Shriver Said to Have a Big Say in Schwarzenegger Decision

One group of Hollywood power agents got a glimpse last summer, up close and personal, of the sway Maria Shriver holds over the career of her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In a professional slump, the actor had made clear his intention to leave the William Morris Agency. Among the many competitors who quickly began courting him, these agents were summoned to make their case in the kitchen of the Schwarzenegger-Shriver family’s Pacific Palisades compound.

According to one who attended, Shriver, a veteran journalist for NBC News, sat at one end of the table, the action star at the other. “She ran the meeting,” this agent said of the grilling, which continued even after Schwarzenegger left the room.

The message: To win Arnold, you had to win over Maria.

Shriver’s strong hand in Schwarzenegger’s professional choices suddenly looms as a factor in California’s political future. As Schwarzenegger deliberates a run for governor on the Oct. 7 recall ballot, nearly a dozen business intimates say the decision will be heavily influenced by a wife who has often functioned as a de facto personal manager.

“She’s not afraid to speak her mind with Arnold, and he really relishes it,” said producer John Davis, who made the 1987 action movie “Predator” with Schwarzenegger and considers Shriver “one of my best friends.”

Among the couple’s associates, the inside betting is that Shriver will balk at trading the cherished privacy of the four children for the harsh glare of a campaign and possible life under perpetual scrutiny in Sacramento.

Political Ties

Shriver, the 47-year-old daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Peace Corps founder Sargent Shriver, requires no schooling in the hazards of political celebrity.

She has lost two uncles to assassination, while growing up with media attention equal to the tabloid treatment of most movie stars.

Shriver declined a request for comment. Cameron Blanchard, a spokeswoman for General Electric Co.’s NBC News unit, said executives have had “private discussions” with Shriver about her network duties in the event of a run. Schwarzenegger’s political consultant said Monday that the actor had not decided whether to run.

While it’s not unusual for a spouse to have a strong voice in career decisions, those who know Shriver say she has taken a surprisingly direct hand in some of her husband’s most important dealings, whether reading scripts, picking films or riding herd on highly paid representatives. In a more peculiar twist, Shriver, a lifelong Democrat, may affect the GOP’s fate in California, as potential party candidates wait for word of whether Republican Schwarzenegger is in or out.

Shriver isn’t shy about confronting professional advisors with her husband’s concerns. When Schwarzenegger signed with Creative Artists Agency last summer, he publicly cited as a factor the agency’s philanthropic arm, the CAA Foundation, which is supposed to work with the actor’s after-school sports initiative in urban areas. At one meeting with prospective agents, according to a participant, his wife asked: “What charities do you guys support?”

Five years earlier, Schwarzenegger left his longtime agent, Lou Pitt, of International Creative Management. He then signed with William Morris’ Robert Stein, whose wife was among Shriver’s closest friends.

Producer Arnold Kopelson, who made the 1996 hit “Eraser” with Schwarzenegger, said Shriver reads scripts that are regarded as serious prospects for her husband and has influenced casting decisions. Vanessa L. Williams, Schwarzenegger’s co-star in “Eraser,” won the role after Shriver, on an office visit with children in tow, suggested the former singer for what became her first major film appearance.

Shriver would “recommend how we might do something differently,” Kopelson said of her script comments. “I kidded her at one point and said, ‘Why don’t you come work for me?’ ”

Schwarzenegger’s Hollywood publicist, Jill Eisenstadt, who has represented the actor for the last 3 1/2 years, stressed what she called the mutual nature of the couple’s choices: “Arnold does not make decisions based on what’s best for him, but what’s best for his family.”

While hardly anonymous, the actor and his family -- which includes two daughters and two sons, all younger than 14 -- have blended with relative ease into life on Los Angeles’ Westside. The Schwarzenegger clan has been spotted bumping along the streets in an open Humvee on the way to school and trick-or-treating in Santa Monica.

The actor, who turns 56 Wednesday, keeps offices in a red-brick complex on Main Street, not far from the former site of Gold’s Gym, where he trained for his Mr. Olympia titles in the 1970s. His restaurant, Schatzi on Main, is in the same building.

Fiercely protective of her children, Shriver, in a brief biographical book called “Ten Things I Wish I’d Known -- Before I Went Out Into the Real World,” described once having told Cuba’s Fidel Castro that she was postponing a prized interview so she could return to the United States for her eldest daughter’s first day of preschool. Calling herself “driven,” she nonetheless cited family interests in giving up an NBC anchor position to work part-time, largely for the “Dateline” newsmagazine.

Rising Stars

Born in Chicago, Shriver graduated from Georgetown University, and two months later met Schwarzenegger, who was then better known for his bodybuilding titles than his occasional film work. Shriver at the time was beginning to work her way up through the TV news business, first at a Philadelphia station, then with CBS News.

By the time the two married, nine years later in 1986, Schwarzenegger was a major star, with action hits such as “The Terminator” and “Conan the Barbarian” behind him, and Shriver was co-anchor of CBS Morning News -- a job from which she was soon fired, leaving her to begin again with NBC.

Like any major star, Schwarzenegger has a substantial retinue that includes entertainment attorney Jake Bloom, litigator Martin Singer, Pasadena business attorney Leonard Marangi, and Hollywood’s powerhouse CAA. Yet Shriver’s influence -- though seldom visible in public -- has been profound, said intimates, many of whom did not want their names used because they expect to continue doing business with Schwarzenegger and did not want to appear to be interfering with his decision.

“His kitchen cabinet is comprised of at least one person whose intentions are pure and always in his own best interests, and that’s Maria,” said a top studio executive who has worked with Schwarzenegger and knows the couple.