Gunnar Rosbo says “Arnold Who”?

Jack Neary on Gunnar Rosbo, from Muscle and Fitness

The party had been under way only an hour or so and already chatter was circulating that the guest of honor bore a striking resemblance to another great European.

“My God!” cried one delighted wallflower. ” The Oak himself has put in an appearance: Arnold Schwarzenegger!”

His companion, rather more seasoned at celebrity spotting, sized up the cause of this sudden enthusiasm and replied: “I think you’ll find that’s Gunnar Rosbo of Norway, although I must say I can see why you were confused, old chum.”

Of course, the case of mistaken identity had not begun at the festivity. A day earlier, in a Santa Monica shopping mall of all places, upon resting her retinas on the Norwegian’s form, one lissome lass of 16 summers shrieked, “Arnold Schwarzenegger!”

“Arnold who?” Gunnar wanted to know, pronouncing who not like an owl but, hue, as in Howard Hughes.

At the party, held at a spiffy clubhouse hard by the docks of Marina Del Rey, Gunnar’s similarity to Arnold was not confined to aspect alone. Fortified by a finger or two of Scotch, the Norse hero assumed the Austrian’s gait as he strode from one cluster of guests to another, patting a back here, squeezing an arm there. And it was all done with a nonchalance straight out of the Schwarzenegger manual!