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| Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian-American bodybuilder, actor, businessman, and politician, currently serving as the 38th Governor of the state of California. |
| Location | http://www.schwarzenegger.com/ |
| Biography | Schwarzenegger gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action film icon. He was nicknamed "The Austrian Oak" and "The Styrian Oak" in his bodybuilding days, "Arnold Strong" and "Arnie" during his acting career, and more recently "The Governator" (a portmanteau of Governor and The Terminator, one of his film roles).
Schwarzenegger is married to Maria Shriver and has four children. |
| As a Republican, he was first elected on October 7, 2003, in a special recall election to replace then-Governor Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger was sworn in on November 17, 2003, to serve the remainder of Davis's term. Schwarzenegger was then re-elected on November 7, 2006, in California's 2006 gubernatorial election, to serve a full term as governor, defeating Democrat Phil Angelides, who was California State Treasurer at the time. Schwarzenegger was sworn in for a second term on January 5, 2007. In May 2004 and 2007, he was named as one of the Time 100 people who help shape the world. |
| Arnold Schwarzenegger was a founding celebrity investor in the Planet Hollywood chain of international theme restaurants (modeled after the Hard Rock Cafe) along with Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, and Demi Moore. Schwarzenegger severed his financial ties with the business in early 2000. Schwarzenegger said the company had not had the success he had hoped for, claiming he wanted to focus his attention on "new US global business ventures" and his movie career. |
| Schwarzenegger's net worth has been conservatively estimated at USD $100 – $200 million. Over the years, he invested his bodybuilding and movie earnings in an array of stocks, bonds, privately controlled companies, and real estate holdings in the U.S. and worldwide, so his fortune is sometimes estimated anywhere in between $900 million $1 billion USD. In June 1997 Schwarzenegger spent $38 million of his own money on a private Gulfstream Jet. Schwarzenegger once said of his fortune, "Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million, but I was just as happy when I had $48 million." "I've made many millions as a businessman many times over." |
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