Dave Draper on Steve Reeves
Dave Draper from Brother Iron, Sister Steel.
Not many people I hung around with knew or talked to Steve Reeves. The Muscle Beach originals- Zabo, Joe Gold, Chuck Collras, Armand Tanny- knew him, yet gave me small insight into his life. Rich tales about every real and imagined character that walked the sands of Muscle Beach or served hard time in The Dungeon were shared or relived by the players, as the curtain closed on that burnished era. No stories, no observations, not a clue.
In ’63 I dropped out of the sky like a lost bell-tower pigeon from Jersey. Russ Warner picked me up in Santa Monica and saw to the restoration and re-direction of my wings. A jewel, Russ took the classic and most-prized photographs of Reeves, standing atop the world and seeking the heavens. No one comes close to Reeves in stirring the heart by way of muscle and might, balance and striking feature, bearing and countenance. Curious. Russ, in all his vividness and vitality, gave me no notion of the man, Steve Reeves.
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