Arnie's ex-girlfriend pens memoir

Schwarzenegger said the affair ended because of his ambition

The first girlfriend of Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to pen a memoir ahead of the film star's attempt to become California governor.

Barbara Outland Baker, an English teacher, met the star in 1969 and went out with him until 1974.

She is now planning to publish the book, Surviving Arnold, after spending several years writing it.

Schwarzenegger has admitted his ambition to become a star destroyed the couple's relationship.

"I'm trying to sell it as an insider's account of Mr Schwarzenegger's early years," said book agent Paul Levine. "She's been writing it for years, but obviously now is an opportune time to try to sell it.

"There are lots of insights and never-before-told things about Arnold and there are over 100 never published photographs of Arnold during that time," Mr Levine said.

In love

Schwarzenegger is running for governor of California as a Republican candidate, following the vote of no confidence in incumbent Gray Davis.

In 1977, Schwarzenegger said in his own memoir, Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder, Ms Outland was the woman he had been in love with.

The two had met in a Santa Monica restaurant, where Ms Outland, a college student at the time, was working. They soon moved in together.

"Basically it came down to this. She was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man and hated the very idea of ordinary life," he said in his memoir.

Mr Levine said he had not yet found a publisher for Surviving Arnold. It was unlikely to be in print before the 7 October election.

Schwarzenegger's past has been raked over in the lead-up to the election.

A 1977 interview with the long-defunct magazine Oui, where the Mr Universe bodybuilder admitted smoking drugs and taking part in group sex has been attacked by critics, who say it shows the actor is not fit enough to be governor.