Actors - Jesse Ventura

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	Actors - Jesse Ventura

Jesse "The Body" Ventura (born July 15, 1951, as James George Janos, which is still his legal name) was elected the 38th Governor of Minnesota on November 3, 1998, after a career as Navy SEAL, professional wrestler, actor, mayor, and radio talk show host. He ran as a candidate for the Reform Party of Minnesota (but joined the Independence Party of Minnesota when it broke from its association with the Reform Party of the United States of America) and "shocked the world," as he phrased it, when he narrowly, but unexpectedly beat the major-party candidates: St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman (Republican) and Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III (Democratic-Farmer-Labor). Ventura, who spent considerably less than his opponents (about $600,000), is widely regarded as one of the first candidates to effectively use the Internet as a medium of reaching out to voters in a political campaign. He served as governor from January 4, 1999, to January 6, 2003, without seeking a second term.

Education, entertainment career, and early political career

Ventura was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to George William Janos (an ethnic Hungarian from what is today Slovakia) and Bernice Martha Lenz (a German American). He (then known by his legal name of Janos) graduated from Minneapolis's Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1969. From September 11 1969 to September 10 1975 he served in the United States Navy as a Navy SEAL and was on active duty January 5 1970 through December 10 1973 during the Vietnam era. Although Ventura served with Underwater Demolition Team 12 during his time on active duty, he was never a full-time member of a SEAL team. However, Naval Special Warfare policy states that Ventura, just like any other Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL graduate, has earned and thus deserves the title of SEAL. His overseas service was in Subic Bay, Philippines and off the coast of Vietnam but he did not see combat. He was awarded the National Defense Ribbon and the Vietnam Service Ribbon. In his autobiography, Ventura described SEAL training as the toughest experience of his life. "Its worse than anything you can imagine", he wrote "You have to want it bad, very bad". Ventura always mentioned how much he respected his SEAL instructor Master Chief Petty Officer Terry Moy. He asked Moy to stand by his side when he was sworn in as governor. He ended his inaugural address with the SEAL war cry "HOOYAH!"

He returned to Minnesota and attended North Hennepin Community College in the mid-1970s at the same time he began weight lifting and wrestling. In 1975, he married his wife Terry (the couple now have two grown children).

He created the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura to go with the persona of a bully-ish beach body builder, taking "Ventura" from a California highway map. As a professional wrestler, Ventura wrestled as a "heel" (the "bad" characters), and often used the motto "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!" Late in his career he developed an adversarial relationship with WWE owner Vince McMahon, although given the nature of professional wrestling it must be assumed that this was at least to some extent a "work".

Ventura continued to wrestle until the mid-1980s . He began to do color commentary on television for wrestling, and then did the same on radio for a few National Football League teams (among them, the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers). Ventura most notably, co-hosted Saturday Night's Main Event with Vince McMahon and the first six WrestleManias (1985-1990) with the late, great Gorilla Monsoon. Ventura acted in the 1987 movie Predator, whose cast included future California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and future Kentucky Gubernatorial Candidate Sonny Landham. He had a starring role in the 1991 sci-fi movie Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe
, and supporting roles in The Running Man
, Demolition Man, Repossessed
, and Batman and Robin the former and latter also starring Schwarzenegger.

Ventura ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota in 1990 and served from 1991 to 1995. Between 1995 and his run for governor, Ventura had a radio call-in show in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Immediately after his election, bumper stickers and t-shirts bearing the slogan "My governor can beat up your governor" appeared in Minnesota and became ubiquitous virtually overnight. Ventura circulated material stating his wish to be known in office as "Jesse 'The Mind'" but the nickname never stuck, many Minnesotans instead referred to him as "Jesse 'The Governing Body' Ventura".

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Jesse Ventura ]

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Actors - Jesse Ventura

Education, entertainment career, and early political career

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