A 26-year-old interview in which a youthful Arnold Schwarzenegger described his libertine life as a champion bodybuilder has popped up on the Internet, roiling the campaign of the Republican candidate for governor.

arnold220_pc.jpg Schwarzenegger went out into the crowd to shake hands with supporters after a rally at River Park shopping center. Schwarzenegger campaigns at three locations in Fresno on 8/28/03. PAUL CHINN / The ChroniclePAUL CHINN

The interview, with the now-defunct men’s magazine Oui, was a raunchy question-and-answer session pegged to the release of the bodybuilding documentary “Pumping Iron,” the 1977 film that rocketed the young Austrian bodybuilder to stardom.

In the interview, Schwarzenegger, then 29, acknowledged using “grass and hash, — no hard drugs.” He described participating in group s*x with a group of bodybuilders and a “black girl” at Gold’s Gym in Venice (Los Angeles County), saying “having chicks around is the kind of thing that breaks up the intense training. It gives you relief, and then afterward you go back to the serious stuff.”

And in a discussion of bodybuilders, he referred to gay people as “fags,” saying, “I have absolutely no hang-ups about the fag business; though it may bother some bodybuilders, it doesn’t affect me at all.”

A reference to the interview was posted on the online Drudge Report Wednesday night, and the full text appeared on the Web site www.thesmokinggun.com. Copies of the interview were e-mailed to political mailing lists around the state, and excerpts were read aloud on talk radio in Los Angeles.

When queried about the interview at a press conference Thursday in Fresno, Schwarzenegger said he could not remember it, repeating three times, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I am here to talk about my economic agenda,” he said. “I have no memory of any of the articles I did 20 or 30 years ago.”

TALK SHOW HOST’S QUESTIONS

But only the night before, Sacramento radio station KFBK talk show host Mark Williams specifically asked Schwarzenegger about the Oui article, which had just been posted on the Internet.

According to an Associated Press account of the broadcast, Schwarzenegger responded:

“I never lived my life to be a politician. I never lived my life to be the governor of California.

“Obviously, I’ve made statements that were ludicrous and crazy and outrageous and all those things, because that’s the way I always was. I was always that way, because otherwise I wouldn’t have done the things that I did in my career, including the bodybuilding and the show business and all those things.”

Spokesman Rob Stutzman said he believed voters would understand that the old interview must be seen in context of the times and the world in which Schwarzenegger then worked.

“This is the bodybuilding world, and he’s in the entertainment industry,” he said. “. . . (Schwarzenegger) has said that if you go back in history, there are outrageous things he has said.”

GAY RIGHTS ADVOCATES JUMP IN

Meanwhile, advocates of gay rights criticized Schwarzenegger for his use of the word “fag.”

“I think he’s got a problem, bordering on a fixation” about gays, said Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.

Michael Andraychak, president of Los Angeles’ Stonewall Democratic Club, which opposes the recall, called on the actor to apologize, saying gays react to “fag” much as African Americans react to “the n– word.”

Toni Broaddus, program director for Equality California, the statewide gay- rights group, said she was troubled by Schwarzenegger’s description of group s*x in the gym.

“That many men and one woman — it was very troubling, because it did seem close to rape,” she said. “It just didn’t sound like the kind of thing that you want the leader of the world’s sixth-largest economy bragging about.”

The interview was published in Oui’s August 1977 issue. It was conducted by freelance writer Peter Manso, author of highly regarded biographies of actor Marlon Brando and novelist Norman Mailer.

In a phone interview Thursday, Manso said Schwarzenegger had never contested the accuracy of any of the quotations in the article. His interviews with the actor were tape-recorded, he said.

Manso recalled the young Schwarzenegger as charming, narcissistic and unusually candid. Even at that early date, he was interested in a political career, the writer said.

There was “a sense that Arnold had figured out his life, he had come to America, and this was his new life aborning,” Manso said. “He was going to wind up in Hollywood . . . and life after films, he imagined either a business career or a career in politics.”

The bodybuilder’s use of pot was touted in the article’s headline: “he smokes dope, stays out late and forgets to take his vitamins,” it said.

“I make my protein drink with whiskey,” Schwarzenegger told Oui. “People think I’m crazy, but that’s the way I am. I get stoned, I do my own thing.”

Schwarzenegger’s comments on gays came when Manso asked him if he got “freaked out by being in such close contact with men” while lifting weights. The bodybuilder portrayed himself as tolerant of gays.

“Men shouldn’t feel like fags just because they want to have nice-looking bodies,” he said.

“Another thing: recently I posed for a gay magazine, which caused much comment. But it doesn’t bother me. Gay people are fighting the same stereotyping that bodybuilders are: People have certain misconceptions about them just as they do about us. Well, I have absolutely no hang-ups about the fag business.”

Schwarzenegger told the group-s*x anecdote during a discussion of the rigors of bodybuilding.

“At the same time, though, bodybuilders generally manage to have a good time,” he said. “Bodybuilders party a lot, and once, in Gold’s — the gym in Venice, Calif., where all the top guys train — there was a black girl who came out naked. Everybody jumped on her and took her upstairs, where we all got together.”

“A gang bang?” Manso asked.

“Yes,” Schwarzenegger replied.

Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont-McKenna College, predicted voters would cut Schwarzenegger more slack than a career politician would have received over the remarks. Voters will make allowances for Schwarzenegger’s youth and his career in Hollywood, he said.

But Barbara O’Connor, professor of political communication at California State University-Sacramento, said the interview “is certainly not going to endear him to the conservative wing of the Republican Party.”

Candid talk of s*x, drugs and gay men

Excerpts from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1977 interview with Oui:

Oui: “Do you use dope?”

Schwarzenegger: “Yes, grass and hash — no hard drugs. But the point is that I do what I feel like doing. I’m not on a health kick. I know I should take vitamins, for example, but I forget half the time.”

Oui: “Do you get freaked out by being in such close contact with men in the gym?”

Schwarzenegger: “Menshouldn’t feel like fags just because they want to have nice-looking bodies. Another thing: Recently I posed for a gay magazine, which caused much comment. But it doesn’t bother me. Gay people are fighting the same kind of stereotyping that bodybuilders are.”

Oui: “Can you push yourself too far?”

Schwarzenegger: “Bodybuilders party a lot. Once, in Gold’s — the gym in Venice, Calif., where all the top guys train — there was a black girl who came out naked. Everybody jumped on her and took her upstairs, where we all got together.”