大学英语-习题及答案-大学英语Ⅰ-Unit-4-Schwarzenegger's-American-dream

Passage I

Answer the following questions briefly, paraphrase the underlined parts and translate the bold typed sentences.

Schwarzenegger's American dream

By Martin Kasindorf, USA TODAY

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was new to America in the late 1960s, the champion bodybuilder couldn't understand why he was failing in his first business venture: laying bricks at the homes of Los Angeles' wealthy. Why was it, Schwarzenegger asked a businessman friend, that he underpriced competitors but wasn't getting hired? The friend said the problem was the Austrian's fractured English. The same was true for some Italian immigrants. So they were told to promote themselves as "specialty European bricklayers." They did and charged higher rates than established bricklayers. The hustling immigrants soon had more jobs than their sculpted biceps could handle. That's when Arnold learned promotion was just as important as skill

Through 35 years in his adopted country, Schwarzenegger has built his fortunes on a well-honed instinct for self-marketing. He has followed the ambitious path he mapped as a dreamy teenager. It has taken him from modest roots to movie renown. Through shrewd investing of his movie earnings, he has assets of more than $200 million. And he has a storybook marriage to Maria Shriver of the politically royal Kennedy clan. Now, at 56, the pop culture icon is using his self-promotion skills in high-level politics.

In the campaign's first weeks, Schwarzenegger's strategy was to look good, avoid political reporters, give few details but sound intriguingly like a leader. Since Labor Day, he has reacted to criticism by saying more about state issues. He hasn't specified what government programs he'd cut to balance the budget, but he has issued proposals on environmental protection and campaign-finance reform.

Schwarzenegger is still running essentially a celebrity campaign. He aims at the mass market, not at political sophisticates. "He's running his campaign like a movie premiere," says Raphael Sonenshein, a California State University-Fullerton political scientist.

Some of Schwarzenegger's TV commercials, on which he spends $2 million a week from a $12 million campaign treasury, play to his macho screen image.

As he exploits the advantages of his fame, Schwarzenegger's message to voters is the same inspiration he gives urban kids in the after-school programs he has sponsored since 1990. He is running as the rags-to-riches American Dream.

The screen strongman says he is proof that if you're disciplined and work hard, you can accomplish anything.

Schwarzenegger told reporters early in his campaign that he will win because "I know how to sell something.

I had to sell bodybuilding when nobody knew what bodybuilding was in this country. And we did it. And I had to sell myself as an action hero, which wasn't easy when everyone said, 'Hey, your name is Schwarzenschnitzel or something like that.' And you have an accent. You have this overdeveloped body. No one could ever be successful with this kind of a combination. And I did it, because I sold myself to the American people and the people around the world."

Schwarzenegger's mainspring in selling himself is his "almost unlimited ambition, self-discipline and willpower," says George Butler, director of the 1977 film Pumping Iron, which brought the bodybuilder to Hollywood's attention.

His drive started early, in the Austrian farm town of Thal. Arnold regularly lost in running and boxing with his older brother. "I think what made me so driven was that I always felt I wasn't good enough, smart enough, strong enough, that I hadn't accomplished enough," Schwarzenegger told Newsweek.

'Knew what he wanted'

Jon Jon Park, now a fitness trainer in Los Angeles, recalls that Schwarzenegger "already knew what he wanted to accomplish. He wanted to have the best physique. He wanted a nice home and a good family. He wanted to be in movies, and he wanted to be successful at it. And he wanted to be in politics. One by one, he's accomplished these goals." But he has not done it entirely on his own. "He's smart enough to see the virtue of surrounding himself with smart people," Park says, "and he's done that since he came to America."

Muscle-magazine publisher Joe Weider gave Schwarzenegger some of his first lessons in marketing. He paid Schwarzenegger's fare to come to America in 1968. Weider's staff designed bodybuilding courses, belts and T-shirts that Arnold then peddled under his own name through free ads in Weider's publications. Hooked on business, Schwarzenegger got a bachelor's degree in marketing, mainly through correspondence courses, from the University of Wisconsin-Superior in 1979.

"Arnold has always had a keen sense of how to market himself and his movies," says Mario Kassar, co-producer of Terminator 3."He proved to the world a long time ago that working hard to support the release of a film adds enormously to its success at the box office."