From Poverty and Weakness
to Muscles and the Movies
That's the Horatio Alger story of a skinny kid who once shined shoes for a living. Now, by building his muscles with weights he has a leading role in a forthcoming movie "Athena".
This is a tale of a struggle. It is a story of adversities, heartaches, sorrows, hard work and success all stirred within the whirlpool of life until out of the chaos arose a youth, fired with ambition. enthusiasm and an undying determination towards worthy achievement. It is the epitome of Richard DuBois' brief twenty-one years of life, at which turning point everything changed with a materialized dream, even his name!
Poverity is tragic. So many succumb to its tentacles, yet many who posses a courageous character, free themselves by sheer unconquerable ambition. Some are born into lives of ease where they generally remain; others must struggle to climb out of its mire. And it is the fighters who really appreciate and enjoy the glory and fame when they finally can stand tip-toe upon the hilltop of success.
Richard is a lad who has attained his present rewards the hard way. He needed health, so he interested himself in all athletic activities. He possessed a natural inclination for arts, especially dramatics and music which was unquestionably inherited. So, with these inner desires, he strove to improve himself both physically and mentally. He became a barbell enthusiast and through weights developed his physique to most attractive proportions and which resulted in his receiving second place in the 1953 Mr. America contest. Yet, back of all his physical efforts, there was that continual yearning for seIf-improvement of his inner self -- his ambitions, his dreams and his artistic emotional heart to which he seemed to be a slave who lived in moods of his own creations. In other words, he was an artist inside and a strongman outside.
It was upon reaching Hollywood that things began to take shape in his life. And to reveal these transformations, it can better be told with the words which the M-G-M motion picture studios have released from their publicity department: "A typical American Horatio Alger story -- that's the simple description of Richard Sabres adventures leading up to his present chance for film stardom.
"Sabre is a 21 year old. athletically-built, clean-cut young man, with natural acting ability and a willingness to work hard for a career. His discoverers in cinemaville, say he is a combination of Victor Mature, Clark Gable, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Charles Boyer.
"They point out he has all the romantic aspects of Mature with the masculinity of Gable's virility, blended with the dash of Fairbanks and the woman-appeal of Boyer at his best.
"So it is not surprising that M-G-M signed him, a newcomer, for a leading characterization in "Athena", a film story in which Sabre will be the cynosure of female eyes in general, torn between the advances of Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds in particular.
"Here's Sabre's story:
"When he was a boy in New York City, he earned spending-money by shining shoes and selling newspapers. He participated in all forms of athletics and in amateur dramatics.
"He continued his interest in sports through his years at the De La Salle High School and in boy's clubs afterwards but he infiltrated many theatrical circles doing odd jobs at the same time, because he had discovered himself that he was theatrically-bent.
"From his French father, he inherited the facility to be a quick-change artist in the field of emotional make-believe and from his Italian mother he derived a love for classics, music and piety.
"His early environment, due to the sudden demise of his father and the poverty of his mother, was in an orphanage where he thrived on practice in all forms of athletics and religious learning; both favorite activities.
"Because of his popularity as a boy, he was selected to portray one of the Three Kings who came to the Christ-child on Christmas Day in the early Bible drama and Helen Hayes saw the stage production at the orphanage, predicting he might someday be a foremost actor.
"With this encouragement, he took his show-shining and paper-selling business to Times Square, New York City, where he could be near theatrical people. This location "paid-off". Frank Fay took a fancy to Dick and allowed him to watch his performances from the wings of the theatre. Yule Brynner called him to his dressing-room one day to sine his shoes and Gertrude Lawrence sent him on an errand to carry her dinner from a near-by restaurant. A friendship with Miss Lawrence resulted in his learning a great deal about play-acting because he even was accorded the chance to act out lines of absent players during the rehearsals of the stars.
"In the summer also, he was very active. He worked on the larger Long Island estates exercising the horses, including those of Jock Whitney, but he did those to keep himself in top physical shape as well as to earn a livelihood.
"Through later interest in weight training he won many an athletic award and even second place in the "Mr. America" contest. At the same time, he studied and worked with many dramatic roups, acting and directing.
"Finally, the lure of California attracted him West and in Los Angeles he continued his favorite activities -- little theatre, sports and church associations.
"The love of music, which was transmitted to him by his mother, was responsible for the start of his film career. he was listening to a record in a music store at Sunsent and Vine, in Hollywood, one of the famous cross-roads of the world, when a New York Theatre playwright, Judd O'Donnell, saw him in the next booth and was impressed by his earnestness. A friendship developed through a common love for music, and for the drama as represented by the late John Barrymore. O'Donnell advised Sabre, taught him how to read screenplays, and brought him to the attention of M-G-M Studios."
To the foregoing publicity release, I might add that Dick, or Richard, will have a hard time in thrusting his new motion-picture name upon the world. His real name, Richard DuBois, is the one by which he made his fame in Muscledom, yet he will soon be world-widely acclaimed under his professional name, Richard Sabre. Perhaps a name is not the utmost importance. It is the man himself -- the one who does things and achieves recognition in his field, who remains the personage even though he had no name at all. Perhaps Richard, or Dick, would be his best spoken name. Anyway, whenever you see Richard Sabre's name presented on the motion picture screen, or over the Television, you will immediately know that it is DIck, who overcame all boyhood struggles, who fought to gain recognition somewhere in the world of art and who finally found himself in his present profession. He unquestionable well deserves all the glory which Fame may bring him, yet the realm of bodybuilders will always look upon him as an ideal fellow who is inspirational because of his well trained barbell built body.
Next month you will see more photographs of him, both in muscle poses and in revealing how he developed himself as photo-flashes were taken of him while exercising at George Eiferman's Hollywood gymnasium. And in addition, there will be shown within the pages of this magazine, photographs of actual scenes taken during the shooting of the M-G-M picture released through special permission from M-G-M studios.
PHOTO CAPTIONS
- Sensational Richard Sabre, who as Dick Dubois, carved his way to fame with the barbells. Dick is living proof that weight training will make your life a success.