Schwarzenegger museum opens in Arnie's birthplace (AFP)

VIENNA (AFP) – The world's first museum dedicated to former "Governator" and Mister Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger opened its doors Saturday in his birthplace of Thal in southern Austria.

The "Styrian Oak" himself was absent for the event, timed to coincide with Arnie's 64th birthday, but will attend a grander opening at a later date, according to organisers.

Visitors, mostly locals, gathered for a first look at the two-storey light yellow house in Thal in southern Styria, restored to look as it did when Schwarzenegger first came into the world on July 30, 1947.

Among the 1,000 objects and photos on display are his very first weights, with which the future champion bodybuilder started training, as well as the desk behind which he sat as California governor.

Monitors also recall Schwarzenegger's Hollywood career, with trailers from his various films, while a life-size model of his "Terminator" stands in a corner.

When the man himself will visit his first home for the grand opening was still unclear but he was expected to bring with him a three-metre (10-foot) high bronze statue he commissioned from a US artist to adorn the outside of the museum.

The former bodybuilder, actor and politician has sought to revive his film career since leaving the California governor's office earlier this year, but has mostly made headlines lately over his divorce from Maria Shriver after admitting in May that he had fathered a child with the couple's former housekeeper.

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Bruce Lee museum proposal shelved in Hong Kong (AP)

HONG KONG – Efforts to build a Bruce Lee museum in the late kung fu movie star's hometown of Hong Kong have been stalled again.

Fans have been calling for an official tribute to the screen icon for years. Their hopes appeared to be answered two years ago when the Hong Kong government and the owner of Lee's former home reached an agreement to convert the property — a two-story house currently used as an hourly love motel — into a museum.

But the Hong Kong government said Sunday that negotiations with the owner, businessman Yu Pang-lin, have broken down.

"Despite our efforts, we are unable to reach a consensus with the property owner over the scope of the restoration," the government said in a statement.

The statement did not elaborate.

An operator who answered the phone at Yu's offices in the southern Chinese city Shenzhen on Sunday said that his staff wasn't in.

Wong Yiu-keung, president of the Hong Kong Bruce Lee Club, said Yu made unreasonable demands, such as wanting to set up his own offices in the museum.

"Mr. Yu made such a high-profile gesture by donating the property, and yet we now realize those are not his intentions. We are very disappointed. I don't understand why he backtracked," Wong told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Bruce Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee, who was also involved in the project, didn't immediately respond to an email sent to a publicist for the Bruce Lee Foundation seeking comment. Shannon Lee had also been raising funds for a museum in Seattle, where her father studied and taught martial arts.

The Hong Kong government said the Lee artifacts it had collected for the planned museum will be used for an exhibit at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum that is expected to launch in late 2012.

Lee became a source of Chinese pride by portraying characters who defended the Chinese and the working class from oppressors in films like "Return of the Dragon." He died in Hong Kong in 1973 at age 32 from swelling of the brain.

The late actor has been honored with a statue on Hong Kong's Avenue of Stars, a waterfront promenade featuring the hand prints of the southern Chinese territory's noted actors.

News of the shelved museum plans was first reported by the South China Morning Post on Sunday.

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Marvin Gaye exhibit opens at Detroit Motown museum (AP)

DETROIT – The Motown Historical Museum is celebrating the life and times, as well as the moves and grooves, of Marvin Gaye.

The Detroit museum, located in the original home of Motown Records Corp., has unveiled an exhibit chronicling the legendary artist's two decades at Motown, from 1960 to 1982. The exhibit in the second-floor gallery opened Friday and runs through at least September.

It's the first time the museum has produced a major exhibit on Gaye, and follows a successful installation on the Jackson 5 last year that marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Jackson.

The largely chronological exhibit features Gaye's album covers, sheet music, costumes from concerts and even a Marvin Gaye Way street sign from Washington, D.C., the hometown of the man born Marvin Pentz Gay Jr. in 1939 and fatally shot by his father in 1984 after a violent argument.

Chief curator Lina Stephens said the museum had been planning a Gaye exhibit for a while but Jackson's death "shifted a lot of things" around. One thing is clear: Gaye's exhibit has many more items and artifacts because of his lengthy tenure with the label.

"He was a good artist to focus on because he was here since just about the beginning," Stephens said. "It's easy to incorporate his story line."

The display spans the career of a man who helped create, refine and redefine the sound of the label and popular music itself, including playing piano and drums on "Please Mister Postman," singing the chart-topping smash "I Heard it Through the Grapevine," and tackling political and environmental concerns with "What's Going On" and "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)."

"He started out singing songs he thought he wanted to sing," Janis Gaye, Gaye's ex-wife, told The Associated Press by phone from her home in Providence, R.I. "When he hit 'What's Going On' and started having his own voice in every way — arrangements, lyrically and spiritually — that opened a whole new door for him."

Janis Gaye, who was with Marvin Gaye for 11 years and married to him from 1977 to 1981, said she has been talking to museum officials about the exhibit and hopes to loan a few signature items, such as his Grammy awards and silver platform boots she designed for him.

She said she took his "everyday boots" and had rhinestones and platforms put on them. They later became synonymous with Gaye, appearing on album covers and a magazine spread.

The boots were "one staple he really did love," Janis Gaye said, and they will be difficult to part with — even temporarily.

"I told (museum officials) I may have to sleep there for the next nine months," she said.

The exhibit includes an early single by Gaye on Motown's subsidiary label, Anna, named for Motown founder Berry Gordy's sister — the woman who became Gaye's first wife. He was still married to Anna Gordy Gaye in 1973 when he met Janis Gaye, who was 17 at the time and is now 55.

Janis Gaye said she is writing a book about her life with the man she describes as her "dear, sweet ex-husband" that's expected to be released later this year.

"We must have broken up and gotten back together at least 20 or 30 times," she said. "It was a magical time, at times. ... There are many, many memories to look back on — some fond, some not so fond."

She said she hopes museum visitors see the depth of his creativity and recognize his enduring legacy, which includes a performance next May of the "What's Going On" album by John Legend and The Roots with the National Symphony Orchestra. It marks the 40th anniversary of Gaye performing the album at the same venue.

"I would just like for people to see his whole body of work," Janis Gaye said. "Socially conscious, sexually conscious, whatever it happens to be. It's all Marvin. It all came from that one mind."

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