True Myths - Softcover

Nigel Andrews

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747573689 ISBN 13: 9780747573685

Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2003

Synopsis

He arrived in California with $20 in his pocket; now he's governor of the state. But who is Arnold Schwarzenegger? A superachiever, rising from a steroid-enhanced bodybuilder into a global star and the highest-paid actor in Hollywood? Or a Teutonic terminator, sent from Austria to America to kick Democratic butt? Nigel Andrews unearths Arnold's riveting story from his strict Germanic upbringing through the worlds of bodybuilding and movies to his metamorphosis from muscle-bound star to political powerhouse. Andrews illuminates the myth-making power of Arnold's own ambitions and follows his strange career all the way up through the stage-managed but scandal-assailed campaign and dramatic recall election to his eventual triumph.

About this title

About the Author:

Nigel Andrews is the film critic of the Financial Times and the author of True Myths: The Life and Times of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Birch Lane Press, 1996. After graduating from Cambridge University he worked at the British Film Institute as an editor on the Cinema One book series and was a frequent writer for Sight and Sound and the Monthly Film Bulletin. He has also broadcast regularly for BBC Radio, writing and presenting programmes on the arts and cinema. In 1985 he was named Critic of the Year in the British Press Awards.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Somewhere between the simple truth and the possible souping-up... lies the wonderful zone of the True Myth," writes British film critic Andrews in his unauthorized biography of iconic superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger. As a hardbody, actor, businessperson, restaurateur, Republican and Kennedy-by-marriage, "Arnold," as Andrews calls him throughout, seems a perfect subject to deconstruct in this vein. Andrews, an admitted Arnold fan, attempts to explore notions of fame and ambition by tracing the life of the man who rose from rural Austria to become a hulking, prizewinning bodybuilder, then a powerful figure in American entertainment and politics. Focusing on discrepancies in versions of well-known Arnold anecdotes, Andrews suggests that the actor is the malevolent maker of his own myth. It's hardly a shocking idea in the world of Hollywood PR machinery, and the author's lack of firsthand access to the star rarely makes these accusations ring true, or even interesting. Elsewhere, Andrews relies on previous bios to psychoanalyze Arnold's bodybuilding fixations and his relationship to his stern father. As he chronicles Arnold's weightlifting competitions, film work and marriage, Andrews rarely gets under the surface of his subject. Goofy chapter titles such as "Conan the Workaholic" and "Arnold Cybernegger" do little to crack the surface of his monolithic subject, either. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0747573689
• ISBN 13: 9780747573685
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288