Dave Draper
Star Profile Part 1
The Blond Bomber Speaks!

MuscleMag April 1999

By By Lori Grannis

Dubbed the "Blond Bomber" during the heyday of bodybuilding, Dave Draper had the world by the tail. Gracing cover after cover of muscle magazines, he seemed the American archetype of what every man wanted to be. Funny, thing was... he didn't care what anyone thought, and rarely seemed to be aware of himself as a star. To Dave bodybuilding was challenging, and though it was never the sum total of who he was, he enjoyed all the action on and off the stage, particularly the escapades he shared with Arnold and Frank Zane.

Dave was on more covers in one year than any other bodybuilder at the time, but, ironically, he never looked at bodybuilding magazines in his youth. He wasn't the kind of guy who plastered heroes on the four walls of his room either. Oddly, he didn't have an idol of any sort until his late teens. But iron ran through his veins from the moment he picked up a weight. He and his weights were even the subject of a prepschool yearbook photo shoot when he was 16. Little did he know, that it was a sign of things to come.

Never affected or arrogant about his success, Dave almost treated bodybuilding as an activity for the sidelines of his life, while the real meat of it took place on the field. Fame and success weren't high on his list of priorities at any time. Weight training was all that mattered. What eventually happened up on the stage was relatively inconsequential to him. His enthusiasm was more about the thrill of seeing his vision for each muscle group come true.

As individual as they come, Dave Draper was a utopian dreamer in those days, a castle-builder of sorts. He was really the only one of a rare breed involved in bodybuilding. Today he builds gyms instead, and at the age of 56 remains rooted in the world of bodybuilding. Even as a proprietor of two gyms in Santa Cruz, California, he continues to maintain the same focus ... that the real thrill and embodiment of the sport he once called his own can be found in the weights, and not in posing trunks.

MMI: Okay, Dave, let's get the essentials out of the way. When and where were you born?
DD: I was born on 4-16-42 in Secaucus, New Jersey.

MMI: Did you come from a middle-class background, or something different? I say "middle class" because that's what Secaucus sounds like.
DD: I would use the term insecure because there was never a lot of money around. Maybe the postwar era was to blame for that. I don't know. But my father worked hard and he and my mother were both from immigrant families, so...

MMI: So the work ethic was there.
DD: Oh yeah. They had to go through the tribulations that all immigrants had to back then. For instance, my grandmother was a doctor, but here she couldn't practice. My grandfather on my mother's side owned big farms. My family were people of achievement, but without an outlet in which to achieve.

MMI: Understood. What is your heritage?
DD: I'm German, Slavic, and maybe a little Jewish in there. I've never seen a family tree. My grandparents came over, so I'm second generation.

MMI: Tell me what sort of a child you were growing up. Were you shy? Active? Loud? Introspective? What?
DD: I was the third of three brothers. When that's the case, your parents are then used to children and parenting. They typically show all the attention and doting to the first child, so I was probably in a pretty good place. I think ove-attention can stem your growth in the world. Being the baby in the family is an advantage. But I was very shy. That's part of why I took up bodybuilding. I probably could have done well in other sports, but I would have felt self-conscious.

MMI: So you wanted to break out of your shell, but you didn't know how to do it as a youngster?
DD: I think I felt safer using the weights as a physical outlet. No one was doing weight training then. Also, in a family where money was often scarce, I would routinely get hand-me-down clothing. The kids I grew up with were tough and had their share of idiosyncrasies too. Secaucus wasn't a slum, but it wasn't even close to affluent either. The families were tough. We're talking the late '40s and early'50s. Getting hand-me-downs wasn't fun by the time I hit high school, but then I also developed greater appreciation of what I had.

MMI: Other than being shy, what do you remember most about your childhood?
DD: Well, I wasn't a trouble-maker, but I'd get in trouble sometimes... nothing too serious.. more healthy than anything, I think. Having to go to school early - starting first grade at the age of four rather than being in kindergarten - put me in classes where kids were older and bigger than me. That's another reason for getting into weights - to become more physically sure.

MMI: Obviously you were a bright child to have started school at that age.
DD: Bright enough, yeah. I was a B student... often better. I worked hard at my studies. I think I always respected my parents' belief in education. They brought me up with discipline. I tried hard at school, though I wasn't a big genius. It's the same with the bodybuilding. I didn't necessarily have the structural tools. I just worked hard at it.

MMI: You acquired a good foundation in childhood so that when you got to bodybuilding you had the discipline and work ethic to get the job done. Tell me a funny story from your childhood. Something that you look back on and just roll with laughter.
DD: When I was about four, I locked myself in the bathroom on the third story of my aunt's house. I remember I was pretty frightened. Finally, with everybody at wits' end, they put a big ladder up outside. Immediately I went down the ladder instead of allowing them to come up and inside the bathroom to unlock the door and let me out. No fear of that!

MMI: Just fear of confined places.
DD: Yeah. Everyone was yelling and screaming. It wasn't very funny to anyone else, but it was to me. I started out being scared and crying, and ended up laughing as I came down the ladder.

MMI: So, overall, a good childhood?
DD: It was, overall. I had a lot of love from my mother. Good discipline and sternness from my father, and also a lot of love. Maybe there wasn't enough financial security all the time, but both my parents were mentally sharp so I never felt poor, downtrodden or of a low class.

MMI: Is your mother still alive?
DD: She is. She's 82 years old. My father died at 92. He was just as strong as ever, and just as alert, and still had a good command of subject matter on everything from politics to sports.

MMI: That's amazing. That longevity bodes well for your future, I suppose.
DD: I think genetics has a lot to do with that, yes. I look forward to a long life.

MMI: What's the fondest memory you can recall of your mother and father, either separately or together?
DD: My mother would enjoy spending time with us, reminiscing about her past, and telling bedtime stories of her childhood. My brothers and I were three years apart. When there would be hurricanes in New Jersey, and the lights would be out, we'd be bedside with kerosene lanterns. That happened a lot in Jersey in those days. Or the ground might be covered with snow from a winter storm, and she'd be soothing us and calming us down with her childhood stories. My father eventually moved us away from Secaucus. That might not sound like a great feat or memory, but it really was. See, Secaucus was literally the garbage dump for New York City. In fact, that garbage was used by the farmers to feed their pigs. Secaucus had a lot of pigs during that time We move up to a lake in northern New Jersey where he and some friends had built a house. That time is a fond memory. I was ten, and my brothers were 13 and 16. We would swim and kayak in the summer. That lake looked so huge to me at the time. Now I might not see it that way, but then it was large. My father was a great swimmer, and he would swim the perimeter of the lake while we paddled around. We were his safety net in case he cramped up. I fondly remember those times.

MMI: So you never really had to go camping. You lived that life all the time, right?
DD: True. There was a pavilion where you could get ice cream and candy, hamburgers and hot dogs. My brothers and I helped run the pavilion, renting out the 25 boats, making sure they were bailed out, and checking that each had the correct oars. That was really interesting. That's how we'd make money - renting those boats out on the weekends. It was close to camping, and it was one of the best memories you can have as a kid. We all went our different directions once we were grown up, and that was it.

MMI: Are you in contact with your brothers today?
DD: Yeah, of course. My brother Jerry is in Florida, a professor at Florida State University. He lives on a farm in the Panhandle and has a great family. We don't see each other often, and to tell you the truth, I don't know a lot about him as an adult.

MMI: Do you think that's the case with most people... that we don't know the details of some of the closest people in our lives?
DD: Some of our first impressions are the most accurate. I know Jerry well, but I don't spend much time with him. I've never been to his farm, and he's never been out here, but we talk and there's a closeness there.

MMI: How about your oldest brother?
DD: He's in Colorado. He's retired there, and lives in a home he recently built. He's in touch with me often by letter. I know him better than Jerry because of that. Two years ago we all had to bond again when my father died, so we renewed our relationships then. That brought us together in Tulsa where my two twin sisters live now.

MMI: I didn't know you had sisters. I thought you just had brothers.
DD: Yeah, they're good-looking girls, and they look after my mom. I see them periodically when I go to visit Mom. They're good girls.

MMI: Are they identical twins?
DD: No, they aren't. They're fraternal.

MMI: Back to your childhood. You alluded to trouble that you got into easily, and suggested that it was healthy. What sort was it?
DD: It was the kind of trouble that kids almost should get into - making mistakes, having to say you're sorry, being humbled having to suffer a consequence as a direct result of your actions. That's what I mean by healthy. Back then nothing was as it is today for kids. We didn't have computers or video games or rocket ships to distract us, so I got my entertainment from climbing trees, riding bicycles, that sort of thing. I remember I bought a Weider barbell set with one of the neighborhood guys, and I began to play with the weights. It seems I've played with them ever since. Before that, like when I was eight years old, I had those hand grippers.

MMI: Oh, that's so funny. When my brother was a kid, he had a Bart Starr weight set that had the hand grippers and a wall pulley system.
DD: Yeah, the springs. I had those, Those were the original ways to work out.

MMI: You said you started school at an early age. Were you smaller than your classmates?
DD: I guess I was normal, scrawny. My folks had a photo of me sitting at the kitchen table in Secaucus - I was probably ten - a puny little kid sittin' there reading a Sears and Roebuck catalog. That's the first picture I remember seeing of myself. By the time I was 15, in high school, and near graduation, I was kind of filling out and getting some remarks from the phys ed coach about my arms.

MMI: Probably from all those dips and pullups you did.
DD: Well, something must have been happening. When I graduated - I graduated very young at 16 - I went straight away to prep school in Connecticut. Now that's where I have an amusing story for you...

MMI: Oh yeah ... wow! We might be the first to hear this, huh?
DD: I think so. They didn't have a weight room at this prep school. They had a football field, a soccer fied, hockey, basketball, all those sports, but no weight room. I did, however, get into gymnastics for a while. Nothing of note, though. I wanted to lift weights, and there weren't any.

Now, even as a scholarship student who had no money and not a lot of clout, I managed to have my weights taken up there. At 16 I had a bar and 20-pound plates, and I was able to put that equipment in my room (several flights up) underneath my bed. That drew a lot of interest from all the guys. They were just fascinated that I had weights in my room.

When school was nearing an end, the guys on the yearbook committee took photos of everyone in comical situations and then put them together in the yearbook. When it came time to think of something for me, they suggested I pull my weights out and press them overhead in my pajamas. So my prep-school yearbook has this picture of me pressing weights overhead in my p.j.'s with the caption, "Okay, Dave, lights out!" The yearbook is around someplace, but I don't know where.

MMI: Too bad. But I know you don't like to keep photos. I love that sort of stuff though. Do you find that, as you get older, you start reflecting on your life a lot?
DD: Sure. There are great advantages to getting older, and great disadvantages to getting older. And when you start hating certain parts of getting older, you really hate them! There are guys in my gym who are 28 and say they're getting old. I'm looking at them and thinking, 'Look at me ... I'm twice their age!' People grumble a lot about age. You're at an age where you have plenty of youth ahead of you, but some wisdom behind you.

MMI: Wow! I like the sound of that, Dave! Will you be the president of my fan club?
DD: [laughs] Sure.

MMI: Some people seem to be born with an innate wisdom while others tend not to have a clue from day one on. Which type are you?
DD: I'm the one, without a clue from day one. I've never felt an innate wisdom - ever. I started to accumulate that maybe 20 years ago... in my 30s. I was a little late in hooking into wisdom.

MMI: Well, at least you're aware now. Did you feel sheltered as a child?
DD: Maybe I just got so focused that I didn't see a lot of things. I don't want to assess myself as a poor judge of who I am, but I think the counting of reps and sets and narrowing your focus onto training can cut out your peripheral vision. That might be a metaphor for my life, and it might be true.

MMI: Did you feel that bodybuilding was where you were destined to be?
DD: No, not really, but it turned out to be the case.

MMI: Did you ever use weight training as an escape, or did you always do it just because you loved it?
DD: Probably a combination. I really did like it. I liked the end result and what I hoped for out of it. I pictured that with great clarity, and that's what kept me going. I'll say this though: It might be important to you... I never lifted weights for the purpose of becoming a competitor. That changed at the last minute.

It was always just to become stronger, or to get better, or a variety of other goals. I never longed to look like the guys in the magazines. I didn't know the magazines, so that never occurred to me. I hear people saying they always wanted to be Mr. Olympia or Mr. Universe. I never had that sort of vision for myself with bodybuilding. It was more a functional activity for me rather than an actual pursuit. My purpose was always more primitive or deeper.

MMI: No doubt the "scrawny" issue had something to do with why you started with the weights. Probably always having to measure up is another. I think that's a huge issue for most kids.
DD: I think being scrawny is the main one. My brothers were bigger... and I was the smallest in the class. If you're shy you want to be a little secretive about what you're doing.

MMI: I was shy as a little girl too. Now I'm a big adventurer. I like risks and excitement. We who are shy are late bloomers, right?
DD: I think that's true. The shyness gets less but the insecurity is still there. I find that lifting weights today has so much more to offer than when I started out. Especially having owned a gym for ten years, I've been here to observe people coming in to buy the memberships, and once they step in the door what their journey is like along the way.

You see how important this place becomes to them, and the outlet it becomes for them. It opens up a whole new world. Their time here is really important to them. They find bodybuilding fulfilling and it becomes a big part of who they are. Seeing that from the other side is amazing. The gym stabilizes and soothes them. And it's as alluring today as it ever was for me years ago. A lot of that has to do with the weight loss and the muscle mass and contour, but those results take second place to the other benefits they gain from it.

MMI: What did weight training give to you at a young age?
DD: It wasn't as though I was fanatical at 12, but training gave me a sense of belonging within that older peer group of mine. I felt a sense of accomplishment, and that my vision of wanting to look a certain way was coming together in reality. I wasn't into the magazines when I was young. I couldn't afford them anyhow.

MMI: Did you read the magazines once you were on the cover?
DD: Not very much even then. I remember that I was working for the Weider Barbell Company. I worked for Joe back in New Jersey for a summer and then came out to California. Well, Joe had asked me to come out to California. This was back in the early 60s, and I wasn't even sure where California was! It seemed like the other side of the world. I said that would be fine, but that I wanted to win a major title first before going out there. I hadn't competed yet, but there was a Jersey contest coming up...

MMI: How did Joe know you then? Was it because you were an employee?
DD: He had originally invited me to California because he was opening an office of the Weider Barbell Company in southern California and wanted me to work in it. He wasn't really aware of me as a bodybuilder at that point.

MMI: So you were in Jersey. Go on...
DD: Joe's first offices were in Jersey City. That wasn't far from Secaucus, and I used to go there to buy things when I needed them. I'd take the bus and walk about five blocks. Leroy Colbert, who was a famous bodybuilder in those days, used to work in the store. He was a black guy - still is - with very large arms, and was a big star in Joe's magazines. He was a great guy, and I'd go to talk to him while I was there. See, when you were actually buying something, Leroy would come to the front counter and then go get what you wanted. I'd just stare at this guy. I think he was the first idol I had.

I got to know Leroy well enough that he invited me to come work out one day. When I had a two-week vacation, Joe asked me to come and work for him. I quit my other job and moved to California.

MMI: What was that first contest? Did you win it?
DD: I won the Mr. New Jersey contest, and that was my first competition. I think that was in July. I moved to California shortly thereafter and I've been here ever since. I had a baby at that time.

MMI: Oh really. You must have started working on that project at a fairly young age. Were you married at the time?
DD: Yes, I was. I was married 20 years to my first wife and ten years to my second wife. We're all friends.

MMI. You must have married young.
DD: Yeah, but I don't advise that. I was 19 and my wife was a child. She was 15. My daughter is 36 now and I have grandchildren.

MMI: At least you got the child-rearing out of the way while you were still young.
DD: Yeah, but I barely remember it. We grew up together. My daughter Jamie was only nine months old when we came out here, and Penny was only 16. It was a big step for them. I thought it was pretty great, but leaving her family was hard for Penny. We moved to Santa Monica... beautiful! Beautiful then anyway. That was before the population got out of hand. It was just a difficult situation. We were in a new land ... in the mid-'60s. I began to train in Venice, which was about as peculiar as it gets.

MMI: You know what, Dave? It still is. I know. I live there. Well, actually, I live in a neighboring town a few blocks away.
DD: I trained at Joe Gold's original gym in adjacent Santa Monica. That would be the original Gold's with the logo down the side which is now a residence. That's where I spent most of my years in bodybuilding. We lived in Playa del Rey by this time, when Jamie was going to junior high school We were close to the airport, right near the ocean, but where the airport had all their 747s taking off. They eventually acquired the property for airport expansion. After we sold it we moved up to Santa Cruz. That's when we grew up. There were a lot of things wrong then.

MMI: What things were wrong?
DD: Oh, "God is Dead" was on the front page of the newspaper, and there were a lot of drugs and unmotivated living. The hippie era. I wasn't a hippie, but we owned a house and I was in and out of Hollywood a little bit. As bodybuilding was just roaring its engines to take off on the runway, I was getting uncomfortable with it. It was changing. I'd stepped out of the participation end of it by the late '60s when it was getting bigger and more competitive.

MMI: How long did you compete as a pro?
DD: As a pro? Well, there was the America, and then the Universe. That was in '65 and '66. And in '70 I won Mr. World. I lost a couple of contests to Arnold and Sergio. That was the last time I competed. I competed onlythe two times when I lost - the Mr. Olympia and the Universe.

MMI: So you're not a good loser.
DD: [laughs] ... I'm probably not a good loser, no. But if I say I got disenchanted it sounds like, well, sour grapes. I noticed that everyone was changing. Priorities were changing, and bodybuilding became all consuming. I had different interests. I was never into just bodybuilding and nothing else. I like to use the muscle.

MMI: You mean use your muscles to rock climb instead of lift weights? That sort of thing?
DD: Yeah. I was losing interest in competing - not training, but competing - and I identified less with bodybuilding. I even felt a little antagonized by it, so I wound up making furniture. I used very large pieces of wood that would be difficult to lift and move around for most people. If I crafted a bed frame, it was almost giant size.

MMI: Is that why you made that style of furniture?
DD: I liked the big mass. And I liked the fact that only I could move it. Nowadays the top guys in the sport could crush it in their hands.

MMI: When did you start making furniture, and why did you choose that activity as an outlet?
DD: I began in the late '60s out of need and then I made a few casual pieces for my own house. There was a condemned pier in Venice in a place called Pacific Ocean Park, so I used to go under there with two friends. We'd cut off some very good timber and put it in the back of my station wagon. I used to make furniture out of that. I thought that was really unusual, and I spent years doing that, making pieces for friends.

MMI: I heard you made Arnold a bed!
DD: I made Arnold a bed and made some big chairs for him. That work allowed me to be a fringe hippie and gave me a lifestyle which was almost genuine. I let my hair grow long, was still able to pay my bills, and avoided getting caught up in the system. But it was tremendously hard work and terrible pay. I think there are some photos of them around.

MMI: I'd love to see that stuff. I like the unusual details about a person's life.
DD: Well, that's what I did. My workouts were likely limited to an hour and a half, five days a week, early in the morning, and then I'd go work with the wood. This was good for me, but there were a lot of drugs around, and not much respect for authority. Maybe that was a good part of a revolution, but it carried over into other matters. It turned into a carelessness for life.

Dave Draper is one of bodybuilding's greatest legends, plucked from a time when bodybuilding was a lifestyle that implied much more than oiled muscle. Tune in next month for Part II of Dave Draper: The Blond Bomber on Arnold, Hollywood and the climate of his era.

Click here for Part 2