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environment. His parents divorced when he was 4
(his mother eventually would marry seven times),
and after his father remarried. Tom felt mostly
unwanted in a blended family that included his
original two siblings, his stepmother's two kids and
eventually two more additions. When his father
turned 70 this summer, Arnold put together a
family scrapbook on DVD. In photos from most
of the vacations the family took from the time he
turned 8, Tom is nowhere to be found.
He remembers being beat up
frequently by bigger, older kids on his
way home from school, and one of his first
jobs was working in the local Hormel
meat-packing plant, an experience that
thoroughly sapped his spirit. "To |ust
stand there all day and kill something,
that's not too good on your psyche," Sporer
says. "That’s not a healthy environment.”
But reconnecting with his youth—specificallv
with the kid that got lost somewhere back in Ottum
wa—helped Arnold learn to manage, if not conquer,
the demons that surfaced in Hollywood. He started
attending recovery meetings in the late 1980 s, and he
Toddler Tom gets a Christmas stocking from Santa.
Hi
Courtesy of Tom
"I wouldn't have
been sober, if it
wasn't maybe for
this picture."
■M
used a photo of himself when he was 5 years old as a
motivator to finally come clean in 1989.
The young boy in the picture is handsome and
has a smart, confident air about him. He looks
happy.
”1 wouldn't have been sober, if it wasn't maybe for
this picture,” Arnold says, holding the image care
fully in his hands. In previous attempts at sobriety,
he says, “I would do it for whatever—get a job back,
make people like me. girlfriend, whatever. But I did
There’s More
Online!
To learn more and
see more photos, click
on this story at
americanprofik.com
co-hosted from 2001 to 2005, might recall that he kept a
University of lowa Hawkeyes fcxxball helmet on the set.
He donated the 1,350-acre lowa farm he and Roseanne
owned to Indian Hills Community College, and he
awards two hill scholarships each year to IHCC students.
He even has aspirations to become an lowa governor,
mirroring the actor-becomes-chiefexecutrve career shift
of his friend and True Lias co-star, California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
And lies still peeling away the layers of showbiz and
oversized personality’ that have covered the real Tom
Arnold tor years. After living next door to basketball
superstar Shaquille O'Neal in the trendy Hollywood
Hills for eight years, he recently moved to Los Angeles’
more quiet outskirts. He made headlines in the spring
when he filed for divorce from his wife of five years,
Shelby. But in separating, they came to grips with their
individual personalities, and. Arnold suggests, they might
actually be able to work things out.
Tve learned more about her since I filed tor divorce
_ - __ fm
it (this time) for this kid who was 5. I’d
look at that kid and I'd do it for him.
We deserve to be who that kid was,
you know.”
IWinsffliayshmifc
Arnold remains a huge supporter of
his home state. Viewers of FOX-TVs The
Best Damn Sport Shou Period, which he
V M *'' Yi r- ■ *
Meeting with drama students at his college alma mater
than maybe in the seven years before that," he says. “We
both are afraid of intimacy, but since the pressure's off,
she’s been there for me in ways tbit she didn't think were
important before, that were important. And I have, too."
Its a moment of reflection for the real Tom Arnold—
the kind of moment that's not usually associated with him
as an outrageous public figure.
There’d be times we w'ould go to San Diego, to
a children’s center, and take 30 abused children to the
ballgame," recalls Kevin “Mo” Moreland, a friend from
lowa who spent several years working with Arnold in Los
Angeles. "People would at first think, ‘l've got to keep him
at arm's length.'
“But I had so many people tell me, ‘Oh, he’s nothing
like I thought he’d be.' He surprises a lot of people with
his generosity, and his open heart, and just the way he
views the world.”
Which is why. perhaps, his left leg is so active. Most
everyone sees Tom Arnold as a loud, hard-partying
extrovert. In reality, there’s so many other things—
quieter things, good things—going on underneath
the surface that he can barely sit still.
Tom Roland is a u;riter in Los Angeles.
Page 10
w'wwvamericanprofile.com
A photo from his childhood
was Arnold’s inspiration to
clean up his life and renavi
gate all the wrong turns he’d
taken. “I’d look at that kid,
and I’d do it for him," he says.