Celebs: Just Say No to Recall

Hollywood's heavy hitters came out swinging on Friday against California's recall election, taking out a full-page ad in Variety that urged fellow show-biz types to vote no on the effort to force Governor Gray Davis out of office.

"Join us," reads the ad. "Vote no on the recall." The missive is signed by 46 names, including actors, producers, writers and studio chiefs.

The ad never mentions front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger specifically but it's bound to be the least of the Running Man's worries as new allegations surface that suggest the actor once expressed admiration for Hitler.

More on that later.

Among the John Hancock's adorning the trade ad was Columbia Pictures head Amy Pascal, whose studio distributed Schwarzenegger's flicks The 6th Day and Last Action Hero, and Universal Entertainment's prez Ron Meyer, whose studio distributed the actor's movies End of Days and Junior.

Other civic-minded big-shots include Paramount Pictures prez Sherry Lansing, DreamWorks cofounder David Geffen and billionaire producer Haim Saban.

Among the actors on the list: Larry David, Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Glover, Barbra Streisand, Cybill Shepherd, James Cromwell, Stacy Keach, Rob Reiner and Pierce Brosnan, who lent his support to Davis at a bill-signing ceremony on Thursday.

Also casting her weight behind the anti-recall effort: pundit Arianna Huffington, who until recently was an independent gubernatorial candidate for the October 7 election.

However, the endeavor was overshadowed on Friday by new allegations about Schwarzenegger's one-time comments about the German Fuhrer.

Just as few hours after the Predator star apologized to female voters for his bad behavior as outlined in a Los Angeles Times article, ABC News and the New York Times quoted a 1975 Schwarzenegger interview in which Ah-nuld expressed admiration for Hitler and his power over the people.

Schwarzenegger, whose father belonged to the Nazi party though has not been accused of Nazi war crimes, vehemently denied the comments at a press conference late Thursday, saying "I hated the regime--hate the regime, the Third Reich, the whole Nazi philosophy--have always fought against it."

ABC says the quotes in question were featured in an unpublished book proposal and came from a transcript of an interview the Austrian-born Schwarzenegger gave while he filmed the documentary that launched his career, Pumping Iron.

Asked about his heroes, the young bodybuilder was quoted as saying; "I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it."

The transcript, as broadcast by ABC, continues with Schwarzenegger saying he wished he could experience being "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium and have all those people scream at you and just being total agreement whatever you say."

The news network has been accused of taking the comments out of context. Indeed the New York Times offered a different interpretation of Schwarzenegger's interview. According to the Gray Lady, the young man said, "I admire him [Hitler] for being such a good public speaker and for his way of getting to the people and so on. But I didn't admire him for what he did with it."

The author of the proposal, Pumping Iron director George Butler, told ABC the comments were taken out of context. Butler did say in the Times that Schwarzenegger would play Nazi marches and mimic S.S. officers, but said the young bodybuilder was immature and just trying to psych out his rivals.

It's impossible to predict what outcome the latest allegations might have on the Republican candidate's campaign. Schwarzenegger's been the Teflon Terminator of the gubernatorial race, shrugging off allegations of group sex and pot smoking as youthful indiscretions and receiving kudos for coming clean on Thursday over reports of sexual harassment.

Californians (and incredulous residents in all other 49 states) will discover whether the Eraser has what it takes to win after Tuesday's election.