Actor

In late July, I had dinner in a London restaurant with Spectator World contributor Fergus Butler-Gallie. Behind us was sitting an American who clearly had a high opinion of himself, judging by the volume with which he spoke, the almost manic fashion he treated his dining guest — the theater director Trevor Nunn — to a series of impersonations and Shakespearean soliloquies, and the way he dominated the dining room. When Nunn left the table, I glanced over and was both amused and vaguely appalled to discover that the diner was none other than Kevin Spacey, fresh from being acquitted of charges of sexual assault, and now, presumably, set on rebuilding his career. We’d overheard snippets of conversation.

It would be presumptuous to call 2023 the comeback of Arnold Schwarzenegger: he never went away. From his first starring role in 1982’s Conan the Barbarian to an illustriously memorable life and career that have included everything from the Terminator films to his term as governor of California, he has judiciously created an existence for himself as an all-American success story; a sort of Scott Fitzgerald character for the Reaganite age. Not bad, really, for a man born seventy-six years ago in a small town in Austria, the son of an unrepentant Nazi. Should you turn on Netflix, you will now be greeted by two incarnations of Der Arnold.