Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

 

Politics Media Law Society


The rotten fruit issue ... Corruption busters busted for bias, concealment, and conflicts … Mistress of the office couch more damaged than the rape victim … Next round for Linda Reynolds … Reputation damaged by former attorney general … Miranda Devine smooches Trump ... Read on >> 

What's Going to Happen to the Tots

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

From the cutting room floor...Handsy Heydon goes to Perth ... Celebrity tour ... Conferenceville ... Dicey's job application speech from 2002 ... Other High Court judges mocked as "vegetables" ... Mason CJ ridiculed ... Speech bowdlerised for public consumption ... Courage of conviction MIA ... From our National Affairs Correspondent ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


Pinning the tail on the jellyfish ... Auditor General to probe the shifting expenditure on Federal Court legal services ... AFR ... More >>

Justinian's Bloggers

Letter from London ... Weather report ... Starmer sinking ... Farage rising ... Fake law firm ... Fake cases ...  NHS employee cleans up with woke case for hurt feelings ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"And I want to just thank everybody and in particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God, and we love our great military, protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you." 

Donald Trump at the White House announcing the bombing of Iran ... June 21, 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Holding onto Hope ... Gina Rinehart's Bleak House ... Seeking chunks of the huge iron ore pit, Hope Downs ... Tracing the tangled Wright, Hancock, Rinehart litigation ... Allegations of fraud against the family trust ...Manoeuvring ... Tax "advice" ... Shifting vesting date ... Money, the root of unhappiness ... Anthony-James Kanaan reports ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

The High Court of Queensland ... Where to now for Bookshelves Brandis? ... Banana Benders in charge ... Eleven names scratched by CJ from Sunshine silks list ... Prosecutors dominate NSW Dizzo appointments ... Farewell to Equity Queen ... What life looked like nine years ago ... From Justinian's Archive, December 2, 2016 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« I Once Met ... Lord Denning | Main | I Once Met ... Margaret Thatcher »
Wednesday
Oct062021

I once met ... Arnold Schwarzenegger

Communications and branding guru and former ABC producer Julian Canny met Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1970s ... The briefest interview that ever made it to air ... Arnie at "optimum extension" ... Aunty's scratched footage 

Arnie - fully extended

"Mr Olympia is waiting for you," the PR operative said ushering us into a dressing room in the bowels of the Sydney Opera House. 

"I must warn you he doesn't have much English, so keep it simple."

It was the mid-1970s and we were a small TV crew shooting a story on bodybuilding for the 6.55pm time-slot before the ABC News. 

Once inside, we exchanged puzzled looks. There was an empty chair, but no sign of the magnificent torso we were there to interrogate. 

While the cameraman set up his lights, I became aware of a series of short sharp grunts emanating from behind a curtain at the back of the room. In the next instant, the curtain was drawn back to reveal the man himself, the full walnut, his bulging biceps glistening under the camera lights.

"Arnold Schwarzenegger, the reigning Mr Olympia," his handler announced with a flourish.

"How do you spell Schwarzenegger?" I asked filling out a talent release form to him to sign.

I cued the cameraman to roll. We were half way into the first question when a camera malfunction forced us to cut.

Schwarzenegger glared and retired behind the curtain again. When he didn't reappear after five minutes I started to worry.

"What's going on, we're ready to go" I said.

"He has to pump himself up again," the PR man explained. "He won't go on camera unless he's at an optimum extension."

A few minutes later, a fully inflated Arnold returned and we started again. 

Almost immediately the cameraman signalled he was still having problems. 

"Keep rolling," I signalled back, fearing that we would be picked up by King Kong and smashed against the wall if I again called "cut". 

Back at the studio, we reviewed the footage. The cameraman had been right. A deep scratch rendered 99 percent of the interview unusable. There was however a small segment of undamaged film we were able to put to air:

ABC: Are you afraid of anything?

Schwarzenegger: No.

It must be the shortest interview the future Governor of California ever recorded. 

 

I Once Met ... Bob Hawke
I Once Met ... Lionel Murphy
I Once Met ... Paul Keating 
I Once Met ... Margaret Thatcher 

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
You must have editing permission for this entry in order to post comments.