Arnold Schwarzenegger Net Worth

How much is Arnold Schwarzenegger worth?

About Arnold Schwarzenegger

Aurelia and Gustav Schwarzenegger were married in Austria, in the fall of 1945. On July 30, 1947, Aurelia gave birth to her second son, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Schwarzeneggers were a pious Catholic family, attending Mass every Sunday. Both of the Schwarzenegger boys were raised in a strict environment, oftentimes being put in competition with one another.

Arnold always thought that his father favored his older brother, Meinhard, over him. He was, however, close to his mother – as they had developed a strong bond.

The feeling that his father did not love him as much as Meinhard may have been one factor that drove Arnold in all kinds of sports, trying to model after his father, and gain his elusive respect. Further, as he said in an interview with Fortune in 2004 that when he was growing up in Austria, children were brought up to conform. Corporal punishment was commonplace then, and a child was physically punished if he did not conform. He said he remembered thinking that he was not one to conform and that he was going to move out of Austria, be somebody and be rich one day.

Today Arnold Schwarzenegger not only conquered bodybuilding but also made his way in politics and has been extremely successful in business. Perhaps more impactful for an entire generation, Schwarzenegger became 99% vegan and reinvented his life once more as one of the biggest advocates for animal rights the world has ever seen.

Arnold was already playing a lot of sports like soccer when he was first introduced to the gym at the age of 14 by his soccer coach. At 15, he started hitting the gym. It was after he met Kurt Marnul, former Mr. Austria, who invited him to train at a gym in Austria’s second-largest city Graz that he began to train seriously for a career in bodybuilding.

It was also in Graz that he would frequent movie theatres a lot when he was not training. At the theatres, he saw muscle builders like Steve Reeves, Reg Park, and Johnny Weissmuller grace the silver screen. These idols allowed a young Schwarzenegger to dream of a life that combined bodybuilding and acting. The only missing piece of the puzzle was that he had to make enough money to leave Austria for the United States of America where he knew the opportunities awaited him.

At 19 years of age in 1966, while fulfilling his military service obligations, he entered the Junior Mr. Europe contest. Although he did not win but came second, one of the judges of the competition, an Englishman, Charles Bennet, was impressed enough with him to invite a young Arnold to live at his family home in London which sat above a gym Bennett owned. It was during this time away from home that he received professional training, got the chance to meet his bodybuilder idol, Reg Park, and learned English at the same time.

In 1967, Arnold won the title Mr. Universe for the first time, and in 1968, he returned from Munich where he was taking business studies to win the title a second time. He would be crowned Mr. Universe a total of three times.

After the 1968 competition, he finally had his chance to leave for America. He settled in Venice, Los Angeles, and started training at a Gold’s Gym there under Joe Weider’s supervision. In 1970, he bagged the Mr. Olympia title in New York and went on to win the same title another 6 times.

His initial forays into acting were met with rebuffs with studios rejecting his heavy accent, his body builder’s physique, and his height. However, even though it would be a slightly longer road before he became a movie star, landing only smaller parts throughout the 70s, Arnold was already astute in accumulating wealth.

He would invest his competition winnings in real estate and other businesses, like a mail-order business. His business ventures have since ranged from real estate, which included a shopping center in Ohio, a bricklaying business to a stake in Planet Hollywood.

His 1977 film, Pumping Iron, gave him recognition and while he made guest appearances in popular television series at the time like the police drama, The Streets of San Fransico, it was not until his starring role as Conan the Barbarian in 1982 that catapulted Arnold into stardom, and a Hollywood’s A-Lister.

After Conan, his next film Terminator firmly put Arnold on the Hollywood’s walk of fame. Terminator 2: Judgement Day where he reprised the eponymous role was the highest-grossing film in 1991.

His film credits in the 90s read like a box office catalog boasting films like Red Sonja, the Running Man, Predator, Total Recall, the Terminator franchise, and comedies like Twins, with Danny Devito, Junior and Jingle All The Way.

With Arnold’s wins in bodybuilding competitions, there came prize money. Five times winning Mr. Universe and seven times taking home the Mr. Olympia title – these would have already put him amongst the top ranks of the wealthy in most countries. Competition earnings were not his only source of income. As we have seen, Arnold was a shrewd businessman, investing in real estate opportunities and other businesses, and relentlessly pushed himself on to the Hollywood scene until he eventually made it big. His films alone generated over three billion dollars in sales in the course of his career.

Arnold made an estimated $10 million from Total Recall, which amounted to 15% of the total gross takings for the film. And this was in 1990. The Terminator franchise helped raise his net worth by leaps and bounds, with Terminator 2: Judgement Day grossing $520.9 million worldwide and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines grossing over $433.4 million worldwide.

As said, entertainment was not how Arnold made his first million. He took notice quickly and was wary of the other actors he had been meeting at the gyms. He felt they were settling for any acting offer that came their way, simply because they needed to pay their bills.

Arnold took action and made the entrepreneurial decision to invest his prize money in real estate investments throughout California. This gave him the financial freedom to make the necessary decisions when choosing film projects. He also experimented on the other side of the camera, in production and directing. His debuted as an executive producer in 1993, with the film Last Action Hero.

Arnold rejected his German-Austrian upbringing of conformity and used it to fuel his dreams of the freedom to be who he wanted to be. In a 2004 Republican National Convention speech he gave, he recalled that when he arrived in America in 1968, the Nixon-Humphrey presidential election was going on, and he said that when he heard Humphrey speak, it reminded him of socialism back in Austria, but Nixon spoke about free-enterprise and small government and he felt immediately drawn to these entrepreneurial ideas. Arnold has also been known to be an avid goal-setter, planning and working hard to achieve his objectives, as was already very evident with his many wins in bodybuilding.

He has also been outspoken on the topic of climate change.

His business ventures, especially investments in real estate have already earned him more wealth than he would probably have been able to dream off back in his native Austria. Together with box office hits starting from Conan the Barbarian to the Terminator series, these pushed his total wealth to the level of the superrich.

A quote from Arnold: “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide to not surrender, that is strength. “

Summing-Up

It would baffle the average person to look upon Arnold’s achievements. He was a kid born into a family across the globe, that couldn’t afford very much beyond the bare necessities. One of his favorite memories, when he was younger, was his parents buying a refrigerator. Now his net worth currently stands at over four hundred million.

If you want to go anywhere in life, Arnold Schwarzenegger is someone who you should try every day to emulate. He shows the world that anything is possible, one step at a time.