Schwarzenegger with Paul Graham in Sydney in 1974. Picture: Muscle and Fitness Magazine/thearnoldcollection.com
[h=3]Schwarzenegger goes undercover at Gold's Gym[/h]
[*=left]Matching muscles: Arnold Schwarzenegger ...
[*=left]Schwarzenegger goes undercover at Gold's...
- Paul Graham and Arnie met at a gym in LA in late Sixties
- Schwarzenegger had started working out at 14
- Visited Australia and stayed in Graham’s spare room
- Graham won three South Pacific and two Mr Universe titles
- Arnie was best man at Graham’s wedding to wife Carole
PAUL Graham, a lump of Australian granite famous as a wrestler in the US, had finished another vein-popping workout at the muscle factory known as Vinces’ Gym in Studio City, next to Hollywood California, when he met a 20-year-old who stopped him in his tracks.
It was 1968 but Graham, who at 75 still lifts weights daily, remembers it like his last benchpress.
“He had determination, you could recognise it instantly,” Graham said of meeting the young Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Sydneysider Graham would go on to become the man who sculpted Schwarzenegger.
Paul Graham, who still works out, pictured at his Woollahra home which is adorned with pictures of his good friend Arnold Schwarzenegger. Picture: Toby Zerna
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“Vince Gironda introduced me and said: ‘Hey Aussie, come over and meet your countryman. I’m from Australia and he’s from Austria. It’s a line that they’re using today in an advertisement.
“He was only a young man. He couldn’t speak much English and he had just got his driver’s licence and was still a bit shaky on the road. (Legendary promoter) Joe Weider had just brought him to the US from Austria because he was an up-and-coming bodybuilder, who had started training at 14.
“We became good friends from that meeting, I was nine years older. Arnold had an apartment there and I had a car. Arnold said ‘Come and share my apartment, you can show me all about America, I am a bit lost. We can work out together’.
From their initial meeting at Vince’s Gym in LA, Schwarzenegger and Graham formed a friendship that has lasted for 46 years now.
“I became like a big brother or second father to him. I helped in the first stages of his career.’
For three years they lived out of each other’s pockets: “We’d train at Vinces, then we’d have lunch, in the afternoon have a rest and then we’d drive from Studio City to Santa Monica. There was a gym there called Gold’s gym.”
“I became an adviser and was part of the Arnia (Arnie’s Mafia) or the Rat Pack.”
Movie break: Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian.
Schwarzenegger’s signature role in The Terminator.
The rest is history: Schwarzenegger becomes the most famous bodybuilder in the world, immortalised in the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron. Next comes movie success beginning with the (light on dialogue) lead role in 1982’s Conan the Barbarian before James Cameron’s Terminator franchise, beginning two years later and is still going strong.
Schwarzenegger, a Republican, marries Maria Shriver, a Kennedy of the Democrat political dynasty before being elected Governor of California in 2003.
Schwarzenegger and Graham outisde Paul's Gym at Roseberry, which was little more than a tin shed when the pair trained there together in the ’70s. Schwarzenegger would stay in a spare room with Graham in Mascot. Picture: Muscle and Fitness Magazine/ thearnoldcollection.com
And so a 46-year friendship began. In that time Graham would win Mr South Pacific three times, Mr Universe twice and Australia’s Most Muscular Man. He helped his mate Arnie prepare for five successful Mr Olympia titles, the last won by Schwarzenegger in Sydney in 1980, a controversial event brought to Australia by Graham in a new phase as promoter.
So strong was their friendship that when Graham returned to Australia in 1971, Schwarzenegger would doss in a spare room at his home in Mascot and use the old-school home gym about the back.
Graham greets Schwarzenegger at Sydney Airport ahead of the the 1980 Mr Olympia contest that Graham promoted at the Opera House. Picture: Muscle and Fitness Magazine/ thearnoldcollection.com
Paul Graham oversees Schwarzenegger training at Graham's Bondi Gym for Mr Olympia in 1980. Picture: Muscle and Fitness Magazine
Graham recalls it was little more than a tin shed and that weightlifting was very much a niche sport not accepted by the general public.
‘When we first started competing, people thought you were a bit strange, you’re either gay or you loved yourselves,”Graham said.
“Competitions were very small. Arnold made many visits to Australia.”
Visionary rugby league coach Jack Gibson would sneak his players to Graham’s gym for lifting sessions at a time when it was not part of the training regimen.
Schwarzenegger packs down a scrum with League legends Arthur Beetson, Elwyn Walters and Laurie Fryer. Rugby league super coach Jack Gibson looks on. Picture: Muscle and Fitness Magazine/ thearnoldcollection.com
Arthur Beetson, George Piggins, Ron Coote and Bob McCarthy would all pump iron in that tin shed out the back.
Schwarzenegger was best man at Graham and wife Carole’s wedding in Brighton-le-Sands in Sydney in 1981. Paul and Carole Graham were later special guests at Schwarzenegger’s wedding to Shriver at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port.
“Arnold’s got a very good heart and he’s a terrific fellow to his friends.”
Schwarzenegger performed the best man duties at Paul Graham’s wedding to Carole at Brighton-le-Sands in Sydney in 1981.
Paul and Carole Graham are special guests at Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s 1986 wedding at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
Carole Graham with Schwarzenegger in 1979. Picture: Muscle and Fitness Magazine
Paul and Carole Graham today at home. Picture: Toby Zerna
Schwarzenegger has admitted to steroid use in the past, but Graham’s philosophy is clear: “I’m 75 and I train every day. I’ve never stopped lifting. Forget performance enhancing drugs. Lifting is the secret of making you younger.”
Graham, with impossibly large “guns” for a 75-year-old, is still active in the bodybuilding community, will host his old mate Schwarzenegger at the Arnold Classic Australia, a body building tournament to be held in Melbourne in March next year.
As well as pumping iron daily, Graham is one of longest serving executives in the International Federation of Body Building. He has held the position of IFBB vice-president for more than 25 years and promoted the recent event in Sydney.
Graham is also president of the National Physique and Fitness Committee of Australia, which is the only federation recognised by the IFBB for Australia.
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