# They Were So Sure: story and photographs

## The meeting and the later friendship

The desk remark, the seventy-four-second meeting, the agent's reaction, the
Conan exchange, and the later friendship follow Arnold Schwarzenegger's own
recollection at Beyond Fest in 2017:

- Fred Topel, [Beyond Fest: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Duke Q&A](https://weliveentertainment.com/welivefilm/beyond-fest-arnold-schwarzenegger-bill-duke-qa/), 7 October 2017.
- [AFI catalog: Conan the Barbarian](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/56748-CONAN-THE-BARBARIAN), released in 1982.

Schwarzenegger dates the first meeting to “'77 or so.” The page accordingly says
“around 1977” and presents the timing as his recollection of his agent's watch.
The later conversation and eulogy are also attributed to that account.
The surrounding asides are editorial writing, not additional reported dialogue.

## `arnold1974.jpg`

The existing public-domain 1974 Mr. Olympia press photograph, retained with its
caption. The whole photograph is displayed.

## `arnold-cigar.webp`

The black-and-white cigar-and-tank-top photograph supplied by Anton for this
revision. It is displayed as an Arnold portrait, not as a photograph of the
De Laurentiis meeting. No photographer, capture date, or licensing metadata
accompanied the supplied image.

- Supplied PNG: `clip-e98278417470a46b.png`, 805 × 1000 pixels.
- Original retained at `lab/theyweresosure-cigar-original.png`.
- Original SHA-256: `dbedb5b319b857742f0feeccfb242dee932668f20970d1f60e1c45b036a9d7ce`.
- Processing: full-frame RGB conversion to WebP, quality 90. No cropping,
  retouching, recolouring, generation, or upscaling.

The 2023 blazer/flexing image is no longer part of the page. The page displays
exactly two photographs.