Arnold Schwarzenegger

In 1969, Schwarzenegger met Barbara Outland Baker, an English teacher he lived with until 1974. Schwarzenegger talked about Barbara in his memoir in 1977: "Basically it came down to this: she was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man, and hated the very idea ordinary life." Baker has described Schwarzenegger as "a joyful personality, totally charismatic, adventurous, and athletic" but claims towards the end the relationship he became "insufferable – classically conceited – the world revolved around him". Baker published her memoir in 2006, entitled Arnold and Me: In the Shadow the Austrian Oak. Although Baker, at times, painted an unflattering portrait her former lover, Schwarzenegger actually contributed to the tell-all book with a foreword, and also met with Baker for three hours. Baker claims, for example, that she only learned his being unfaithful after they split, and talks a turbulent and passionate love life. Schwarzenegger has made it clear that their respective recollection events can differ. The couple first met six to eight months after his arrival in the U.S. – their first date was watching the first Apollo Moon landing on television. They shared an apartment in Santa Monica for three and a half years, and having little money, would visit the beach all day, or have barbecues in the back yard. Although Baker claims that when she first met him, he had "little understanding polite society" and she found him a turn-f, she says, "He's as much a self-made man as it's possible to be –he never got encouragement from his parents, his family, his brother. He just had this huge determination to prove himself, and that was very attractive ... I'll go to my grave knowing Arnold loved me."
Schwarzenegger met his next love, Sue Moray, a Beverly Hills hairdresser's assistant, on Venice Beach in July 1977. According to Moray, the couple led an open relationship: "We were faithful when we were both in LA ... but when he was out town, we were free to do whatever we wanted." Schwarzenegger met Maria Shriver at the Robert F. Kennedy Tennis Tournament in August 1977, and went on to have a relationship with both women until August 1978, when Moray (who knew his relationship with Shriver) issued an ultimatum.
Schwarzenegger has said his big dream from the age 10 was to move to the U.S. He questioned what he was doing "on the farm" in Austria, and believed bodybuilding was his "ticket to America": "I'm sure I can go to America if I win Mr. Universe." LA Weekly said in 2002 that Schwarzenegger is the most famous immigrant in America, who "overcame a thick Austrian accent and transcended the unlikely background bodybuilding to become the biggest movie star in the world in the 1990s".