I said, “Arnold, I’d love to do The Running Man with you. I want to do The Running Man with you. But Arnold . . . I can’t read the script until the money’s right!”
He burst out laughing. “Jesse, trust me. The script is fantastic. Just get the money right.”
Amazingly, that afternoon, the film company called me back and said they’d meet my price. Now, I don’t know this for a fact, but the rumor I’d heard was that Arnold had asked them, “What is he asking for?” They told him. And Arnold said, “Pay him.”
Arnold and I are close today. Our families exchange Christmas presents each year. I was deeply honored when Arnold flew into town for my inauguration. He was right in the middle of shooting a film, too. But I guess when you get to his level of success, you have your own plane and can say, “I’m not working today. I’m going to Minnesota.”
He presented me with a beautiful gift that now sits on my desk: two huge bronze eagles from the National Historical Society. I’m sure they’re very expensive; they’re extremely heavy. There’s a plaque on the back that reads, “Jesse, you are a true leader. Your friend, Arnold.”
And to show you what a shrewd businessman he is, do you know what he did while he was in town for the inauguration? He went down to his restaurant, Planet Hollywood, in the Mall of America, and he met with his staff of chefs and came up with a new menu item: the Jesse “The Mind” Melt Sandwich! It’s delicious—a big slab of cheese-covered beef with a bit of a spark to it. But the clever part is that by launching the new menu item, he turned the visit into a business trip! He can write the whole thing off!
While I was waiting for the Running Man negotiations to sort themselves out, I called Vince and told him, “We have a problem now. Barry Bloom represents me in all my film work, in everything I do except for wrestling. Now, Vince, convince me why he shouldn’t represent me in wrestling, too.”
“Well, uh, we don’t have agents in wrestling.”
“Then you don’t have me.”
At that point, he’d lost me for ten weeks and seen how badly he needed me. I was a hot commodity, and launching a film career had only made me hotter. So he finally swallowed his pride and called Barry Bloom. Today, it’s standard for a wrestler to have an agent. And Barry Bloom has become the mega-agent for wrestlers.
Before I brought in Barry, the standard was that if a wrestler wanted to have an agent, he’d get fired. But my popularity gave me leverage. I remember one time I said to Vince, “That’s the secret to becoming a mega-star, isn’t it? To go out and become famous at something else, and then come back.”
Vince smiled at me and said, “You’re learning, aren’t you?”
I had that whole summer after Predator off. I was finally able to make a lifelong dream come true: I bought a Porsche. I got it off one of the stuntmen on the Predator crew for around thirteen thousand. I decided to drive it back to Minnesota myself, although I had a tough time convincing Terry to come with. She was so uncomfortable in that little thing, she could barely move. All the way home she kept threatening to bail out and take the next plane home.
That summer, I also decided to venture into rock ’n’ roll. I put together my own band, Soldiers of Fortune. It was a great boost to my acting and commentating careers, because it gave me confidence in my voice. A lot of people, even Arnold, have said I have a great voice, but I’d never believed it. But I figured, if I could make it in rock ’n’ roll, it must be true.
I was the lead singer, and I played harmonica. Terry was in it, too—she was one of the backup singers. I had a great solo in one original number called “The Soldier of Fortune Blues,” a real heavy, bluesy tune that we’d play in the middle of the set to slow everything down.
I’d never played harmonica before, and at first I was so bad that Terry went behind my back to Mark Orion, the music arranger, and pleaded with him, “Is there any way we can get Jesse to stop playing harmonica?”
Mark replied, “Oh, no, we can’t do that to Jesse. That’s his thing!”
It was so awful, they decided to call what I was doing a new form of music, “new-wave harp.” Finally I figured out that if you buy a harmonica tuned in the key of the song, you sound pretty good no matter what notes you blow. That’s a little-known secret from the music business.
We cut a demo under the nonexistent record label Jade Records. We did some covers of great rock oldies—“Sympathy for the Devil,” “Eve of Destruction”—and a couple of original pieces. During the concerts, when we got to the part of “Sympathy for the Devil” that goes, “to end this tale, just call me Lucifer, for I’m in need of some restraint,” I’d hit the word “LUCIFERRR!!!” and two big explosions were supposed to go off. But the kid who was supposed to be doing them tended to daydream, and he missed his cue a lot. When you’re getting very cheap help, it’s hard to get someone overly professional. But we did all right. We even got “Eve of Destruction” onto a Hitmakers CD—we’re sandwiched between Paul McCartney and Mötley Crüe.
It was great; I’d like to do it again. You never get too old for rock ’n’ roll. I learned from that experience that it’s not your voice, it’s the soul you put into it. Case in point: Bob Dylan—he’s one of the greatest artists of all time, and it’s not because of the quality of his singing voice (excuse me, Bob). I really don’t know whether or not we sucked, but we had a lot of fun.
Finally, at the end of that summer, negotiations sorted themselves out, and I got to do The Running Man with Arnold. That was a blast, too, but I had even more fun on the press junket Fox sent me on when Predator was about to come out. It was Arnold’s idea—he knew I was a good talker and could sell the film well. For somebody who comes from working-class Minneapolis, it was a trip into the Twilight Zone. They don’t pay you for a press junket, but they treat you like a star. We flew all over the country in Fox’s corporate jet. Limos picked us up. I left with $235 in my billfold and didn’t use a penny of it in the three weeks I was gone. The cheapest hotel room they put me up in was about $800 a night.
I wanted Terry to get in on this experience, so I mentioned to the Fox people that I wanted to bring her along at my own expense—I asked if I could use my frequent-flier miles to let her catch up with us in New York. “You want your wife along with you?” When I insisted that I did, somebody got on the phone and said, “Get a first-class ticket to fly Mrs. Ventura out to New York. And have a car to pick her up.” Sure enough, she was there waiting for us when we got to New York. And Fox picked up the tab.
Arnold recommended that we stay at the Lowell Hotel. “I think you’ll like it, Jesse. It’s Maria’s favorite.” It’s a quaint old place with only three suites per floor, with antiques and shelves full of leatherbound books everywhere. A lot of stars stay there because it’s peaceful and secluded. It was a treat.
We were scheduled to appear with Arnold in Coconut Grove, that ritzy section of Miami, but he got called away for something else. So it was just me inside the limo, being met by the hotel manager and owner, being escorted to my suite (you know you’ve got a nice room when they have to open two doors), which had a baby grand piano and a four-person Jacuzzi in the bedroom. It brings out the devil in you, having that kind of wealth lavished on you. I relaxed back in my hot bubble bath at the end of the day and thought, “I wonder what the poor people are doing today.” Isn’t that awful?
It was Arnold’s influence on me that put an end to my work with Vince McMahon. When I finally came back to work with Vince again, he found out that I was negotiating a deal to do a video game. Vince had video games of his own on the market, and he didn’t want me out there competing. So he told me point-blank, “You do this video game and you can’t work for me.”
Now one thing you’ve probably guessed about me is that I can’t be bluffed. It’s the Klingon in me; it’s an insult to my honor. So I said, “Vince, if you really don’t want me to do the video game, buy me out of it.” He refused. So I did the video game. But that wasn’t the last time Vince ever asked me to work for him again—
just the last time I accepted.
After Predator, my film career took off. I did The Running Man with Arnold, then I did Demolition Man, Major League 2, a couple of indies called Thunder Ground and Abraxas, even an episode of The X-Files. I did outrageous Miller Lite and Campbell’s Chunky Soup commercials. In 1990, I almost had my own TV series, but it wasn’t in the cards.
It would have been an outstanding family-style TV show, if the network hadn’t killed it. It was called Tag Team. The concept for the show came from a six-year-old kid, the son of a Hollywood writer. He and his dad were watching wrestling one night, and the kid said, “Gosh, Dad, you know what would be a neat story? Two wrestlers who become cops.” Boom. That’s how the whole thing started.
It was the story of two pro wrestlers who got banned from wrestling by a corrupt promoter and went on to become cops. Roddy Piper and I had the leads. My character was an ex–Navy SEAL—can’t imagine where that idea came from! We had the entire writing team from Magnum, P.I.; they had written nine episodes. It was fun, lighthearted comedy, the kind where right always prevails over wrong.
The show’s big hook was that as cops, we never used guns against our suspects; we always brought ’em in with nothing but our bodies, our wrestling technique, and our street smarts. We did all our own stunts, so they didn’t have to do all those hard cuts that you see when a stunt man is used.
We made a pilot, which got snapped right up. It was great. Barry Bloom’s agency partner Michael Braverman came down to watch the filming of the pilot. Michael’s a terrific guy, but I did have to teach him a thing or two about wrestling. Once when Mike and I were talking about pro wrestling, he committed the cardinal sin. He used the f word. He said, “Everybody knows that’s stuff’s all fake. Isn’t it?” I just narrowed my eyes at him a little. No need to say anything right then—actions speak louder than words.
So when Michael came to the set of Tag Team, I “helped” him (with Barry’s help) see my side of it. We had a ring set up there, and I said, “Hey, Mike. Ever wonder what the inside of a pro wrestling ring feels like?”
He looked at me, puzzled. “Well, no, not really.”
“Really? You’ve never been curious?”
Michael slipped a hand under the bottom rope and poked the mat with his finger. “Nice. Soft.”
“Yeah, but haven’t you ever wondered what it feels like to be in the ring? C’mon. Give it a try.”
So Michael climbed into the ring with me. He bounced up and down on the mat a few times. “Nice ring.”
That’s when I grabbed him. I cartwheeled him head over heels and bounced him up and down a few times, letting his head stop just an inch or two from the mat each time. All the extras were screaming, “Kill the suit! Kill the suit!” They didn’t know who he was. I wasn’t going to do anything to him, I just wanted to let him know what I could do! He was clinging to me like a fly to flypaper. Then I flipped him right side up again and set him back on his feet. I said, “Still think wrestling’s fake?” The discussion was over.
Tag Team never made it to the airwaves as a regular series, because the network decided it didn’t fit their programming. They pulled the plug on it the night before we were scheduled to start shooting more episodes. We tried to get the rights to it—we were going to take it to Fox—but Disney wouldn’t let it go, probably because of ego. If they’d let it go and it became a big hit, imagine how they’d look. It got put on a shelf, where it’s still sitting today. I got a lot of cards and letters after the pilot aired, asking about it. But that’s Hollywood. Too bad. It would have been a fun show.
So I had gone from being a moderately successful regional wrestler to being a popular, nationally recognized public figure. My work in commentating and movies gave me so much exposure that it allowed me to make the leap into celebrity status. I had branched out into many more directions since the days when I was just a wrestler, but I was no less obnoxious and outspoken. That reputation seems to follow me wherever I go. Barry Bloom tried to get my outspokenness in check a little. He warned me, “Jesse, don’t tell everyone what you think of the role until you get it!”
My habit of speaking my mind was what earned me the moniker Jesse “The Mouth.” What seems to amaze people is that I actually make sense a lot of the time. Of course, I’ve always had my critics, too. But I’m thick-skinned. It doesn’t bother me to have people yelling and screaming and picking at me. Throughout my wrestling years, that’s what I was encouraging them to do! As I like to say in interviews, I’m loved by some, I’m hated by others, but what the hell—they all know who I am.
I might have gone a lot further in Hollywood if I had been willing to move there. At one point Arnold Schwarzenegger asked me when I was going to move out there and become one of the boys. I said, “Well, what about the schools?”
Arnold replied, “Don’t worry about the schools. You put your kids in private school.”
That’s what stopped me. I thought, “I’m not living in a place where my kids have to go to private school.” I’m not knocking private schools, but I believe that I owe it to my kids to let them grow up in a place where private school isn’t required. They’re only in school six or eight hours each day; they have to live in their neighborhood twenty-four hours a day. I didn’t want them growing up in a neighborhood where anybody with the means had abandoned their public schools. A neighborhood is only as good as its residents’ commitment to it. I know it hurt my film career, but so be it. My kids come first.
Again, fate: If I had moved to L.A., I probably never would have become governor. And after the election and what it did, with the long-range reverberations I see all across the country, I believe even more in that destiny.
C H A P T E R 7
“THE MIND”
It wasn’t something I planned. I’d never had any inkling of getting into politics. None. It had never crossed my mind. In a way, you could say that I didn’t go into politics; politics came to me. It landed in my lap—or, to be more accurate, in my backyard. That made it impossible to ignore.
There’s the Klingon in me again—that warrior ethic. A warrior is supposed to fight for the common good, to protect the community. In the situation that got me into politics, my community was clearly under attack. Even more infuriating, the attack was coming from the inside—from the elected officials who were supposed to be representing us. Their disregard of our wishes was like a slap in the face. Rest assured, when somebody slaps me in the face, I don’t back down.
In 1990, Terry, Tyrel, Jade, and I were living in Brooklyn Park, an older, mostly developed neighborhood in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis. At the time, developers were coming into the area, looking to turn the few remaining potato fields into housing developments. This one particular developer came in and wanted to get the highest buck for what he was about to build, so he demanded that the neighborhood put in curbs, gutters, and storm sewers. We didn’t need those things. We all had ditches to catch rain runoff, and none of us had a water problem. It was a waste of money to put those things in.
But for decades, Brooklyn Park’s government had been in the hands of one of the greediest packs of good old boys the state had ever seen. Anything that brought them revenue, whether it was good for the people or not, they voted for. So naturally, these guys lived in the developers’ back pockets. Anything the developers wanted, the mayor and his council simply handed them.
The citizens of Brooklyn Park were playing second fiddle to developers. Now remember, the developers put up their projects, and then they’re gone; they’re on to something else. The citizens live there year-round. So who do you think was paying for it all? Right. And who had the least say in how their money was spent? Exactly.
The council was gonna force this latest pile of gifts down our throats. They were going to give us these expensive curbs, gutters, and storm sewers we didn’t want and make us pay for it with assessments. Worst of all, though, was where they planned to put the runoff water: They couldn’t drain it off into t
he Mississippi because of pollution laws, so they decided to have it drain right into a local wetland nearby. This beautiful wetland, which bordered on Jewel Park, was about a block from my house. All that storm runoff being pumped in there would have completely destroyed it.
About 450 of us signed a petition stating that the proposed development was unacceptable. We told the council in no uncertain terms that we didn’t want or need curbs, gutters, and storm sewers, and that we felt that they were doing it only to satisfy this developer. We took the petition up to city hall and presented it at a city-council meeting. We were voted down seven to nothing. That seemed a little strange to me. I could understand if they voted it down four to three, or even five to two. But the fact that the whole council seemed in such perfect alliance against the citizens seemed more than fishy.
I thought, “Wait a minute. Don’t we elect these people to represent us, the populace? It don’t seem like they’re doing that.” And so I started getting more involved and paying more attention. I started seeing that this core group of arrogant, self-centered old boys—Mayor Krautkremer and his cronies—was literally running the show. All you had to do was look at the council’s voting record—it was 7–0, 7–0, 7–0 on every issue! They weren’t even letting other people talk unless they agreed with them. They acted as though the will of the taxpayers was totally irrelevant. They were having their way with the people. Everything they said and did was to keep themselves in power and to keep everybody who didn’t support them squeezed out. And we were paying their salaries!
I also found out that these same good old boys had used public funds to purchase a monstrous clubhouse, the size of a Scottish castle, adjacent to the public golf course—which they had also built. This posh, lavish place called the Edinburgh Club—which provided all the benefits of a private club—had been paid for with taxpayers’ money!
So, the next time a council seat opened up, a group of us got together and decided we needed to get someone who spoke for the taxpayers onto the council. Joe Enge volunteered. Joe’s platform was environmental: He was solidly behind protecting the wetland from developers. From the moment Joe launched his campaign, all we heard was “You can’t win on one issue!” Well, lo and behold, Joe won. So all the votes, instead of being solid 7–0, now came out 6–1, 6–1, 6–1—except, of course, wherever Joe agreed with the council, which was rarely.
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