Arnold is 60 years old.
I don’t think there’s anyone else whose photos hung in so many Soviet teenagers’ rooms. His poster was on the wall of every basement gym. First you had to put up his poster, and only then go looking for some homemade bench press setup. His book, The Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, was so well-thumbed I practically read it to pieces. In between sets, gulping down disgusting-tasting “protein,” we would admit that sure, there was some Dorian Yates or Sergio Oliva. Maybe in some ways they surpassed Arnold. Sure, Lou Ferrigno had bigger biceps. But he was still the “handsome one.” Number one. Arnold is Arnold. Before all those gyms, millions of Soviet kids had one dream: to wrangle an invitation to the home of someone who had a VCR bought with special hard-currency vouchers (“checks,” used in the USSR) and WATCH THE TERMINATOR. I didn’t see it myself until 1991. But long before that, of course, I already knew all the coolest moments by heart. People retold them like a legend: **So she opens the door and says, “Yes?” And he goes, “Sarah Connor?” And she says, all scared, “Yes.” Then he pulls a gun out from under his jacket, blasts the hell out of the chain lock, and BANG. BANG. BANG. And the gun has this little red dot that appears before he shoots. It’s a laser sight. **And Terminator 2?! Has there ever been anything cooler in the history of cinema than that moment when he’s walking along with a box of roses, then pulls a shotgun out of it, then there’s that close-up of a military boot stepping on a rose, and then boom, boom!!! And the elevator exit??!! The part where Sarah Connor, all tough and badass, escaping from the psychiatric hospital, sees him and just collapses, gasping for air. And he says to her, “Come with me if you wanna live.” To hell with Citizen Kane. Only The Terminator. The premiere of the third Terminator was in Moscow at the Pushkinsky cinema. Of course I went to the premiere itself. When the credit Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared, the whole theater applauded.
I’ve always been his fan. In every single schoolyard argument about who was cooler—Arnold, Rambo, or Bruce Lee—I was always, always on his side. Always. Even when deep down I understood that Bruce Lee probably could have taken him. Today is a great man’s birthday.
People