Brawny movie hero and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger became a real life hero when he saved a cramp-stricken swimmer from possibly drowning off the coast of Hawaii, aides said.
The Terminator star - used to saving people, and indeed entire planets, from terrible fates in his Hollywood movies - spotted a man in trouble off the coast of Maui, and stepped in to save him on Wednesday.
Schwarzenegger is enjoying a weeklong family holiday on the island.
"He saw a man in distress in the water and brought him back to the shore," an aide to the former Mr Universe bodybuilder and Republican politician said.
"The man was hanging onto a boogie board and the governor knew there was something wrong and asked the guy if he was okay.
"The swimmer said he had cramps all over and couldn't swim back to shore, so the governor told him to hang on and swam him 100 yards (metres) back to the beach," the source said.
Schwarzenegger trod water in the six metre deep sea while he got the man onto the boogie board then towed him back to shore.
Access Hollywood reported that the "Gover-nator" sat with the man on the beach for a while before telling him to "sit here for another 30 minutes".
The 56-year-old Austrian-born action film star had been at the beach with his television reporter wife Maria Shriver, a Kennedy family heiress, and his four children.
