Always with a joke - Monty Python

After they had successfully entertained television viewers from all around the world in the late sixties and early seventies of past century, the group Monty Python started making full-length movies and publishing books.

Although their fans expect similar gags in their movies, hardly anyone expected from silly Britons to make pell-mell even in publishing venture.

For a book titled "The Brand New Monty Python Bok" (sequel to Monty Python's Big Red Book with striking blue cover), Terry Jones hired his sister-in-law Katharine Hepburn (accidentally with same name as the famous American actress) to assist them.

The cover was realistically made to look like it was greasy and filled with dirty fingerprints. It was made so realistic that many readers didn’t wanted to buy the book, asking for "newer" and more preserved copy.

However, there was also another thing - the cover could be peeled off and reveal hidden pictures of naked girls. 

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A Clockwork Orange - Stanley Kubrick and The Rolling Stones.

Before Stanley Kubrick (1928 –1999) got hold of "A Clockwork Orange", writer Anthony Burgess (1917 –1993) negotiated with Mick Jagger, who wanted to obtain film rights for the sum of a few hundred dollars.

Jagger wanted to make a film in which his "Rolling Stones" would play the heartless thugs in white.

Fortunately for Kubrick and film art history, Mick gave up on that idea and the role was given to Malcolm McDowell, who won great acclaim for his role as Alex DeLarge, a young sociopathic hoodlum brainwashed by a dystopian British government of the near future.

Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” was nominated for four Academy Awards and won numerous prestigious awards. 

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Gandalf smokes? I should do that too!

One recent study found that children who watch movies in which characters relentlessly consume cigarettes will more likely start smoking at young age. How to prevent this?

Teenagers who watch movies in which actors smoke have greater probability to start smoking by themselves. This has been proved with a recent study in the UK. The researchers came to this information by performing a research on 5000 fifteen-year-olds. They are now suggesting that this research should result with changes in the movie "classification", so that those who are below 18 are not exposed to scenes in which movie characters smoke.


Researchers from Bristol University say that there is a need for more precautions regarding this issue. But, members of anti-smoking campaigns claim that this is not proven to be true and that this whole conundrum is plain nonsense. They say that there is no evidence that what one sees in the cinema or on DVD affects on his decision whether to smoke or not.

The study addressed the potential impact of some of the 366 movies made in America between the 2001 and 2005, including movies like "Spiderman," "Bridget Jones" and "The Matrix", which all have scenes of smoking. Adolescents who have seen the majority of movies in which there are scenes of smoking have 73% more chances to try cigarettes by themselves than those who were less exposed to the influence of such movies. And 50% of them have probably already started smoking. 

Having in mind that the views on smoking are also greatly influenced by whether parents or counterparts are smoking, the researchers also collected data regarding even these types of information from adolescents. The results showed that those who do not have someone who smokes close by, are having 32% more chances of already consuming cigarettes than those who did not watch movies with the controversial scenes. 

“We saw a linear relationship between adolescent smoking and the number of films they had seen depicting smoking.” – says Dr Andrea Waylen, who led the research. “More than half of the films shown in the UK that contain smoking are rated UK15 or below, so children and young teenagers are clearly exposed.”

She adds that it is necessary to introduce a ban on smoking scenes in movies for children under 18 in Britain, and that such thing would reduce the rate of smoking among young people.

UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies sent a letter to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), seeking from them to ban such scenes in movies for kids below 18, in order to protect them from "particularly harmful imagery".

According to the rules that are used for the evaluation of the movies, both universal and those related to parental control, there is a list of potentially dangerous behaviors which young children are likely to copy. They include drug misuse but not cigarette smoking. 

David Cooke, director of the BBFC, said that smoking is a major public health issue and that they had consulted the public very extensively on it in 2005 and 2009.

“Clear expectation is that we should be vigilant, sensible and proportionate in how we deal with the issue. There is, however, no public support for automatically classifying, for instance, a PG film at 18 just because it happens to contain a scene of smoking.” - says Cooke.

Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest, said that idea that films need to be reclassified in order to create a utopian, smoke-free world for older children is not only patronising, but it is completely unnecessary.

“Today you would be hard-pressed to find a leading character who smokes in any top 10 box office movie. What next? Should government reclassify films that feature fat people as well in case they are bad role models? We go to the cinema to escape from the nanny state. The tobacco control industry should butt out and take its authoritarian agenda elsewhere.”

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Kiss – From cave to big screen.

Motherly, friendly, French, movie, Judas... People are kissing each other from the beginning of time. Here are some of the most interesting theories about how and why was kissing invented.

Sexologists say that a kiss is even more intimate then the act of sex itself, regardless the fact is that kiss is the most frequent physical contact among people. 99.9 percent of people on the planet know what kiss is, but very few know the real truth about the origin and meaning of the kiss.

Kiss is a powerful phenomenon, that’s for sure. If you think about it, you will come to the conclusion that kiss had an influence on the course of life of every man, it was the beginning and test of survival of every relationship, and it has significantly influenced the history of mankind. Film industry has recognized the power of kiss, but also and people from show business. You can still hear stories about how Madonna kissed Britney Spears at one of the MTV awards, right?


Even today, the phenomenon of kissing is not fully explained. We even have a branch of science that studies kissing and it’s called filematology.

No one is definitely sure why people started touching each other with lips and exchange saliva, but it is known that this kind of physical contact was present even in the period around 1,500 BC.

According to one theory, the kiss was created because of practical reasons – so that people can lick salt from each other’s cheeks. The Vedic scriptures describe the phenomenon of kissing as an act of affection. It is believed that the kiss has culturally spread from India via Greece, and that Alexander the Great is the most creditable for that, because he brought it to Europe during the great invasion in 326 BC. Besides spices and tea, the great commander had, allegedly, brought and something that was even hotter and spicier then the tea and spices together – the kiss, which conquered Europe with the speed of fire.

There are different opinions about the origin of the kiss. According to one legend it was invented by medieval knights who were trying to determine in this way if their wives had drunk the juicy mead. According to another theory, the kiss derived from the relationship between mother and child. Allegedly, cave mothers, who didn’t have blender like today’s mothers, were chewing the food and then, with their mouth, they were feeding their children.

Some cultures knew of kissing long before others, but they considered that act too private and didn’t discussed nor write about it for many years and centuries. Even Bible says that God kissed a man and gave him life through that kiss. 

Some cultures like Finnish, Burmese, Polynesian, Philippinian, or cultures of African tribes consider kissing as weird, absurd and rude. They have ways of greeting like nose rubbing or gasping at the throat. In this way, they can recognize each member of the tribe based on his smell.

Some even believe that kissing evolved as a way of spreading bacteria between partners. In this way they would become immune to each other’s diseases, and were able to have kids. At the time of Ancient Rome, kissing was used as a way of showing status – that status was ranked according to permission to kiss a certain part of the body. Those who have enjoyed higher status were kissing each other on the cheek and arm, while ordinary mortals had permission to kiss feet.

In Chinese tradition, it is considered that the ideal balance between yin and yang can be achieved only by exchanging "liquid jade", better known as saliva, or, in romantic terms – with a French kiss.

In Naples, in 1562, kissing in public was forbidden, and those who were caught in that act were condemned to death.

In Hartford, Connecticut, the old law, which is still in force, considers it illegal for a man to kiss his wife on Sundays. And in Indiana, until recently, there was a law that strictly forbidden men with mustaches to kiss women - probably for reasons of hygiene.

English word “kiss” originates from Germanic word “kussian”, which onomatopoetically imitates what happens during kiss. What is considered as a French kiss in western world, in India is called English kiss.

Name „movie kiss“ says by itself that a kiss had a significant role in the film industry. In 2005, a movie called “Brokeback Mountain” attracted much attention because of description of sexual relation between men, but the first kiss of two men was shown much earlier – some eighty years before, in a movie “Wings” from 1927. However, the first homosexual kiss was shown even before that – in a movie “Manslaughter” from 1922, where two lesbians were kissing each other.

For a long time, the longest kiss in film history was the one between Jane Wyman and Regis Toomey – it lasted three minutes and five seconds. However, in 2010, that record was broken by Neckar Zadegan and Traci Dinwiddie with a longest movie kiss, and also the longest lesbian kiss in a movie.

In the movie “Some Like It Hot” from 1959, actor Tony Curtis, who plays Joe or Josephine after he disguises himself as female band member, shocked the public when he said that his kiss with Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) was like "kissing with Hitler." He later gave an explanation for his statement and said that such a stupid question (How did he like kissing a sex symbol like Marilyn) deserved an equally stupid answer. “What was I supposed to say? What do you think it’s like to kiss Marilyn Monroe you dickheads?” – Curtis said.

In 1929, Greta Garbo appeared in MGM’s last silent film called “Kiss”. It was the end of silent film era, but not the era of kisses.

In 1984, Rock Hudson kissed Linda Evans in “Dynasty”. And when it was reveled that he had AIDS, Hollywood was swept with panic that she was infected too. The actress revealed later that the people around her didn’t want to come near her because they had kids and they didn’t want to expose themselves to risk.

In Indian cinema, kiss was forbidden for a long time. The first real kiss with open mouth and a tongue was shown in Indian cinemas through a little-known English film from 1926.

Around the world, there are some pretty interesting but also and vulgar names for a kiss. People on Maldives use a term, which, when translated, means “lip sucking”, and the kiss in South Africa is called “tongue in lungs”.

Interestingly, the kissing was unknown to many people. Indians and Aborigines didn’t kiss before meeting Europeans. After that, they introduced that custom.

Also, one of the biggest misapprehensions is that the French have invented the French kiss. They haven’t even gave it its name. The truth is that in 1923 this term was forged in England.  And the only reason this kiss has that “French” in its name is because the French, at the beginning of the 19th century were known as amorous persons.

Kissing is good for your health

Scientists have discovered that kissing has multiple positive effects on health because it increases the secretion of hormone of happiness.  Even bacteria, which are present in the saliva, with their mixing contribute to stronger immunity; they are breaking down plaque in the mouth and are destroying harmful microorganisms. Kissing is also good for dental health because it stimulates the secretion of saliva, which, on the other hand, has a function of washing the mouth and removing the remains of food.

Clinical tests have shown that touching, including kissing, reduces blood pressure, stress, and improves the immune status of the organism. Many believe that the activation of a large number of facial muscles during kissing is preventing the appearance of wrinkles and is slowing the aging process.

Kissing is pleasure

The lips are definitely made for kissing. They are the thinnest part of our body and 100 times more sensitive than our fingers. The tongue and the inside of the oral cavity contain enormous amount of nerves that are transmitting messages directly to the limbic system, the oldest part of the brain associated with sexual pleasure. A kiss is stimulating the secretion of the hormone oxytocin, which affects parts of the brain responsible for pleasure and adrenalin, and thus creating the feeling of butterflies in our stomach.

Facts about kissing

-    Two thirds of men are leaning their heads to the right when they are kissing someone;
-    Most kisses are shown in the movie "Don Juan" from 1926 - 191 kiss in 110 minutes;
-    In 1990, Alfred Wolfram kissed a 8001 person in a period of eight hours at a festival in Minnesota – he kissed, on average, 16 persons per minute.
-    Men who are kissing their wives before going to work, on average, are earning more money than those who do not do that;
-    The only animals that are kissing each other’s mouth are chimpanzees, orangutans and cats;
-    In just one exchange of saliva during a kiss, there is more than 278 species of bacteria, and many of them can cause various diseases;
-    A passionate kiss can increase the level of hormones in your body so high, that it can take away one minute of your life;
-    During his life, a man is spending approximately 336 hours or two full weeks kissing someone.
-    One French kiss is activating 23 muscles;
-    Ten minutes of kissing is burning 30 calories;
-    70 percent of people experience their first kiss before they turn 15.

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It doesn’t fit – Ward Kimball

At the request of Walt Disney, animator Ward Kimball (1914-2002) worked two hundred and forty days on four minutes long scene from a cartoon "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". It was a scene where the dwarfs are cooking a lunch for Snow White and demolishing the kitchen in their colorful forest hut in the process.
 

At first, Disney said that the scene was divine, but then he thought it over and concluded:

“It doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie. Cut it out!”.

Ward Kimball’s two hundred and forty days of work and effort were slashed along.

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Scrat from Ice Age found on Mars!

While we're eagerly waiting for the fourth installment of the mega-successful Ice Age (Ice Age: Continental Drift), the star of the film, and possibly the most popular character in the series, Scrat,  a wacky "saber-toothed squirrel" who is obsessed with acorns, apparently moved – to Mars. 



While I was browsing the surface of the Mars in Google Earth, I accidentally stumbled on an image that amazingly resembles the character from  the movie Ice Age, a "saber-toothed squirrel" named Scrat. And not only that…the shape that I discovered is surrounded with blue color that looks almost like ice.

It appears that Scrat not even on Mars hasn’t manage to escape from Ice Age. 

See for yourself on the image below.

If you want to find Scrat by yourself, follow these coordinates:

47“30'33.80“ S
5“05'15.81“ E 

Who knows, maybe in the next installment of Ice Age, our funny hero will indeed have some adventure on Mars. We will discover that when the movie hits the theaters.

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Hollywood friendship – Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks

While walking down the Hollywood Boulevard one day, Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977) saw a large poster in front of a movie theater that announced a new film comedy in which Douglas Fairbanks played.

There was a young man standing there, and Chaplin asked him:

     - Boy, have you seen this movie?
     - Of course! – the boy answered. 
     - Is it funny? – asked Chaplin.-   What a stupid question. I died laughing.  Fairbanks is the best.
     - Is he good like Chaplin? 
     - Much better than that wretched Chaplin, for whom I only feel pity. – continued the young man. 
     - If so, let me introduce myself. I am Charlie Chaplin! – Chaplin angrily exclaimed. 
     - I am pleased to meet you. I am Douglas Fairbanks!

After this unusual acquaintance, Chaplin and Fairbanks became very good friends.

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Academy Award – Frank Capra

A romantic comedy "Lady for a Day" (1933) not only brought popularity to American film director Frank Capra (1897 - 1991), but also a nomination for an Academy Award.

Capra was seriously convinced that he will win the American Academy Award for that film, and before the ceremony, he even wrote a short speech, which he intended to hold after he receives the Oscar.

The host of the event was Will Rogers. When the time came to announce the Best Director, Will, who thought that it would be interesting, said:

“Common Frank. Come and get it”

Convinced that he is the winner, Frank Capra ran towards the stage and pulled out a written speech from his pocket. At that point, he noticed a strange expression on the host’s face. Will Rogers stammered:

“The winner is Frank…Lloyd!”

Embarrassed, Frank Capra came down from the stage. He swore that he will never again attend the Academy Award ceremony. 

But never say never.

Next year, Capra's film "It Happened One Night" won five Academy Awards, including the award for Best Director.  Frank came and received the Oscar.

In his career, Capra won a total of six Academy Awards.

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Hollywood experience – Dirk Bogarde

In 1960, famous British film and theater actor, Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999) went to Hollywood to film a movie called “Song Without End”. The movie was about the life of famous virtuoso pianist Franz Lizst.

After making that movie, Dirk Bogarde said that Americans are very uncultured and that he has no intention to ever come to Hollywood again.

Why?

Here is one line from the script that Liszt says in the movie, and which completely made mad Dirk Bogarde, who was known as perfect connoisseur of music and literature:

“Hi, do you know my friend? This is George Sand. That’s your friend Chopin. This is Hubert. Common meet George Sand.”

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Santa Claus – Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple (1928), famous American actress and diplomat, who gained international fame in childhood, before she even started going to school, once told a story about how she stopped believing in Santa Claus:

- It was a big disappointment for me. I was six years old. I went with my mother to a department store. In the department where they sell toys, a Santa Claus handed out gifts to children. When he saw me, he jumped, left the kids, threw the gifts on the side and told me "May I have your autograph? I’m your biggest fan. I watched all the movies in which you played many many times!”

- In that moment, I knew that there is no Santa Claus. Santa Claus doesn’t watch movies.

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Banana peel – Charlie Chaplin

Famous actor David Niven (1910-1983) wrote in his autobiography an anecdote when screenwriter Charles MacArthur (1895-1956) asked Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) for advice on how to design a gag in which a fat lady is walking down the street, slipping on a banana peel and falling down. Since such a stunt was performed thousands of times before, how to do it and make the audience laugh?

Should he first show the banana peel, then the lady approaching, and then the fall? Or, to show the fat lady first, and then the banana peel on which she slips?

Charlie Chaplin immediately replied:

"You show the fat lady approaching; then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps OVER the banana peel and disappears down a manhole."

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Interrupted kiss – Alfred Hitchcock

At the time when Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was making  the movie "Notorious", and that was in 1946, the Motion Picture Production Code (in other words - censorship), popularly known as Hays Code (after Hollywood's chief censor of the time, Will H. Hays) prohibited scenes of a kiss longer than three seconds.

However, Hitchcock wanted for the kissing scene of the main characters in this film, actress Ingrid Bergman and actor Cary Grant, to go into the history as the most beautiful movie kiss, and also the longest movie kiss, so he decided to extend that kiss with any means possible.

Finally, cunning Hitchcock edited that kiss like this: Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are kissing for three seconds, then they are saying something to each other for a few seconds, then they are kissing again for three seconds, then they break away for just a second, then kissing again for three seconds, then they are whispering something to each other on the ear, and then again kissing for three seconds, and so on…

Their kiss lasted for two-and-a-half minutes, and it is perhaps the most intimate and erotic movie kiss ever.

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Marilyn Monroe - Madness and her last days

In the book “Fragments”, which is based on diaries, letters and various writings of Marilyn Monroe, sex symbol of the 20th century, it is revealed that after a series of psychiatric sessions she ended up in mental hospital’s solitary confinement, and that doctor Greenson came there to examine – her breasts.

"Alone!!! I am alone-I am always alone no matter what." – with this begins the earliest of several diaries written by Marilyn Monroe, sexiest and most desirable women of the 20th century, according to "Playboy". Her diaries, sketches, poems, letters, various notes and rare photographs, dating from between 1951 and 1961, are published (in 2010) in a book called "Fragments". They are significant because, for the first time, Marilyn Monroe explains herself – she is presented outside of Hollywood splendor, myths and legends that were woven around her name in recent decades.

That book revealed her fears of sexual abuse, betrayal of her third husband, ghosts of inherited madness, traumas from psychotherapy to which she was forced, and an eerie testimony about the mental hospital in which she was involuntarily taken.

Of countless men who have passed through her life the most famous was John F. Kennedy, the most faithful was Joe DiMaggio… but the most trace in her life left her third husband, playwright Arthur Miller, who managed to make her the happiest and most unhappiest woman in the world.

Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were probably in their happiest phase during the summer of 1957, which they spent in a rented house on Long Island. They spent their time there swimming and taking long walks on the beach. She looked splendidly on the photographs from that period. That was the time when she happily stepped into her husband’s world - She was joyful and witty at the dinner in the company of writers Carson McCullers and Isak Dinesen, she became friends with Truman Capote,  and met some of her literary heroes such as poet Carl Sandburg and writer Saul Bellow, with whom she had dinner while she waited for the premiere of “Some Like It Hot" in Chicago. The sexiest blonde knocked Bellow of his feet.

Writers and books were not a coincidence in her life. "Esquire" once published a photo of her reading James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. There was also a photo of her reading the poetry of Heinrich Heine. Magazine “Life” once depicted Marilyn reading a book in front of a shelve with books. She had her personal library with 400 volumes that included works of history, philosophy, fiction...

In London, where they traveled in the fall of that same year to film her "The Prince and the Showgirl" movie with Laurence Olivier, Miller caused her greatest disappointment in life. 

Marilyn and her husband moved to a magnificent estate in Surrey, near London. Everything seemed perfect. She was producing a film in which played (and was directed by) one of the most respected actors of her generation and she lived in a large country house with the man she loved the most. As an artist she couldn’t have felt more fulfilled, until a coincidence buried her otherwise very fragile self-confidence and her trust in her husband.  She ran into a Miller’s diary in which he complained that he was disappointed with her and that sometimes he is ashamed having her in his company in front of friends. After reading those entries, Marilyn was destroyed.  One of her biggest fears came true - that she will disappoint the man she loves.

Formally speaking, Marilyn Monroe was not an orphan because her mother Gladys Monroe Baker eventually outlived her famous daughter. But since Gladys was a schizophrenic who spent years going in and out of psychiatric institutions, Marilyn was virtually abandoned and raised in a number of adoptive families, including the family of her mother’s close friend Grace Goddard.

Her first husband, James Dougherty, liked the idea of saving a shy and nice girl, who left high school to marry him. It is not surprising that their marriage fell apart - they divorced in September 1946. “My relationship with him was basically insecure from the first night I spent alone with him,” Marilyn wrote in her diary.

Her second marriage with baseball player Joe DiMaggio, who was one of the most famous names in sport‘s world, also failed. Their marriage lasted only nine months. DiMaggio was almost in his forties and he wanted, with all his heart, for his wife to leave Hollywood and become a housewife. Instead, he became "Mr. Monroe”, and that was too much for his jealousy and frustration. However, when she died, for twenty years DiMaggio sent flowers to her grave three times a week.

She began to visit psychotherapists at the urging of her acting teacher Lee Strasberg, to whom she went in the spring of 1955 because she wanted to become a serious actress. Strasberg was more than a teacher to her; he was almost a father she never met. By the wish of Marilyn Monroe, Strasberg became executor of her will, which was then heavy about 13 million of dollars. After Strasberg’s death, his widow, Anna Mizrahi Strasberg, inherited that right. She even today earns about a million dollars thanks to Marilyn Monroe’s name.

Persuaded by Strasberg, and after breaking up her marriage with DiMaggio, Marilyn visited a psychiatrist five times a week. Dr. Margaret Hohenberg managed to pull out from Marilyn’s subconscious memories of a difficult childhood, including memories of sexual abuse and harassment of her aunt, Ida Martin, with whom she stayed a few times when she was between 11 and 13 years old.

Two years later, in 1957, Marilyn stopped seeing Dr. Hohenberg. Strasberg then recommended her another doctor, Marianne Kris, who later caused one of the greatest traumas in Marilyn’s life.  During sessions with her, Marilyn discovered that she was always “deeply terrified to really be someone's wife” because she knew “from life one cannot love another, ever, really”.

Three years later, after being totally rejected by Miller (he didn’t even came to her funeral), Marilyn Monroe became Yves Montand’s mistress. Her new doctor became Ralph Greenson – it is not known how much he managed to help her, but it is certain that he was obsessed with Marilyn. Greenson’s daily therapeutic sessions lasted about five hours, but nevertheless, in 1960, in a state of complete emotional disintegration, and upon the recommendation of Dr. Kris, Marilyn ended up in a psychiatric hospital in New York.

Practically, as soon as she entered, Marilyn started requesting to leave. But the more she was persistent about it, the employees of the hospital was more confident in her disease, and they eventually put her into a solitary confinement. Marilyn wrote a letter to Greenson in which she described what were they doing to her, but instead of getting her out of that hospital, he came to examine – her breasts. From hell that lasted for three days she was rescued by DiMaggio.

Marilyn became acquainted with Kennedy brothers in 1961, but she met some members of that family at least five years earlier. She wrote in her diary, that she fears that Peter Lawford, Kennedy’s brother-in-law, wants to hurt her - the feeling of violence I’ve had lately about being afraid of Peter he might harm me, poison me, etc.

In August 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead. It is assumed that she committed suicide by drinking a large quantity of sleeping pills.

Childhood – Her guardian wanted to rape her when she was just six years old

In her diaries, Marilyn also wrote about her first marriage with an intelligent and attractive James Dougherty. She married Dougherty on June 19, 1942, when she was just 16, and he was five years older. Marilyn described her loneliness and insecurity in that sudden marriage, which was less love and more of a way for Marilyn – then Norma Jeane Baker – to seize the opportunity to escape from the life of an orphan, while her guardians, Grace and Ervin Goddard, were in California. Especially because Ervin tried to rape Marilyn when she was just six years old.

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Courage, thy name is Jackie Chan!

Chinese actor Jackie Chan, whose real name is Chan Kong-sang, is known in film circles as unpredictable and fearless person.

He once jumped from one New York skyscraper in to a helicopter in flight. On another occasion, he plunged down a hill in a giant beach ball… However, it is considered that his greatest stunt is the one in a movie “Police Story” – Jackie used an umbrella and hang himself onto a double decker bus which dragged him like that across several streets.

Jackie had many injuries in his career. He broke his nose three times, his ankle once, most of his fingers, both cheekbones and his skull. He even lost his teeth.

When he was asked how long he can keep it up, he said:

"I don't know. I always think something will happen to me. An accident is an accident. If I break my ankle, click, I just snap it back. I have so many scars."

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Arnold Schwarzenegger - Conan the Destroyer of California

After two terms as the Governor of California, Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger probably finished his political career. While he will be remembered in California for the debts that he left, the rest of the world will probably link Schwarzenegger’s political career with his proposal to ban the use of words "Mom", "Daddy", "husband" and "wife" in California public schools, because these words "offend feelings of children from gay marriages".

He became the Governor of California in 2003, and thus, he became the second actor, after Ronald Reagan, who got hold of high political positions. That he will run for Governor, on the Republican side, he revealed in a Comedy show. To be even able to participate in general elections he first needed to obtain permission from his wife, because his wife, Maria Shriver, is niece of Edward Kennedy, one of the members of the Kennedy clan, who belong to the Democrats.

With a little help of media and 25 million dollars that he invested in his two election campaigns, but mostly thanks to his acting career, Schwarzenegger won a landslide victory in both elections, in 2003 and 2006. His victories were not endangered even with charges that he used drugs, speculation that his father Gustav committed war crimes in World War II, or insinuation that he had sexually harassed 13 women.

Back in the early nineties, George H.W. Bush cast an eye on him and appointed him as the president of a smaller committee, calling him "Conan the Republican". 

Because of the skepticism about the strength of the U.S. economy, he called the Democrats "economic girlie men”. During Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, he said that he will make him "do squats" to "do something about those skinny legs”, and later that he will make him "do some biceps curls to beef up those scrawny little arms ".

“If he could only do something about putting some meat on his ideas”, Schwarzenegger said.

None of that what he said didn’t bothered him to recently publicly recommend himself to Obama - Schwarz said that he would like to get a job in the Obama administration, something regarding ecology. True, Americans admit that he achieved maximum on that field during the seven years he served as the Governor of California. Everything else was a complete fiasco.

During his term, the budget deficit has tripled, reaching 28 billion dollars. Unemployment rate is 13%. This is followed with speculations about a possible economic fiasco of California. At one point, California had no money for payment of regular monthly infrastructural obligations.

Schwarzenegger explained that the state wouldn’t have borrowed that much money if he knew that the global economic crisis will occur. He also said that his political opponents sabotaged his efforts to bring the house in order and improve the state of California's economy. It remains unknown what happened to his ambitious pre-election plan to make each of 36 and a half million residents of California eligible for health insurance, rather than one in five as it was.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger had no idea what it was like to govern. Sacramento isn't Hollywood. I also believe that he gave too big promises because probably he did not realize that he will not be able to fulfill them, which somewhat resembles Obama’s failure in fulfilling great promises. Residents of California expected too much. We did not giggle the way the rest of the world did at the Governator assuming office”, said Dr Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior fellow at the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California.

It turned out that Schwarzenegger was far from behaving as a terminator when it comes to economic problems, which is why California citizens completely lost confidence in him.

Schwarzenegger’s new political engagement doesn’t seem too likely: he often worked and operated in contrary to California's Congress, and Republicans went against him when he invited them to cooperate with Obama in order to jointly find a solution for economic recovery and deficit control. The Republicans were not happy and with his proposition of budget deficit of California which he agreed with Washington's administration. The support of his family is also unlikely: although she never prevented her husband to be involved in politics, Maria Shriver was never thrilled with his new job.

But, Schwarzenegger doesn’t have to worry about his future, even if he gives up from the announced intention to write biographical books. In his 30’s he was already a millionaire, and that was before he achieved great success with his movies. He earned his first millions with postal sale of bodybuilding equipment and real estate investments. With Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Demi Moore he invested money in the restaurant chain Planet Hollywood. And despite all costs that he had as a politician, Schwarzenegger’s wealth is now estimated at 800 to 900 million dollars. This amount includes income from bodybuilding, real estate, earnings in the financial market and, of course, earnings from his films.

Nevertheless, the films were the ones that had influence on the magazine TIME and their decision to place him among the 100 people who shaped the world in 2004 and 2007.

The crucial year in Schwarzenegger’s Hollywood career was 1982, when he appeared in "Conan the Barbarian". Until the appearance of "Conan", Schwarzenegger made eight films. He won his first role (lead role) in 1970, in the comedy "Hercules in New York". He even today speaks English with a strong German accent, but at a time of making “Hercules”, he was saying it so badly that the producers were worried about whether the public will understand him at all. The fear was unjustified - the movie itself was terrible, but because of the accent, Arnold is even today called Ahnold.

"Conan the Barbarian", and two years later "Conan the Destroyer", were his first major commercial successes, in which his physical appearance was fully exploited. Neither before nor after these films, no one was counting on a some great acting performance from him. He became mega-star with action movies "Terminator" (1984, 1991, 2003), "Predator" (1987), "Red Sonja", "Commando", "Red Heat", "Total Recall", "Eraser ", "Collateral Damage" and many others.

Besides action movies, among total of 38 movies that he made, he made and a few comedies, like, for example, “Kindergarten Cop".

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