ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 28, 1993                   TAG: 9305280230
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CLIFFORD TERRY KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long


HEAD TO HEAD

Aww right, as they say. Arnold versus Sly.

"Yo!"

"Hasta la vista, baby!"

"Uh'll be bek." (That is, "I'll be back.")

Actually, they'll both be bek. Sylvester Stallone's movie, "Cliffhanger," opens today. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Last Action Hero" opens June 18. Will summer -- as they also say -- ever be the same again?

Probably.

Gentlemen, start your press kits:

"She was an inexperienced climber, she trusted him to rescue her, but something went wrong high above the valley floor, and Gabe Walker (Sylvester Stallone) has been blaming himself for her death ever since.

Unable to deal with the tragedy, Gabe quit his job with the Rocky Mountain Rescue Team and fled from his once-cherished mountains, leaving behind his self-esteem, his friends and the woman he loves. Now he must return to those dreaded peaks, where he finds himself trapped in a desperate battle against ruthless criminals, unforgiving nature and himself."

"Steady, relentless, powerful . . . Sergeant Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has never lost a battle in the war against crime. Slater can dodge bullets effortlessly, survive tremendous explosions and take on an army of thugs single-handedly. Jack Slater is also the greatest fictional movie hero on the big screen. An otherwise invincible juggernaut, Slater's movie world gets shaken up when a magical ticket blasts 11-year-old Danny Madigan out of his theater seat and into the movie."

Stallone vs. Schwarzenegger. The Battle of the Brutes.

Fair contest? Maybe not.

Arnold's cinematic fortunes obviously are in the ascendancy, Sly's in decline. While each has been named Star of the Year by the National Association of Theatre Owners, for Arnold the honor came in 1987, for Sly, in 1976. Earlier this year, the theater owners named Schwarzenegger the international box office star of the decade.

Schwarzenegger's last two films, according to Variety, have grossed more than $100 million domestically -- "Total Recall" ($118 million) and "Terminator 2" ($204 million). Stallone's last film, "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!" has grossed $12 million, placing it down in 50th place (out of 152) for 1992 motion pictures. Schwarzenegger reportedly makes $15 million a movie, Stallone $6 to $9 million.

What's more, Arnold is going for the family trade. "Last Action Hero" -- billed as a fantasy-action-adventure-comedy -- is rated PG-13 and is said to be without graphic violence or strong language, while "Cliffhanger" is rated R and reportedly contains an abundance of four-letter words. Has Arnold reformed, or has he just read a recent study that shows that a PG film is more than three times as likely as an R-rated film to gross more than $100 million?

Parenthood, it is said, has softened him. He has estimated that he has killed 275 people onscreen, but also has observed, "I think America has seen now enough of what violence has done in the cities." Just before the release of his hit 1991 sequel, he told David Letterman he played "a kinder, gentler Terminator."

Initially, of course, both Arnold and Sly built reputations as killing machines, using old-fashioned muscle or high-tech weaponry. Take no prisoners, speak economically. As one (female) character said in Arnold's violent "Commando": "These guys eat too much red meat."

A few years ago, though, they began to drift into comedies of sorts: "Twins" and "Kindergarten Cop" for Arnold, the doubly wretched "Oscar" and "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!" for Sly. At one point Stallone even talked about playing his John Rambo character as an ecologist fighting for the environment -- prompting writer-director Richard Brooks to crack, "What's he gonna do? Shoot the vegetables?"

The appeal of both actors -- besides their ability to shoot 'em up, blast 'em up, burn 'em up -- could be that in their own lives they represent the American Dream.

Stallone was born in New York's tough Hell's Kitchen. Arnold's family in Austria didn't have indoor plumbing, a telephone or a refrigerator until he was 14.

Politically, Sly seems to have kept a low profile, but Arnold -- dubbed Conan the Republican -- often has been rumored to be seeking the governorship of California, which he denies.

Besides his screen persona, he is best known for having been chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness by George Bush. (Trivia note: The very first chairman, appointed by Dwight Eisenhower, was Richard M. Nixon.)

Realizing that comparisons are odious, here are a few examples of odiousness, along with other entries we have dug up through culling dozens of articles, interviews and trashy gossip items.

AGE

Arnold: 45.

Sly: 46.

VITAL STATS

Sly: 5-feet-10, 185 pounds.

Arnold: 5-feet-11, 210 pounds.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Arnold: Gap between front teeth, turned-down mouth, John Lithgow-like square jaw.

Sly: Partially facially paralyzed because of birth complications. Droopy eyelids. Downturned smile resembling a sneer. Turned down by Navy because of hearing impairment.

SCREEN IMAGE

Sly: Big, dumb palooka.

Arnold: Big, dumb palooka.

FIRST FILM

Sly: "The Lords of Flatbush" (1974)

Arnold: "Hercules in New York" (1970, under pseudonym Arnold Strong). Later reissued as "Hercules Goes Bananas."

ACCENT

Arnold: Henry Kissinger-esque.

Sly: Da Knicks.

PREVIOUS LIFE

Arnold: Bricklayer, bodybuilder.

Sly: Usher, fish salesman, horse trainer, delicatessen worker, truck driver, bouncer, zoo attendant, short-order cook, pizza demonstrator.

DOMESTIC LIFE

Arnold: Married to broadcast journalist and JFK niece Maria Shriver. Two daughters, Katherine Eunice and Christina Aurelia. Third child due in October.

Sly: Married Sasha Czack in 1975 when both were movie theater ushers in New York. Divorced in 1985. Two sons, Sage Moonblood and Seargeoh. Married 6-foot-tall Danish actress/model Brigitte Nielsen in 1985. Divorced bitterly in 1987 after rumors of her infidelity (involving, among others, Eddie Murphy). Sly's astrology-devotee mother knew all along it wouldn't last: "They are both ruled by the moon, and no two people of the same star sign should ever marry."

HIGHER EDUCATION

Sly: University of Miami (dropout).

Arnold: B.A. in business and international economics from University of Wisconsin/Superior (mostly correspondence).

VEHICLES OF CHOICE

Sly: Mercedes-Benz.

Arnold: Purple Harley-Davidson motorcycle, High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (Humvee).

A FEW FAVORITE THINGS

Arnold: Seven-inch, $25 Cuban cigars, tan pants, Strauss waltzes, skeet shooting.

Sly: Playing polo, skiing, horseback riding, creating paintings that sell for between $4,000 and $40,000, collecting art. (He once reportedly had a chance to buy a de Kooning for $80,000 but backed off when his bodyguard said, "I wouldn't put that in my . . . doghouse." Ten years later, it sold for $3 million.)

SARTORIAL STYLE

Arnold: Preppy look.

Sly: Bright pink floral shirts, white suits, gold chains. (Arnold on Sly: "It's a shame no one taught him to be cool. He should have L.L. Bean shoes and corduroy pants with a plaid shirt. That's cool.")

GOOD NEIGHBOR SLY

Malibu Colony West resident Jack Lemmon: "I don't know what it is with him [Stallone]. He's got bulletproof glass in the windows and at night there are so many spotlights turned on that the house looks like a damned spaceship. He's got two bodyguards who look exactly like him walking around the beach. I guess he figures that cuts the odds of being assassinated to 1 in 3."

DEPT. OF GOOD DEEDS

Hearing that the Veterans Administration had temporarily stopped watering Los Angeles National Cemetery because the monthly $9,250 bill exceeded its budget, Stallone angrily offered to pay for lawn sprinkling, snorting, "When I think about the amount of water that runs down the driveways of Beverly Hills, the hypocrisy of it all becomes too much."

Told that American soldiers in the Persian Gulf war were working out by lifting pails filled with sand, Schwarzenegger persuaded sporting goods manufacturers to donate more than 100,000 pounds of free weights, bench boards, leg presses and treadmills.

POLLS TO LIVE BY

A 1985 poll showed that 61 percent thought Sly was using too much vegetable oil on his pectorals, 29 percent thought he was using just enough, 7 percent were undecided and only 3 percent thought he should use more.

In 1992 pollsters asked supermarket shoppers if they would rather take home a grocery basket filled by Sylvester Stallone, Jane Fonda, Bill Cosby, Madonna, Roseanne Arnold or Joan Collins. Stallone placed third behind Fonda and Cosby. Madonna was last.

MOMENTS TO LIVE BY

Ending a 63-day liquid-only fast, a Californian protesting violence in "Rambo III" delivered a pepperoni pizza to Stallone's Malibu home. A housekeeper accepted the gift, which had been dropped on the pavement and had a bite missing.

A 75-foot-tall balloon in Times Square promoting "Last Action Hero" showed Arnold holding several sticks of dynamite in one hand and a huge gun in the other. After the bombing at the World Trade Center, the dynamite was replaced by a police badge.

THOUGHTS TO LIVE BY

Sly: "Women can take you to the moon, and they can just send you on a down-bound train to hell real fast. I don't believe in chaining women to the stove or having a vacuum cleaner surgically grafted to their hands so they stay around the house doing domestic chores. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't make that a requirement."

Arnold: "Everyone would like to be a Terminator. Everyone would like to be a person who can take care of the job. Whoever makes you mad, you can get even."

Sly: "People think I've got the IQ of a hockey score. I'm supposed to be this primordial being who slurs his way through life. My vocabulary is larger than 90 percent of the writers I've met."

Arnold: "The key thing is to let the mind, like the body, float. And then when you need to hit hard, you're ready with all of your energy. That's why I always say to people, `Don't think!' "



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