Is it true that Arnold ...
Time of the season: Verne Troyer, Arnold Schwarzenegger
Question: Is it true that Arnold Schwarzenegger directed a Christmas movie? My friend bet me it's so, but I think it's an urban myth.
Answer: Like you, I don't immediately connect Christmas movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and when I do give the matter some thought, I come up Jingle All the Way (1996), a dyspeptic tale of a beleaguered dad (Schwarzenegger) desperate to score a Turbo Man action figure, the year's hottest toy, for his son. But the fact is, your friend is right: The Governator did direct a 1992 made-for-TV remake of the classic Christmas in Connecticut (1945). The original film starred Barbara Stanwyck as a Martha Stewart-style food columnist whose homey housewife persona is a huge hit with her magazine's readers. But the truth is that she can't cook, doesn't live on a family farm in Connecticut, and doesn’t have a baby or even a husband. But the heartwarming PR gimmick her publisher has concocted — sending a sailor fresh out of a naval hospital to spend the holidays with her family — will blow her cover unless she can quickly assemble a facsimile of the life everyone thinks she's living. The Schwarzenegger version stars Dyan Cannon as the host of a popular TV cooking show and turns the war hero into a forest ranger who lost his cabin to a fire, but otherwise the story is pretty much the same.
