The kinky candidate

According to the women8217;s accounts, one of the incidents occurred in the 1970s, two in the 1980s, two in the 1990s and one in 2000.
Four of the six women told their stories on condition that they not be named. Three work in Hollywood and said they were worried that, if they were identified, their careers would be in jeopardy for speaking out against Schwarzenegger, the one-time bodybuilding champion and box-office star who is now the front-runner in the October 7 gubernatorial recall election.

The other unnamed woman said she feared public ridicule and possible damage to her husband8217;s business. In the four cases in which the women would not let their names be published, friends or relatives told the Times that the women had told them about the incidents long before Schwarzenegger8217;s run for governor. None of the six women who gave their accounts to the Times filed any legal action against him.

Schwarzenegger8217;s campaign spokesman, Sean Walsh, said the candidate has not engaged in improper conduct toward women either on the set or off. He said such allegations are part of an escalating political attack on Schwarzenegger as the recall election draws near. 8216;8216;We believe Democrats and others are using this to try to hurt Arnold Schwarzenegger8217;s campaign,8217;8217; Walsh said.
None of the women approached the Times on her own, and none was identified by Schwarzenegger8217;s rivals in the recall race. All were interviewed by the newspaper in the course of a seven-week examination of whether Schwarzenegger had harassed women on or off the movie set.
Schwarzenegger8217;s attitudes about women have been an issue on the campaign trail, where critics have accused him of being misogynistic, based on past statements he has made to various publications. In response, Schwarzenegger has said he respects women and that many of his comments were said in jest or simply meant to be provocative.

Schwarzenegger8217;s conduct toward women also has been widely discussed in Hollywood over the years, no more so than after a March 2001 article in Premiere magazine called 8216;8216;Arnold the Barbarian.8217;8217; After the article appeared, a number of Schwarzenegger8217;s colleagues wrote to the magazine saying that the story was inaccurate and that Schwarzenegger treated women with respect.

The earliest incident of the six described to the Times was said to have occurred in 1975 at Gold8217;s Gym near Venice Beach, Calif. E. Laine Stockton, then newly married to professional bodybuilder Robby Robinson, said she8217;d come to the gym to watch her husband work out. She said she was wearing slacks, tennis shoes and a loose-fitting T-shirt. She said she was not wearing a bra. As she sat on an exercise bench, Stockton said, Schwarzenegger walked up behind her, reached his left hand under her T-shirt and touched her bare left breast.

8216;8216;It just completely caught me off guard, and when I finally came to my senses, I immediately went over to Robby and I said, 8216;Look, Arnold just groped my breast.8217; 8217;8217; Robinson, a former Mr. America, Mr. World and Mr. Universe, said that at the time of the incident, he had been across the gym getting a dumbbell.

8216;8216;What he did was uncalled for, but I couldn8217;t say nothing,8217;8217; Robinson said, explaining that he feared he8217;d be ostracised by the bodybuilding world. Robinson and Stockton are now divorced. They were interviewed separately by the Times.
The next incident was said to have occurred in 1980. A former pro beach volleyball player said Schwarzenegger touched her breast on a Santa Monica, Calif., street. The woman remembered walking down 19th Street, just off Wilshire Boulevard, when Schwarzenegger spotted her and got out of his car, the motor still running. 8216;8216;Come here,8217;8217; she recalled Schwarzenegger saying. The two knew each other.

She worked as a waitress at Fromin8217;s deli, she said, a place Schwarzenegger frequented. One day, she recalled, Schwarzenegger asked her when she was going on break. 8216;8216;We could have a lot of fun in half an hour,8217;8217; she remembered him saying. She said she was both a little scared and a little flattered. She said she declined his invitation.

Schwarzenegger renewed his invitation, she said, when he spotted her playing in a women8217;s volleyball tournament at Venice Beach. 8216;8216;After the game, he came up to me and said, 8216;Now you will come to my apartment.8217; He didn8217;t want to hear no.8217;8217; The woman said she told him, 8216;8216;It8217;s not going to happen.8217;8217; This time, she said, as she walked along 19th Street, Schwarzenegger conveyed a sense of urgency: 8216;8216;Come close, it8217;s very important.8217;8217;

As she drew nearer to hear what he had to say, she recounted, Schwarzenegger 8216;8216;grabbed and squeezed8217;8217; her left breast. As tears welled in her eyes, she said, Schwarzenegger laughed. 8216;8216;He thought it was hilarious.8217;8217; The woman said she told her sister about the encounter with Schwarzenegger. In a telephone interview, the sister confirmed that she had been told about the incident at the time.

One of the women in the Premiere article was British television host Anna Richardson, who accused Schwarzenegger of touching her breast. Richardson said she was interviewing the actor in December 2000 as part of his promotional tour for the movie The Sixth Day.
The interview, to be aired on her TV show Big Screen, took place in a suite at the Dorchester Hotel in London. 8216;8216;He kept looking at my breasts, kept asking if I worked out,8217;8217; she said. 8216;8216;I went to shake his hand and he grabbed me onto his knee and he said, 8216;Before you go, I want to know if your breasts are real.8217; 8217;8217;

Richardson, then 29, said she replied that her breasts were real. 8216;8216;At that point, he circled my left nipple with his finger and he said, 8216;Yes, they are real.8217; 8217;8217; She said he then let her go.

The Schwarzenegger campaign has provided a different account. Sheryl Main, a Hollywood publicist who has worked with Schwarzenegger on many films and accompanied him on his worldwide travels since 1995, said she was present at the interview. Main said it was Richardson who provocatively approached Schwarzenegger.

A movie studio secretary said Schwarzenegger grabbed her buttocks in the late 1980s. She said the episode occurred on the Columbia Pictures lot, where she worked. One day the boss asked if she would like to meet Schwarzenegger, who was in a production office.

When they reached the office, she said, Schwarzenegger was seated on a couch. The secretary, then in her 30s, said she sat on a couch opposite Schwarzenegger while the actor and her supervisor talked. When the conversation ended, the secretary said she approached Schwarzenegger to shake his hand and say goodbye.

He remained seated, she said, and he slipped his left hand under her skirt and grabbed her right buttock. 8216;8216;He just held on. He held on and said, 8216;You have a very nice ass.8217; He said, 8216;I8217;d love to work you out.8217; 8217;8217;

In late 1990, Schwarzenegger was in the San Bernardino County town of Fontana, shooting Terminator 2: Judgment Day. According to a female crew member, Schwarzenegger harassed her on several occasions. She recalled encountering the actor in an elevator as she headed downstairs to the pool of the hotel where the cast and crew were staying.

On each occasion, she said, she was wearing a terrycloth robe over a black, one-piece Speedo swimsuit. 8216;8216;At least three times 8212; if not more 8212; he would end up in the elevator with me, groping me and trying to take my robe off,8217;8217; said the crew member, now 41 and still working in the movie industry.

8216;8216;He would pin me against the corner in the elevator8217;8217; and try to take off her robe and pull down the straps of her suit, she said. The incidents did not last long, she said, because the elevator ride was short.

She said she told her boss, who advised her, 8220;Just stay away from him.8221; After that, the woman said, she would check the hotel hallway before entering the elevator. The crew member said she told her husband about the elevator confrontations within a year of when they first met in 1992. 8217;8217;I heard this story a long time ago,8216;8216; her husband confirmed. The couple spoke with the Times only after repeated assurances that their names would be kept confidential. 8217;8217;I8217;m a professional in the film business,8216;8216; she said. 8217;8217;I fear retribution.

Another woman, now a wife and mother in her 30s, said she also fell in Schwarzenegger8217;s 8216;8216;sight lines8221; while Terminator 2 was being filmed in Fontana. A member of the movie crew, she said Schwarzenegger was sitting in a director8217;s chair, surrounded by three or four other men, waiting for filming to start. 8216;8216;I was walking on the set and Arnold called out, 8216;Come here, you sexy devil,8217; and reached out and pulled me on to his lap,8216;8216; the woman recalled. She said he then whispered in her ear: 8216;8216;Have you ever had a man slide his tongue in your anus?8217;8217;

Some of the dozens of people interviewed for this article stressed that the culture on movie sets tends to be rowdy and permissive. Often, the tone is set by the star, they said. In Schwarzenegger8217;s case, they said, his sense of humour and language is often outrageous 8212; but not mean-spirited. Many of his colleagues find him to be charming.

8216;8216;He8217;s fun, extremely intelligent and very professional,8217;8217; said stuntwoman Simone Boisseree, who worked with Schwarzenegger on four films. Another stuntwoman, Chere Rae Bryson, came away with a different impression after working with Schwarzenegger on the 1990 movie Total Recall. She said he often used vulgar words for vagina and clitoris during her contact with him during the filming.

Bryson said Schwarzenegger was also on his best behaviour whenever his wife, Maria Shriver, was present. The couple married in 1986. 8216;8216;When Maria was around, he was a gentleman,8217;8217; Bryson said. 8216;8216;When she wasn8217;t around, he was the opposite.8217;8217;

One woman who says she was deeply offended by Schwarzenegger8217;s words was a waitress at the Bicycle Shop cafe on Wilshire Boulevard in West Los Angeles, where the actor used to hang out with about half a dozen pals on Sunday mornings in the late 1980s.

One Sunday, she said, she was pouring coffee at the table when Schwarzenegger beckoned her. 8216;8216;He said 8216;I want you to do a favour for me. I want you to go in the bathroom, stick your finger in your vagina, and bring it out to me.8217; 8217;8217;

8216;8216;He looked up, and it looked like I was threatening him with the coffee pot.8217;8217; Everyone at the table then glanced over at the restaurant owner, Andre Driollet. He wagged his finger at the waitress, she said, apparently fearful that she was going to dump the coffee on Schwarzenegger.

The waitress said she told Schwarzenegger at the time: 8216;8216;If you8217;re ever some place and some woman throws hot coffee on your head, it will be me.8217;8217; He laughed, she said. 8216;8216;He thought it was the funniest thing. And then the whole table laughed because, if Arnold laughed, the whole table laughed.8217;8217;
LA Times-Washington Post