SUPERSTAR'S PAST MAY GIVE AMMO TO ENEMIES AND SMEAR-SEEKERS
By TODD VENEZIA
August 8, 2003 -- The husband of a Kennedy. The son of a Nazi. A dad of four who's been accused of groping other women.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's family life has been as intriguing as his movie career and his days as the world's greatest muscleman.
But some stories from his past could cause him trouble in a hard-fought political battle.
The Terminator was born in Thal, Austria, a small village near Graz, on July 30, 1947, the son of Gustav Schwarzenegger, a policeman who hoped his boy would take up soccer instead of bodybuilding and even limited the amount of time he worked out.
Schwarzenegger has said his dad always told him he could rise to greatness - yet he was no role model.
"My father was one of the people I never wanted to be," he told People magazine. "You know, just working for the government, then retiring."
His late father also was a member of the Nazi Party.
Gustav joined after Germany took over Austria in 1938. He has never been linked to any atrocities, and he returned to ordinary police work for years before his death in 1972.
Opponents hungry to batter the big-screen strongman with this information may cause little damage, mostly because Schwarzenegger himself reportedly commissioned the probe by the Simon Wiesenthal Center that revealed his dad's past - and because the actor has given generously to Jewish groups over the years.
What may cause more damage is Schwarzenegger's relationship to Kurt Waldheim, the former Austrian leader with a Nazi past. The actor reportedly invited Waldheim to his 1986 wedding to wife Maria Shriver, but that was before Waldheim's past was generally known. He was spotted, however, in 1998 sitting with Waldheim at a political event in Austria.
Schwarzenegger's support in the Jewish community remains solid.
"To suggest that Arnold's an anti-Semite is preposterous," Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal center dean said recently.
Schwarzenegger came to America at age 21 and met journalist Shriver at a celebrity tennis tournament nine years later. Shriver is the daughter of former Peace Corps head Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister to JFK and RFK.
Schwarzenegger was a rock-ribbed Republican even then, but he was accepted by the nation's foremost Democrats because of his strong personality and his status as a self-made millionaire.
He even inspired John F. Kennedy Jr. to take up weightlifting.
The pair have four children: Katherine, born in 1989, Christina, born in 1991, Patrick, born in 1993, and Christopher, born in 1997.
Though their marriage has lasted an eternity by Hollywood standards, Schwarzenegger has faced accusations of philandering.
In 2000, Schwarzenegger was accused of groping several female TV hosts in London. One, Anna Richardson, said he pulled her onto his knee and fondled her breasts after saying, "I really want to know if your breasts are real."
Schwarzenegger, who has denied the charges, dropped out of the California governor's race in 2001, a day after he learned The National Enquirer was going to run a story about an alleged affair with a former child star who was 16 when they first met.
Again, he denied the charges.
As he announced his new candidacy, he acknowledged that the allegations were likely to resurface.
"I know they're going to throw everything at me . . . that I'm a womanizer, that I'm a terrible guy," he said. "All these things are going to come my way."
LMFAO!!
