and so I became a big fan of his, met him many times, went to Moscow, had meetings with him, always talked to him about international policies and also movies.

He just loved, for instance, he wanted me always to do the Crusade, a movie that I wanted to do in the 90s.

And when I met him in the 90s, he always said to me, he says, you must do the

crusade, must do the crusade, you know, it's very important.

It's an important message today,

you know, about coming together, religions coming together and all that stuff, and not always fighting against each other.

And so he was what?

Mantella.

I mean when I went down to South Africa and promoted Special Olympics in South Africa, Mandela was there and he was greeting me at

Robin Island at his prison cell, right?

And then we went in there in this prison cell and we lit a torch.

We lit a little torch that we then took out from his prison cell where he was

imprisoned for 27 years.

And then we took it out to the courtyard of the prison where there was 150 Special Olympians standing out there, and I was lighting the torch of hope with the special Olympians and with Mandela.

And Mandela was one of the guys that I admired so much because he taught us about forgiveness.

I mean, here's a guy that became president and could have kind of turned everything around and had the blacks pay back the whites in South Africa for the misery that they went through for so many years.

And no, he didn't do that.

He says, that would

make me feel better.

Yes.

He says, but it wouldn't be better for the country.

He says, we need to do what's best for the country.

We got to come together.

And I said, oh my God, this guy is like magic.

I mean,

I've never even heard of anyone talk that much about forgiveness like that and being able to do that.

So just to mention some of my heroes,

because

this is the people that inspired me to be who I am, you know, and when people say to me, it says, well, what's the most,

you know, what's the thing that the what job, the movie business or the party building or the

governorship,

what is the thing that they're most proud of?

I always tell people, I said, none of them.

I said, what I'm most proud of is that I'm me.

That I was able to mold myself

into a person that I am today.

A person that is generous, a person that has a vision, a person that is not shying away from working hard and all this stuff, and all of this kind of stuff.

stuff is that's what I'm proud because that is what made me win Mr.

Olympia seven times and Mr.

Universe five times.

That's what made me win the governorship.

That's what made me go and do all of these great movies and be able to reach out and do a kind of give something back to the community and all of this stuff and have the interest in doing, for instance, the pump app and to do all this, to give something back and to really inspire people.

if I have been inspired by so many people, that's why I always say I'm not a self-made man, that I am a creation by all of those people I just mentioned and so many others, I said, then I have the responsibility to make, to inspire other people.

And we all have to do that.

You know, like you guys, you have your podcast, a fantastic podcast that everyone knows internationally.

And so, but you have to, with that comes responsibility, right?

The bigger your podcast gets, the bigger the responsibility, because you got to go always and pump people up.

You have to entertain them, obviously, which is, of course, why people tune in, because you guys are really fucking funny.

You know, and you make me laugh when I hear you, and you make everyone else laugh.

And so, but you have the responsibility to encourage people, to pump them up, and to go and give something back, and to be useful, and all of that stuff at the same time.

That's our responsibility.

We got turned on by somebody to sit here today, and now we have to do the same thing to pump other people up up and say, you can do it too.

You got me fired the fuck up.

I know, I know.

I'm going to go fucking bench 315.

Yeah.

Shit.

I'm ready to go, dude.

You really are.

You really are fucking awesome.

Well, thank you.

Like,

in the halfway through, I was, I almost go, will you be our mentor?

Well, it's funny because it's so true that, and it's funny that it goes back to physique because I think, you know,

you alluded to it earlier about being young men.

But like, when you're a

kid growing up and you honestly see your physique first,

it kind of looks like make-believe.

It's kind of like a cartoon.

You know, it's like a drawing.

You're like, is this a real fucking guy?

You're shoulder.

And I mean, all of it.

And so you just kind of go, like, I remember the first, the first, I have such a vivid memory.

I did a father-son trip when I was nine years old.

His father was a power, a competitive power.

He was an Olympic lifter.

Olympic liter.

Olympic lifter.

He was a three-time state champion Olympic lifter oh wow so weight the wind talk about olympic lifting oh yeah olympic lifting was yeah he doesn't like you know if you go before ozempic he was really strong

you know actually i didn't ever do he did ozempic when he was pre-diabetic but when i

when uh the the person who helped me lose uh weight recently was phil goglia the you know the mr he was mr california was and and he changed my diet and workout routine.

He was absolutely, he was fantastic with it.

But he,

what I was going to was when I did did a father-son trip, I was nine years old, and I still remember we were in a hotel.

I think we were in Orlando, and he goes, it was just me and him.

He goes, don't tell your mother, but I'm going to let you watch a Rated R movie tonight.

And I was like, oh, great.

This was in the hotel.

And he puts on Predator.

And so I'm nine years old, and I have never seen a Rated R movie.

And I was like, this is the shit.

He was like, do not tell your mom.

And I see you in that, but you become like,

you know, that's who I, basically kind kind of learning who you are.

But then we just follow you first, like I said, physically, you're just like, is this a realistic, attainable thing?

And you realize, probably not.

But all the things that you've done become inspiring.

And I do think it is kind of like, of course, anybody can choose to.

But I think as a young man,

you follow a great man and you go, this is an inspiration first physically and then through all your philanthropy and then your great career.

So it's just a huge inspiration

who you are, you know,

yourself.

Thank you.

So, let me ask you about your father.

Yeah.

How old is he now?

He died.

How old was he?

He died at 74 a couple years ago.

So, he must have lived during the Bob Hoffman era, right?

Bob Hoffman was kind of the

Joe Weeder of weightlifting.

So, there was Joe Weeder in bodybuilding, and then there was Bob Hoffman from York, Pennsylvania.

So, all the original Barbell blades said York, kind of York on it.

And so they come from Bob Hoffman.

So he was like the guy, because I remember that he was like the king of the weightlifting kind of thing.

All the weightlifting stuff all had York on it in the old days.

Yeah, he was really into the Olympic stuff.

So

he started competition at 14 and was the

Kentucky state champion.

Yeah, so he must have known all of those guys, John Grimmick and all those guys that were the editors of Health and Strength and the muscle magazines that they had back there in New York for the weightlifters.

Yeah, it was an interesting period.

I studied all of that

because there was this war between Hoffman and Joe Wheeler way back between bodybuilding and weightlifting, and one was supposed to be legitimate, the weightlifting and bodybuilding was not.

And then they tried to get bodybuilding into the Olympics and, you know, and to become an official sport, which then in 1970 were able to do that.

Then bodybuilding became an official sport.

So it was always this competition going on.

But

it was interesting in the old days.

Yeah, yeah.

He was, I mean, he loved weightlifting.

That's good.

It was a big part of our growing up.

Will you tell him about Milton Burrell?

When we were working out, you've had so many great stories about Milton Burrell.

Oh, yeah, yeah, Milton Burnt Burrell.

And I would just love for you to share them.

You know Milton Burrell.

Of course, of course.

Yeah, exactly.

So Milton Burrell, by total coincidence,

there was an organization called Share.

And

it was Hollywood women

that had husbands that were powerful.

So that the women were powerful because of that.

But they were wives of like Sammy Davis Jr., wife of Dean Martin, the wife of Johnny Carson, the wife of Milton Burrell, the wife of so-and-so, and all this kind of like mishmash of different people.

And so my then-girlfriend, then future, became my wife, Maria, she was kind of like hanging out with all these girls because she belonged to Cher.

She was part of it.

And so Maria, when we had our engagement party,

she

said,

I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to have Ruthie come also.

I say, you mean Milton Burrell's wife?

Yeah.

And then so, but we did not know the idea if this meant also Milton Burrell.

So, sure enough, Milton Burrell came also, and he did a little stand-up routine.

I remember it so well because I was like appalled, you know, because you don't know, if you don't know really humor and comedy, and what are the rules and all that stuff, I had no idea, right?

So, I mean, I was like sitting there these days.

He says, Oh, it's so great to have you know, Ruth City.

I look at my beautiful wife here.

I mean, last time I saw lips like that, it had a hook through it, you know.

And I mean, I said this, oh my God,

Oh, my God.

Did he just say this about his wife?

And she just casually looked over to Maria and she says, oh, I hear this shit every day.

I said, Jesus.

It was like the beating, it was like unbelievable.

He said, look at Schwarzenegger, he had bigger tits than his girlfriend.

And all this kind of stuff.

It was like relentless

stuff, right?

And so, anyway, so Milton and I became very good friends.

And he says, you know, something, let me tell you something.

He says, you're a great actor.

He says, but I want to teach you about comedy.

And

because

as you grow in your profession, you will be asked to speak.

And there's no speech without starting out with a joke.

And you've got to be ready for it, no matter what the occasion is.

And so he was kind of like teaching me all of this stuff.

And I said, and I didn't quite get it yet, what he was talking about.

But then as time went on, he was telling me, I said, look, he says,

he says, you asked me to go and give you something about the speech that you're doing in Vegas, you're getting an award.

And he says,

so here it is.

And he was telling me this thing.

He says,

it was really fantastic.

Thank you so much.

I said, you know, being a bodybuilder.

And having been around the movie business, you get, of course, a lot of trophies and a lot of medals and awards.

But this one is without any doubt the most

recent.

And

so then he says, okay, say the joke.

And then I will be going and says, okay, and this is the most recent.

He says, fucking stupid Nazi.

I mean, what the fuck is the matter with you?

What did I say?

Did you see my pass?

I say, you have to look at it and you say, you know, I've gotten a lot of medals,

but this, without any doubt, is the most.

You have to kind of get emotional.

Yeah.

And give that moment.

And people go, oh, isn't that nice?

And then you say, recent.

I said, and then you throw out the recent.

I said, you don't go and say recent right away.

You have to have the timing.

I say, so don't be stupid now.

Listen to me carefully.

And so he was always like kind of like screaming at everything like this.

So this is how I kind of like learned from him.

That's a great lesson.

How to kind of do comedy and how important it is to do the timing and all of that stuff.

You know, and then I said, well, I said,

like, you know, they may call you down

to give a speech at

some medical convention.

And I said, no, I will never do that.

I said, I've known nothing about that.

And he says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

He says, he says, what's wrong with just starting out and just saying?

He says, hey, what a coincidence it is.

I had a physical this morning.

I went in there.

The doctor says, okay, take off your clothes.

And I said, okay, where should I put it?

And he says, right there in the corner where mine is.

And he says, that gets people laughing.

He says, now you win them over.

Then you go and say, you know, something is really funny.

I am getting asked all the time all these stupid questions about, you know, how is your blood pressure, how is this, how is that?

And one of them

the other day was also,

how is your stool?

And I said, the doctor said, stool is fine.

He says,

I have to go every morning at six.

And he says, well, that's great.

And I said, it's easy for you to say.

I said, I don't wake up until seven.

So he says, you see, he said, now we are talking.

He said, you get people to laugh and you win them over.

He says, you maybe follow up.

And he says, you know, that's the stupid thing.

First thing is, it's always the same thing.

He said, you did a blood sample, a urine sample,

and a stool sample.

So I just tell him, I said, take my underwear.

So he says, you see, I just gave you three jokes for the medical thing.

And this is how it goes with everything.

You know, if a guy gets divorced or something like that, you just say, well, my problem started already.

My wife said to me, I'd like to have sex in the backseat of the car.

And then he said,

I said, me too.

And he says, no, no, I want you to do the driving.

You know, so shit like that.

So he showed me basically, kind of like for every category, if you go to a promise convention, here's a joke.

If you go to this convention, here's a joke.

If you go to do this for politicians, here's a joke.

So this is what he was trying to do.

He's trying to teach me how to have a certain sense of humor and how to use the jokes and how important it is to do the timing and all of that stuff.

And he hung out with me all the time.

He, of course, was a big cigar smoker.

So we smoked cigars at Cafe Roma in Beverly Hills.

He always would come by, or I would go over to his house and smoke.

Or he comes over to my house and smoked.

Then he would come to the set.

I remember when I was doing like

twins or kindergarten cop, he would come to the set as the inspector general, kind of to check out if I'm doing okay with the humor, otherwise he has to kick my ass.

You know, he would come, Ivan Reidman was directing,

right?

And so he would come to the set and he would say, How is the kid doing?

And then I was, he's doing okay.

He says, okay, good.

And he says,

you know, in those days he was smoking right there in the classroom

in the movie.

Kindergarten.

And with all the kids around.

He says, okay, good.

He says, okay, director said you're doing well.

Okay, keep on working.

You know, and he would just,

he would do this whole routine, like coming to the set to check me out to see if I can do my comedy and

a comedic movie, you know.

So we had a wonderful routine.

And even,

you know,

they wanted me to,

or maybe he wrote it in his will, I don't know.

But someone, they said

Mildy wants you to do the

eulogy.

So

I said, okay.

So I went out there and I said, myself, in a Milton Burl eulogy, well you're gonna say you're gonna be funny, right?

Yeah.

So maybe it was a little bit over the top.

I have to admit it.

I said, son of a bitch.

I said, I just closed the casket.

I said, that took us fucking 15 minutes because he still had a big boner.

You know, he was always known for his long schmanz, right?

And so, you know, he was always saying, people always say I have a long schmanns.

He says, but, you know, this is all bullshit.

Well, the kitchen help is jerking me off right now.

You know, and he always has things like that.

So, of course, I did that joke.

Oh, we put the we put the casket, the top of the casket.

I was really hard, I said, because he had still had a powder.

And people were laughing.

You worked with, like, you mentioned Ivan Wright, but you worked with like a lot of great directors.

Do you have favorites that you just love to do?

No, because it depends what the movie is, but that can tell you one thing.

Yeah.

That the director is the answer.

Don't ever think that you can pull off a movie without a really great director.

I've had shitty directors, then the movie came out shitty and it went in the toilet.

And then the same actor, me,

was doing a movie with

a great director, like Jim Cameron.

or Paul Beerhoven or Ivan Reidman.

All of those movies

went through the roof.

I mean, because, not because of me necessarily, but it was them understanding me and figuring out what I can do well, and they had me do it that way.

And so, I really thank the world of great directors, and of course, what is not on the page is not on the stage, right?

I mean, it's like you got to have it on a page, you got to have a good script, and

with a good script and a good director,

you're pretty much home free.

God,

you know, you're

you're just.

I mean, I feel like I could talk to you for an hour, another hour, and I know you have stuff to do, but you're just so like, I'm like dying to one day to get the call and go, Bert, you and Tom want to have a cigar with me?

And we're just out there smoking.

What does your cigar regimen look like these days?

When's your first cigar?

I smoke

one a day.

Just one?

Just one a day.

Yeah, exactly.

And sometimes, I sometimes, no, I sometimes start after lunch with one, just smoke a half one, and then finish it off at night.

Um

or sometimes just smoke one uh right after lunch or smoke one just at night.

I mean it it really depends, but I would say most of the cases it is kind of like once a day and sometimes none actually.

You know, if I fly or if I travel around or if I'm inside, I never smoke when I'm inside, so sometimes it just doesn't you know, it the thing is when you're used to smoking and having a great time smoking a cigar, you don't want to spoil it with just smoking it anywhere.

You know, I d there's certain moments where you feel like this is what I need to smoke a great cigar.

Yeah.

You know, I gotta go like I love, for instance, when I go into a a new town

and

I light up a cigar in a car and tell the guy to drive me around for half an hour and show me the town.

You know, just have just have the window open and to just look at the city and just to smoke it stogie.

And hopefully you have a buddy in there with you that also smokes one, so then you have a good time.

But I love smoking over at my house.

We have a fireplace outside and um favorite beverage with a cigar?

Signing.

Do you have a favorite beverage with a cigar?

No, no.

No, it could be coffee.

Yeah.

It could be water.

It could be anything.

Do you drink?

It could be prune juice.

Do you drink much?

I don't drink much, no.

I think that like the first time I have had a glass of wine in a long time was just on Saturday when I had a Christmas party and

it was gluewein.

Do you know what is gluewein?

Gluewein is like hot wine with cinnamon in it.

Oh, I think and so there's an Austrian kind of a thing that like street chalets.

That's right, yeah.

Yeah, I've had it in Austria.

And so

it fools you because it's hot and because it's cinnamon in it, it doesn't taste like wine wine, right?

It just tastes extra kind of like almost almost like a dessert drink, and so you drink more.

Oh man,

I got a nice buzz from that one.

I needed a stogic just for that one to stay awake.

That was wild.

So that was really good.

But I very rarely, just this much wine or this much schnapps or something like that.

In the old days, we would start playing pool, and after every pool game, we would have a Stumbled Schnapps.

So after 10 games, there were 10 Stampel Schnapps, right?

And the loser would always pay.

But I mean, eventually I got to the point where I just, after my heart surgery and stuff like that, I couldn't really handle the alcohol anymore that much.

So now I do it in moderation.

Yeah.

Do you think about death at all?

About what?

Death?

I try not to

because I mean it sucks, right?

Yeah.

I think about it every morning.

Oh, you do?

He's obsessed with death.

Yeah, yeah, no, but I understand it.

Because the funny thing about it is that I think that the better off we are and the more fun you have in life,

the more pissed off you get that eventually this is going to be taken from you.

And of course we don't know that it has been taken from you because it's over.

But I mean, that also pisses me off.

So everything pisses me off about the whole thing.

I mean, there's just nothing good about it.

I feel like I'm the luckiest guy in the world and then I that death will be the one unlucky thing.

I know.

I know.

It sucks.

It's like

who who was uh ask me uh to Ketchel about uh

what is what did I think about

how oh it is how it's turned

how it's turned.

He asked me, he said, Governor.

Like, I suppose being governor that makes you an expert in death.

He says, Tell me, what happens to us when we die?

I say I said, The only thing I can come up with is is we go six feet out and we rat.

And

he said, oh, my God, what a welcome to Los Angeles.

He was doing his show up in L.A.

I said, it's the only thing that I know.

Well, I mean,

I will simply say

your docuseries on Netflix is outrageous.

It's so good.

It is really great.

Your book is phenomenal.

I can't reiterate this enough.

Especially if you have a young boy, and I'm just coming from my perspective.

If you have an 18-year-old boy, you buy him this book.

It is so good.

And if you are looking to get in shape this New Year's coming up, get the pump.

The pump is awesome, and the schmooze is you.

You are writing the schmooze.

It is very personal.

And the comment section is wildly positive.

It is just people pumping each other up.

Yeah, that daily newsletter, too, has so much information, has different perspective on what's going on in the country, fitness, everything.

It's all great information, man.

And

you said when you were a child that you

never felt Austrian.

You felt like you were American.

You felt like you belonged here.

And I will just simply say, like,

as an American kid, you are like my favorite American.

Yeah, well, thank you.

You're an American hero now.

Yeah, you're an American hero.

Well, I really, you're so right about this because I always, as soon as I saw documentaries about America, I said to myself, man, I belong over there.

I mean, the skyscrapers and New York, the Golden Gate Bridge, the highways in California, you know, the beaches and the whole thing, Hollywood.

I said, you know, maybe my mother had something going with an American soldier.

I literally checked into it.

I said, Mr.

There's something of why I feel like I belong there and not here.

And it just somehow didn't pencil out because the Americans never were down in Graz.

It was the British soldiers that were in Graz, but not the Americans.

Thank God you didn't go there.

We're glad you're here, man.

Hey, but I tell you,

it was the most wonderful thing to eventually come over here with the age of 21

and to have someone like Joe Weider that was generous enough to bring me over here and to set me up with an apartment and with a car when I came out here to Los Angeles and to be able to train on Muscle Beach and to see Hollywood and to be in a mecca of bodybuilding, in a mecca of show business.

I mean, it was like unbelievable.

It was like, I was so happy.

So, it was,

I tell you, I would not switch my life with anyone's.

That's all I can tell you.

No, I always say no one should cry at my funeral because I have done it.

Like, I have done it.

But when I look at your life, I'm like, Jesus, I still have work to do.

Yeah.

So, you don't want anyone to cry at your funeral?

No, I want everyone to cry.

Really?

I don't want to cry.

Yeah, and I'm going to people to suffer.

How do we not go move forward without Schnitzel?

This is impossible.

How are we going to to move forward without Schnitzel?

He said

he would be okay with the world ending at his athletes.

Exactly.

And funny.

It's funny.

Arnold, thank you so much.

Thank you for watching.

I'm a solo heart.

Thank you so much.

No, it's always great.

I mean, we should do this on a regular basis.

It works great.

Get that down.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's get that down.

It was great to see you.

Thanks for spending time with it.

Good luck with the 315 bench press.

315.

You would do it.

I will do it.

Well, you would do it.

I would wish you could be there.

If I was trying to organize it here at Gold's and get the boys out here, but I.

Yeah, let's organize it.

I'll see if I can.

All right.

Just wanted to show you.

He's got good heart.

My father will be proud of you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You could bicep like that.

Yeah, come on.

I mean, look at this.

You ready for this?

This is the size your arm was when you were 16.

I went through your measurements.

Your arm at its big is 22 inches.

This is 17 and a half.

Chest, right now, you are five inches bigger than me at your biggest.

Your waist and my waist, nine inches different.

Well,

also, you have twins coming in

in the new year.

So that's exciting.

Below the belt.

I mean, what kind of a partner is that?

That's unbelievable.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Bert and Tom, Tom and Bert.

One goes topless while the other wears a shirt.

Tom tells stories and Bert's the machine.

There's not a chance in hell that they'll keep it clean.

Here's what we call two bears, one cave.