Taxing Day for the Running Man

His pay stubs, his taxes, his talking skull.

While Arnold Schwarzenegger's rivals complain he's let on little about how exactly he'd "clean up" California, the movie star who would be governor is opening up about his finances.

The Last Action Hero earned $57.2 million in 2000 and 2001, according to a review of his income-tax returns by the Los Angeles Times.

Reporters were allowed to look at--but only look at--the paperwork Sunday, the newspaper said. (No copies were allowed out of concern the Terminator's 1040s "would end up on eBay," a campaign official said in the Times.)

Most of the big guy's money came from supposed-to-be big movies--his $31.1 million in 2000 came from, mostly, his paycheck for The 6th Day; and, his $26.1 million in 2001 came from, mostly, his paycheck from Collateral Damage.

Each film reputedly earned the Austrian Oak $25 mil (his going rate up until Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, for which he pocketed just under $30 mil). And each film disappointed at the box office.

Schwarzenegger, however, did not disappoint when it came to contributing to the community coffers. In 2000, he paid $11.2 million in federal and state taxes. In 2001, he kicked in $9.3 million.

"Arnold likes paying taxes," Paul Wachter, the actor's investment manager, told reporters, per the Times. "It's not that he goes out of his way to pay, [but] Arnold's philosophy is, 'If I'm paying a lot of taxes, I must be making a lot of money.' "

No info on his 2002 tax returns--he hasn't filed them yet. (The Times tells us this is standard practice for rich people, who apparently need more time to count their money because, well, there's so much of it.)

The returns that Schwarzenegger have returned show off his charitable streak. In 2001, for instance, the End of Days star donated a house worth $2 million to Los Angeles' Roman Catholic archbishop, Cardinal Roger Mahoney. Also that year, he gave his Inner City Games Foundation the keys to a 1996 Humvee, valued at nearly $86,000.

In a separate disclosure, Schwarzenegger gave state election officials a required list of all the gifts, worth $50 or more, that he has received in the last year.

Among the goodies the guy got, per the Times: A $1,000 talking skull courtesy his T3 producers; $250 worth of cigars from motivational speaker Tony Robbins; and $150 in Belgian chocolates from the manager of Vegas duo Siegfried & Roy.

In other Citizen Arnold developments:

The candidate spent Monday on a campaign swing in New York, where he's not running for governor. The candidate voted in just six of the last 13 statewide elections in California, where is he running for governor, Newsweek reported. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh cautioned his faithful that the Running Man, registered Republican or no, is "not a conservative." Embattled California Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, told NBC's Today on Monday that he doesn't know what Schwarzenegger is. "I think Arnold Schwarzenegger will be the first to tell you that he has a long ways to go to explain what he would do as governor," Davis said. Polls show Davis has a long ways to go in order to remain governor. If the election were held Monday, Davis would be recalled and Schwarzenegger would be tapped his replacement--both by wide margins. As it is, the election won't be held Monday, but rather October 7. The producer-director of Pumping Iron, the 1977 bodybuilding documentary that pumped up Schwarzenegger's Hollywood career, told Newsweek there is "no smoking gun" to be found in the film's 80 hours' worth of outtakes, bought up by its famous star a decade ago.

The remark by George Butler was a reference to a story--a false one, he says--that had Schwarzenegger doing a Nazi salute for the camera.

A 25th anniversary edition of Pumping Iron was released last fall, complete with a shot of the future Kindergarten Cop taking a hit off a marijuana cigarette.

"I did smoke a joint and I did inhale," Schwarzenegger told the Associated Press last November. "The bottom line is that's what it was in the '70s, that's what I did. I have never touched it since."

The pot scene was in the film's original version, as well. Schwarzenegger said he refused to ask Butler to cut it for the reissue because "that would not be true to the filmmaker."

T3's backers are ready to go ahead with a T4, "with or without" Schwarzenegger, provided "we come with a good story," producer Moritz Bormann told Reuters.

On the upside, with $145 million in ticket sales through last weekend, T3 is Schwarzenegger's biggest-grossing movie since 1994's True Lies, which topped out at $146 million. On the downside, T3 cost a reported $200 million to make. On the upside, it's made back its money at the overseas box office.

Bormann suggested that if Schwarzenegger's political career prevented him from blowing up people on screen (our words, not his), another actor could replace his obsolete Terminator model, or flashbacks (i.e., old footage) could be used.

While T4 may go on without its lead robot, other Schwarzenegger projects may not be so automatic. The Times reported last month that both Big Sir, a comedy, and Westworld, a remake of the 1973 action-thriller, were still in the talking stages, although writers were hired to crank out a Westworld script in June.

Schwarzenegger, who announced his candidacy last week on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, was one of 195 Californians, including billboard queen Angelyne, former child star Gary Coleman and cut-up comic Gallagher, who sought to seal their gubernatorial bids by turning in the required paperwork and fees to meet last Saturday's deadline.

State officials will release the final list of who's going to be who on the October ballot by Wednesday.