Last month I told you about the two-part write-up in the local paper, the one that motivated me to write about "imposter syndrome." The article set isn't online, but I have a copy of the paper and can type, so here ya go. I'll type up part two next week.
Santa Cruz Sentinel Sunday, July 7, 1985
Golden Boy: Former Mr. World Making Comeback in Life
First in a two-part series
by Alan Arakelian
He was a true golden boy of the late 1960s: blond hair, blue eyes, handsome, un-commonly muscular. At a time when love and peace were blowin’ in the wind — when the youth of America was turning on to flower power, long hair, drugs and psychedelic rock music — Dave Draper was a part of the scene.
Draper lived in Playa del Rey, in a hillside house that overlooked the Santa Monica Bay, and spent a lot of time at nearby Venice Beach, a haven for the "free spirits" — of whom Draper was one — and "hippies" — of whom he was not one. Everyone around him was tripping out on drugs, getting wasted on booze, protesting the Vietnam War and advocating social reform. He became involved in the counter-culture lifestyle, experimenting with marijuana and drugs.
For Draper, a straight-laced New Jersey native with a strong Christian background, the late ‘60s and the California way of life were to change him forever, and eventually lead him to drug and alcohol abuse.
He was in his mid-20s, with a wife and little girl. Draper was a champion bodybuilder, and he loved to work out with weights. The rest of the time, he would hang around the beach and have a good time. He loved to work with wood, too. "I was viewed as an artist by my friends, not as a carpenter," said Draper.
Draper was content to do either — sculpt his body or sculpt wood.
He was Mr. Bodybuilding, one might say, from 1965 to 1970, winning nearly every major title possible, from Mr. America to Mr. Universe to Mr. World. Six feet tall and 225 pounds of muscle, his all-American good looks for years made him a sought-after cover boy for the muscle magazines. He was in the movies, on the “Tonight Show" and the “Mery Griffin Show," and in a few TV series. Everyone wanted a piece of Draper.
They were good times for Draper. The best of times, as he remembers them.
"The late '60s were a very enjoyable, very thoughtful, very sensitive period, with a lot of soul searching," said Draper, in a rare interview. "A lot of pleasure, a lot of pain."
But, like most good things, Draper's joy ride was not to last forever.
Disenchanted with bodybuilding, he got out of the sport in 1970. He turned to drugs — and, he was no longer only experimenting with them.
In 1977, Draper moved to Santa Cruz. Unable to cope with the new environment, he became heavily involved with alcohol. In December of 1983, he landed in Dominican Hospital — near death, with congestive heart failure because of alcohol abuse. There was another matter, too — Draper’s liver and kidneys were nearly shot. His entire body, from head to toe, was swollen and disfigured.
No one thought he was going to live. Not the doctors. Not family and friends. Not even Draper. There was every indication that a ‘60s success story was going to turn into an ‘80s tragedy. “When I left the Los Angeles area,” says the 43-year-old Draper, whose weight fell to 180 while he was sick, "I got involved with alcohol to the point of it overwhelming my life.
“I was brought to Dominican in a wheelchair and was very edemic,” he said. “They told my wife and daughter that I was going to die. It was very, very close.”
By some miracle — the will of God, says Draper — he slowly began to pull out of it. It was not easy — there were times when he was too weak to walk; instead, he crawled. Those responsible for him making it back were wife Penny, from whom Draper has been separated for three years, daughter Jamie and a host of loyal friends. He was finally stabilized several months later while in Wichita, Kansas, by Dr. Frank Kutilek, and on the way to recovery. Until then, he stayed at a convalescent home in San Francisco and with a friend in Phoenix. He returned to Santa Cruz when he was better.
"I thought he was going to die, I really did," said Penny Draper. "I'm just amazed that he has come this far."
"In a sense, I am surprised he lived because of the medical evaluation," said Kim Allyn, a fellow bodybuilder and one of Draper's friends. But in my heart, because of all the training and all the good things he had done to his body for so long, he was indestructible. I think that's largely responsible for his recovery."
Dave Love, perhaps Draper's most loyal friend, is in agreement with Allyn. "He has an incredibly strong body," said Love. "I don't know of anybody else who could have gone through what he had gone through and made it."
At the time, Draper knew there were two options open to him — to live or die. He chose to live.
"I really can't attribute anything to my stumbling or being successful," said Draper. "It's just the course my life took. I'm disappointed with a lot of it, but it all seems right now. I have been brought to a state of mind that I know will only get better — unless I allow it to dwindle and fail."
Allyn believes the California lifestyle corrupted Draper, an innocent kid when he moved to the West Coast from New Jersey in 1965. "Before he came out here," said Allyn, "he never drank or swore. When he came to California, he learned the California way of life of the '60s."
"He was just a country boy from back East who got thrown into the jungle of Los Angeles," said Janice Martins, another friend. "It changed him."
In the last year and a half, alcohol has been off limits to Draper, he said. He is trying to get his life together and examine it.
It has not been easy. There have been a lot of painful moments for Draper, both physically and emotionally. Weightlifting has required Draper's discipline and fortitude for more than 30 years — but he was undisciplined in his private life. He has used some of those same weightlifting qualities while battling withdrawal from alcohol.
"But," said Draper, an articulate, warm person who is not proud of what happened to him, "there's nothing tougher to beat than addiction."
Draper has experienced a wide range of emotions in life — a lot of extreme highs and lows. Now he's trying to take an objective look at where he has been and where he's going.
"It's all been correct to this point," said Draper, who plans to write an autobiography and make a video about his days in bodybuilding. "My life has given me an insight that I could not learn, that I could not buy. It's a shame that these insights are necessary because life does have its horrendous, atrocious moments to it. But now I have an appreciation for life that I never would have come to know."
David Paul Draper was part of a "financially unstable" family as a youth. He was the youngest of three brothers — always given the hand-me-downs — and he was put in the first grade by his father, a strong Christian, at age 4. He graduated from Weehauken High at 16. From there, it was on to a private boarding school in Connecticut — Avon Old Farms — for one year, then to prestigious Columbia University in New York, on an academic scholarship (he lasted there for only one semester).
He was usually in competition with older, bigger, more-mature kids as a youngster. For that reason, he began to lift weights at 12 — to compensate, in some way, in the weight room. He married at 19, and was a father at 20. At 21, in, 1963, he won the Mr. New Jersey title — and was on his way to superstardom. Two years later, he was Mr. America.
He grew up fast — too fast.
As a result, Draper felt inadequate. He became an introvert —shy, humble, private, unable to relate to people, terrified of life to an extent. Even as a bodybuilding star, he could not relate to people.
He never dealt with the reality of the situation. It grew to haunt him. It haunted him when he was a champion in the bodybuilding arena, being scrutinized while in the spotlight.
It haunted him afterward, too. It haunted him when he moved from Southern California, where he was well known, to Santa Cruz, where he was not. Because people knew him, Draper made enough money in woodworking in down south to make a decent living. There was no need for Draper to relate to clients or to drum up business; people came to him. When he came to Santa Cruz, no one knew him.
He got into heavy alcohol consumption as a way of side-stepping reality and responsibility. He became reclusive. Alcohol made him believe he was more socially acceptable. It loosened him up and gave him the courage to converse with people. It gave him the social skills he never needed to nurture.
“I fell into depression when I came up here," said Draper.
"That's when I saw I was not being responsible I'm just beginning to be responsible now. I could have survived in Los Angeles with just the overlap of my bodybuilding success.
"I could always find furniture work," said Draper. "Here, I had to go out and pursue it. I found out that I didn't have that touch. I got into an introverted state of mind. I just didn't know how to associate with people to run my business. They didn't know who I was."
As a bodybuilder, Draper was much the same way — he always felt inadequate. People bowed to him, but he would not, could not acknowledge the fact that he was a champion.
I appreciated it all," said Draper, “but I didn't feel I could come up to it. This is where the pressure came in. I didn't think I was enough. I would shy away from articles about me or recognizing that I was on magazine covers. I was pretty much in fear of it all, in a trembling place, very self-conscious.”
He rarely went anywhere without somebody recognizing him. Even when he was not recognized, he still stood out. Because of his size, people constantly gawked at him in public.
“For those physical facts, I stood out," said Draper. "I was always talked about in restaurants or in crowds or in supermarkets. I couldn't be comfortable in groups of people. That was a shame, in a way, because there were a lot of things I couldn't enjoy.
“There were times when I'd want to go freely to the beach or freely to Disneyland or to go unrecognized — but there was always that attention toward me, whether they recognized me as Dave Draper, the bodybuilder, or as just a large person.
"That just made me that much more self-conscious," he said. "Some people have a nature where they love that. They pursue it; I’d subdue it. I'd have to belittle myself just to make myself seem to fit in.”
He is still fighting that battle.
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