At Grauman’s, Hand Analyst Sees Energy in Schwarzenegger’s Palm Print

Hunched over a concrete square in the courtyard at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood on Sunday, professional hand analyst Beth Davis traced her finger into the well of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s palm print.

“There is this odd kind of teddy bear thing mixed with warrior energy,” she said, adding that she also saw “tremendous leadership ability.”

Davis was preparing for an interview with BBC Radio 5, a news network in England. Producer Chris Vallance had contacted her, asking if she could help make sense of the California recall election for listeners back home. “We thought this would be a fun thing to do,” Vallance said, stressing that the network also was broadcasting more serious election stories.

“Anything can happen in the United States,” Daniel Miguel, a 30-year-old businessman from Venezuela, said as he studied Schwarzenegger’s hand and boot prints.

More than 180 celebrities have immortalized their hands at Grauman’s. Vallance had to call several specialists in palmistry, as the discipline is formally known, before a Web search turned up one able to help.

Davis, who is registered as an independent and is unrelated to Gov. Gray Davis, splits her time between Arizona and Colorado. Normally she charges $150 for an hour-and-a-half palm reading.

This weekend she happened to be visiting Los Angeles, her home until 2000. As a public service, she said, she was more than willing to donate her services to the BBC.

Davis acknowledged that it would have been much better to read Schwarzenegger’s actual palms than the grainy imprints he left there on July 15, 1994, next to his signature and his famous promise, “I’ll be back.”

Nonetheless, she said the shape of the hands reveals much about the candidate. He needs the spotlight, “applause, approval and appreciation,” and “that may lead him to say shocking things,” Davis said.

Schwarzenegger was not timid when he shoved his hands into the wet cement, she said. He is a “man who wants to leave his mark.” Then there are the subtleties. The squareness of Schwarzenegger’s palm signifies intense loyalty to his inner circle and a need for personal freedom, Davis said. “The people around him listen to him,” she said.

Fingers that are slightly shorter than the palm denote “a nonnegotiable need for passion, for sex, for work, for life,” Davis said. A relatively short middle finger suggests that “he lives by his own rules,” she said.

And knuckles that bulge out show that “he has a lot of creative vision that is not impacted by obsession with details,” a clear sign, she said, “that he needs to delegate.”

Checking out the prints was Denis Delaney, a 44-year-old teacher from Ireland. He said he doesn’t understand much about the recall. “It’s a bit of a farce, isn’t it?” he said.

‘Arnold’s Law’ Proposal Would Double Penalties

In response to allegations of sexual harassment by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) said Sunday that he would introduce legislation that would double the penalty for sexual battery committed in the workplace.

Leno’s proposed legislation, which he refers to as “Arnold’s Law,” would impose up to one-year jail terms for people convicted of misdemeanor sexual battery in the workplace, he said. Under current law, people convicted of sexual battery face up to six months in county jail.

The current law, he said, does not differentiate between workplace and non-workplace harassment. Leno said harassment in the workplace is more serious because victims’ livelihoods can be put at risk if they complain.

Actor Mugged as Hitler, Photographer Says

A photographer says that in the late 1970s, he took a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger mugging for the camera as Adolf Hitler. In the black-and-white image, a person who appears to be Schwarzenegger, his hair slicked to one side, is holding a black comb under his nose like a mustache and holding up his fist.

Douglas Kent Hall said he took the photograph while he was working on a bodybuilding book with Schwarzenegger. The photograph, he said, was taken at a Santa Monica barber shop.

Hall said Schwarzenegger was shaking his fist and screaming in German when the picture was taken. The photograph, he said, has never been published. He said he has refused several recent offers by the National Enquirer to publish the photo.

From Times Staff Reports