Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life

by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Penguin Random House £20, 262pp)

A friend was in a Beverly Hills restaurant a few years ago when — to great excitement — in walked Arnold Schwarzenegger with his wife at the time, Maria Shriver, a scion of the Kennedy clan, and their children.

Most of the restaurant was, understandably, star-struck, especially when the waitress began to take their order. 

‘I’ll have the salmon,’ said Arnie, and paused before continuing in that rich Austrian accent: ‘…grilled.’ Later, he ordered the dessert.

‘I’ll have the ice cream,’ another pause: ‘…vaneeella.’

The deep voice, the intonation, and letting it be known that the Terminator eats salmon and has a penchant for pudding are the sort of facts that help the world go round. 

It is the authenticity of Arnie, and the humour, that endear him to us, and the friendliness — for such a huge man he comes across as a warm, amiable and even sweet human being.

Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, which first came out in 1984. 

Despite his success as an action hero, Arnold soon set his sights on becoming a leading man

Now 76, and having undergone open-heart surgery, the champion body builder, film star, huge philanthropist and former governor of California has embarked on a fourth career. 

Not so much Conan the Barbarian, more Conan the Librarian, Arnie has penned a self-help Book.

And a guy who emerged from a hard-scrabble childhood in small-town Austria to become one of the best-known men in the world, with hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank, is probably worth listening to.

It’s not an autobiography (though he does let us into many secrets) but it is a guide to better living, told with humour — he wants his money back after a course on how to lose his accent — characteristic self-deprecating charm, honesty and endearing profanity (‘F*** Plan B. It’s an excuse for failure’).

The book is probably best read in a guttural Austrian accent. The title, Be Useful, is the only advice his father gave him.

It’s all here, and you could think of much of it yourself: have a vision (Arnie’s is America, its Cadillacs and skyscrapers which make the tallest building in Austria look like a toolshed), think big and work hard, because, as Arnie puts it, ‘working your ass off is the only thing that works 100 per cent of the time for 100 per cent of the things worth achieving’.

In his early days in Hollywood, studio executives wanted to change his name to Arnold Strong or somesuch. 

But no, said Arnie, because his vision then was that he could see his name — SCHWARZENEGGER — in big block letters above the title of most of his films. In Be Useful, Arnold’s guide to better living, he draws on his own life experience and tells readers to have a vision, think big and work hard 

Soon he wanted to prove he was more than just an action hero; he wanted to be a leading man.

His aim was to star in comedies, which meant he was duly laughed out of court by the studios. 

He and director Ivan Reitman came up with the idea for Twins, about brothers played by Schwarzenegger and Danny de Vito, an idea so good you almost don’t need the film.

Still, no one would finance it: Hollywood couldn’t see Arnie as a comedy leading man. Eventually, they came up with a wheeze — none of them would take a salary; instead they would take a share of the net profits if the movie made money.

Of all his movies, it is still the one that has made the most money for Arnie, as he writes with some pride. That’s proper problem solving. 

How many times you want to be told ‘anyone can do it’ by a global star worth hundreds of millions of dollars is up to you, of course. But I would give it a go.

The spur for the book was the end of his governorship and the breakdown of his marriage to Ms Shriver, when, as he said with cheering frankness: ‘I blew up my family.’ He doesn’t go into it here, but tells us to Google to find out what happened.

It would be a brave man who disobeyed the Terminator, so it’s possible to discover that, in 1996, he had an affair with his housekeeper, Mildred Baena, who had a baby, a few weeks before Arnie and Ms Shriver had their fourth child.

His marriage hit difficulties in 2011. Ms Shriver wanted to know if Ms Baena’s child was his. As Joseph Baena, now 26, looks more like Arnie than Arnie himself, the answer was clear.
Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1984. 

And, my word, he knows everybody and is not afraid to invoke their names: from Muhammad Ali to Nelson Mandela, every U.S. president after Lyndon B. Johnson, Mikhail Gorbachev and even, he admits with disarming surprise, the Dalai Lama and two different Popes. 

The ‘two different’ is a nice touch, I think. Even Marcus Aurelius gets a nod.

Anyway, Arnie has learnt from them all, because one of his key lessons is ‘Shut Your Mouth, Open Your Mind, and Be Curious’. None of us can quarrel with that, though few will be exchanging views with a Pope or a president.

Above all, this is a book filled with Arnie’s overwhelming positivity… and who couldn’t do with a dollop of that?

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