Joe was never going to buy the sentimental argument, so I put it in commercial terms. “Bring Franco,” I told him, “and you’re going to have professional bodybuilding locked up. For years! You’re going to have the best tall man in the heavyweight division”—meaning me—“and the best small man in the lightweight division.” I described how pound for pound Franco was the most powerful lifter in the world (it was true; he could deadlift more than four times his weight) and how he’d been reshaping himself for bodybuilding.
Second, I told Joe, Franco was my ideal training partner, and if we could work together, I’d be an even more successful star. And third, I assured him, Franco was a hardworking guy who wouldn’t take advantage of being in California just to loaf on the beach. He’d been a shepherd, a bricklayer, and a taxi driver. “He is no lazy bastard,” I said. “You’ll see.”
—
Joe dragged his heels. Whenever I brought up Franco, he’d act like he’d never heard the name, and I’d have to make all the arguments again. But finally, in mid-1969, he caved and agreed to invite Franco and pay him the same $65 a week he was paying me. Then right away he started to brag about this fantastic small guy he was bringing from Europe. Except that he was not good with names and still could not quite remember Franco’s. “Guess who we’re bringing over now?” he announced at lunch. “Francisco Franco!”
Artie Zeller, the photographer who’d met me at the airport the year before, happened to be there and corrected him. “That’s the dictator of Spain.”
“No. I mean Columbus is his name.”
“Are you sure?” asked Artie. “Columbus discovered America.”
“No, wait, I mean Franco Nero.”
“He’s an Italian actor. He’s in Westerns.”
“Arnold! Who the hell are we bringing?” Joe finally asked.
“Franco Columbu.”
“Aw, Jesus. Bastard! Italians! Why do Italians have such weird names? They all sound the same.”
I picked up Franco at the airport in my white VW bug. I’d dressed it up with a racing steering wheel by this time, and it looked great. To welcome my friend to America and celebrate his arrival, I thought a marijuana cookie would be best. Frank Zane, the bodybuilder who’d beat me in Miami, had become a good friend and was into baking his own. Every so often he gave me one. “This will be funny,” I thought. “I’m picking up Franco, he’s going to be hungry after his long flight, so I’ll give him half of the cookie.” I wasn’t going to give him the whole cookie because I didn’t know how his body would react.
So when Franco got in the car, I asked, “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, I’m starving.”
“Well, luckily, I have a cookie here. Let’s share it.” The first place I took him was Artie’s apartment. Artie’s wife, Josie, was Swiss, and I thought Franco might feel more comfortable around people who knew German. He spent the first hour after we arrived lying on the rug in their living room laughing.
“Is he always this funny?” Artie asked.
“He must have drunk a beer or something,” I said. “But he is a funny guy.”
“Oh, he’s hilarious.” Artie and Josie were both laughing like hell too. A few days later, I asked Franco, “You know why you were laughing so much?” and told him about the cookie.
“I knew there was something!” he said. “You’ve got to give me more of that because it felt so good!”
It turned out, though, that Franco had developed a severe reaction to a smallpox vaccination he’d received just before leaving Munich. His arm swelled up, he had fever and chills, and he couldn’t eat. This went on for a couple of weeks. I was making him protein drinks every few hours. I ended up bringing a doctor to the apartment, because I was scared Franco was going to die. The doctor promised that Franco would eventually be fine.
I’d done such a great sales job with Joe Weider that he was eager to meet Franco and see how muscular he was. But my friend had shrunk from 170 pounds down to around 150. Joe would come over, and I’d hide Franco in the bedroom and tell Joe, “Oh, Franco, he’s so busy, he went over to Gold’s again to work out.” Or “Yeah, yeah, he really wants to meet you, and he wants to look perfect, so he’s on the beach getting a tan.”
The plan was always for Franco to room with me. My apartment had only one bedroom, however, so I kept the bedroom and he slept on the pull-out couch. The place was so small that there wasn’t even enough wall space to put up posters. But in Munich, I’d lived in a closet in the gym, so this was pure luxury to me. Franco felt that way too. We had a living room and a bedroom, and there were curtains. The beach was only three blocks away. Our bathroom had a sink, a toilet, and a bathtub with a shower, far better than what we’d had in Europe. No matter how small the place was, we felt like we’d really arrived.
I had visited Franco many times at his room in Munich. He always kept the place extremely clean. So I knew he’d be a great roommate, and that’s how it worked out. Our place was immaculate. We vacuumed regularly; the dishes were always done, with nothing piling up; and the bed was always made, military style. We were both into the discipline of getting up in the morning and straightening up before you leave the house. The more you do it, the more automatic it becomes, and the less effort it takes. Our apartment was always way cleaner than anyone else’s I went to, men or women. Especially women. They were like piglets.
Franco was the chef and I was the dishwasher, that was the deal. It didn’t take him long to find all the Italian joints to buy his spaghetti and his potatoes and his meat. As far as supermarkets were concerned, though, he turned up his nose. “Ah, the Americans,” he’d say. “You gotta go in the little store, the Italian store.” He was always coming home with small food packages and jars and saying, “You only get this in an Italian store.”
We were very happy in the apartment—until the landlord kicked us out. He knocked on the door one day and said we had to leave because it was only a one-bedroom. It was considered suspicious in those days in Southern California to have two guys sleeping in a one-bedroom place. I explained how Franco slept on the living room couch, but he just insisted, “It’s really intended for one person.” We wanted a bigger place anyway, so we didn’t care. We found a beautiful two-bedroom apartment nearby and moved there.
The new place had wall space for us to decorate, but we had nothing to put up; I sure didn’t have the money to buy art. Then one day in Tijuana, I saw this cool black-and-white poster of a cowboy with two guns drawn. It cost just $5, so I bought it. When I got home, I put it up on the wall with Scotch tape. It looked beautiful hanging there.
Then Artie came over. As soon as he saw it, he started snorting and acting pissed off. “Ugh,” he said, “what a fool.”
I said, “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, Reagan, I mean, Jesus.”
“That’s a great picture. I found it in Tijuana.”
He said, “Do you know who this is?”
“Well, it says below, ‘Ronald Reagan.’ ”
“He’s the governor of the state of California.”