Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger needing help.

The same person who won seven Mr. Olympia titles, bodybuilding's crown jewel.

The same one whose big-screen characters pummeled villains.

Yet, there was once a time when the future governor of California needed aid himself. He got it from from an unsuspecting source.

Mits Kawashima — Hawai'i's icon of fitness having owned a gym from 1946 to 1979, run a health foods store and promoted the Hawaiian Islands Bodybuilding Championships since 1979 — was that person. In 1968, a promoter who brought Schwarzenegger here as a guest poser, left town, stranding the bodybuilder.

"We took him out to dinner, we loaned him our car," recalled Kawashima of what he and his wife of 61 years, Dot, had done. "He worked out at our gym."

The Kawashimas took care of Schwarzenegger long enough for him to find his way back to California. The gesture planted the seed for a professional and personal relationship between a fitness-minded kid who grew up in San Francisco and a native Austrian who would later become an American idol. When Kawashima closed his gym, he started the Hawaiian Islands Bodybuilding Championships.

"I asked Arnold if he would like to do it with me," Kawashima said. "He took about six months before he decided. He was my emcee the first seven years."

For 29 years, Kawashima and Schwarzenegger co-produced the state's most prestigious bodybuilding contest, which also served as a national qualifier for those wanting to take bodybuilding to a higher level. Kawashima, 89, said tomorrow's contest will be the last that he will promote, although he isn't calling it a retirement.

"There's no such thing as retirement," Kawashima said of his reason for terminating this aspect of his fitness career. "You tell that to your brain, you're dead."

Kawashima is merely cutting back on his activities in the sport he has been involved with since growing up in the Bay Area. When he closed his gym in 1979 after 33 years, that wasn't retirement either. That's when he started the Hawaiian Islands and Mits' Basic Foods store. Now, he will mainly concentrate on the store.

"Arnold and I will still produce (the competition), but we have three promoters now," Kawashima said. "I don't want to do any of this any more, not because of age or anything. It's just after a while, you get tired of it."

Since the time Schwarzenegger was stuck here, Kawashima has quietly gone on with his businesses.

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger would bring professional bodybuilding to the forefront, winning the sport's most prestigious title, Mr. Olympia, from 1970 to 1975 and again in 1980. He parlayed his physique into an acting career. From there, he turned to politics. Despite his ascent in popularity, he has remained humble.

"I'll tell you something about Arnold," Kawashima said. "He hasn't changed since the day I met him. He is the same, nice person. The same thoughtful person. He never turns away anybody who comes up to talk to him."

Schwarzenegger "always remembers our birthdays," Kawashima said.

The Kawashimas have been guests during filming of some of Schwarzenegger's movies. He even made a trip out here to attend Kawashima's 80th birthday party. He also was there for the Kawashimas when their daughter, Karen Hirasa, was battling stomach cancer that eventually took her life in 2002 at 55. Schwarzenegger not only visited Hirasa at the hospital, but delivered the family eulogy.

"His friendship is true," Kawashima said.

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at skaneshiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.