Dave Draper, the championship bodybuilder who outlived heart failure for almost 40 years by training and eating well, died Nov. 30 at his home in Aptos with his wife of 33 years, Laree, at his side. He was 79.
A handsome blond who mentored Arnold Schwarzenegger, Draper became Mr. America in 1965, Mr. Universe in 1966 and Mr. World in 1970. He appeared in movies and on television. He wrote books. He was a pioneer in opening gyms in Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley when training facilities were not available. He had a website, davedraper.com, and an email newsletter that at its peak reached 50,000 people.
Asked what he would want to be known for, Laree said she wasn’t sure but she noted one standout quality: Paying attention.
“Everyone who talked with him will tell you they felt like the only person in the room—his attention was singular on whomever he was talking to, even in an expo hall filled with thousands of bodybuilding fans,” she explained. “He’d be focused on one person and stayed focused until the person got all the needed answers. (Hence, we were late a lot.) It was remarkable, at a level I’ve never seen in anyone else.”
Asked what message he would leave for his followers, she responded: “Treasure and protect your health and don’t let your friends drift away.”
Mr. World 1970
Draper had already earned the title of Mr. America when steroids came on the scene, helping athletes become more muscular and powerful, long before a recent study found steroid use may damage the heart permanently.
Laree said he was open about his steroid use and didn’t hide it.
“But he didn’t talk about it much either because he felt that glamorized it,” she explained. “He was active in the local DARE program in the hope of helping keep kids off drugs; for him, it was young people using steroids that was the problem. He knew pro athletes in many sports use performance enhancers. He just didn’t want young athletes getting caught up in them and then discovering their training tanks when trying to come off them. Many people quit training after taking and then stopping steroids; Dave was a strong and vocal advocate of life-long strength training.”
In 1982, before he met Laree, Dave was eating well, training and drinking heavily.
Chiropractor Dave Love, who met him at the gym and took care of his spine, found Draper passed out at home and took him to the Emergency Room.
For three weeks, Draper detoxed while unconscious in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
The diagnosis: Congestive heart failure.
Love invited Draper to join him at Santa Cruz Bible Church after he got out of the hospital, and he did, returning to the faith he had grown up with.
“When you hit bottom, you find Jesus,” said Love, who baptized Draper at Santa Cruz Bible Church.
“He lived his faith in a practical way,” Love said. “He was always so very grateful Jesus gave him a new chance.”
A skilled woodworker, Draper made his friend a cross, “the most amazing cross,” to show his thanks.
Once out of the hospital, he restarted his training and good eating, habits he kept for decades.
“I think his doctor would tell you that’s what got him through 40 years of a four-year prognosis,” Laree said. “At the time, the doctors, who knew about the steroid use, called it ‘alcoholic cardiomyopathy.’ They didn’t know much about the effects of steroids on the heart at the time, so it could be they just didn’t know.”
She said his doctors were very clear he wouldn’t survive another bout if he started drinking again. So he didn’t.
Laree met Dave at the gym in 1984.
Mr. America 1965
They bumped into each other from time to time at a gym called Power Unlimited, long gone now, and then got together in 1986 to take pictures for a magazine article and work on a couple of projects. They were married in 1988.
Dave and Laree attended Santa Cruz Bible Church and Twin Lakes Church in Aptos.
In 1989, with three other partners, they opened World Gym in Santa Cruz, and then in 1991, World Gym in Scotts Valley.
“At the time, we felt the area needed that type of gym,” Laree said. “There are plenty of small and large gyms and personal training facilities now, but that wasn’t true in the late ‘80s.”
With the gym business and his writing, his days were full.
“Dave was a writer and a thinker,” Laree said. “He could spend a day working on a single paragraph.”
She said he was unusually observant, able to express what he saw in ways that captured the reader’s attention.
She and others noticed this trait: “We were in the same room, saw the same thing, but he saw it on a deeper level and explained it better.”
His most recent book and one Laree considers his best is a collection of memoir bits called A Glimpse in the Rear View.
Draper’s approach to food and nutrition: Higher protein, higher fat, lower carb, very structured.
“In the earlier days when he was trying to gain or hold weight, he ate every three or four hours,” Laree said. “As he got older, he ate when hungry instead of on a schedule. For decades, every day began with a protein shake. I doubt if he missed a morning protein shake in probably 60 years.”
Draper was born April 16, 1942, in Secaucus, N.J., the middle child with two older brothers, Don (Arizona) and Jerry (Florida), and two younger twin sisters, Dana and Carla (Oklahoma).
Growing up, he was introverted and insecure.
“Team sports were uncomfortable for him, but tinkering around with a little hand-gripper led to dips between chairs, which led to buying a used weight set from a neighbor,” Laree said.
At age 21, Draper won the Mr. New Jersey title, then came out West for a job with magazine publisher Joe Weider, who pioneered competitions of the top bodybuilders.
Journalist Dick Tyler, later author of West Coast Bodybuilding Scene, dubbed Draper the “Blond Bomber,” a nickname that fit.
Here is Tyler’s line about him at Mr. America 1965, competing after several Herculean and better-known contestants: “When Draper posed, you could see the looks of surprise on everyone’s face. “
Dave and his first wife Penny had a daughter named Jamie, who died in 2016. They have two grandkids, Taylor, who lives in Santa Cruz and teaches infant rescue swimming locally, and Cooper, who lives with his wife Jacki in Clovis. Cooper and Jacki have a daughter named Vivianne—Dave and Penny’s great-granddaughter.
For Dave, Thanksgiving 2021 was “terrific,” Laree said. “His family was all here and spent the day together laughing and eating good food.”
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Photos courtesy of Laree Draper