Won the 1954 AAU Mr America bodybuilding contest.
Won the 1957 AAU Mr USA contest.
He later appeared with Mae West in her nightclub act as it toured the country.
The winner of the Mr. America and Mr. USA bodybuilding contests in the mid 1950s, he landed a contract with MGM and a role in the 1954 movie "Athena" with Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell. He appeared in the musical comedy under the stage name Richard Sabre.
Spent the last 19 years of his life preaching as pastor of Gospel Lighthouse in West Los Angeles.
I have written about George Quaintance's final, unfinished canvas: Odin Welcoming the Slain Heroes into Valhalla. It was featured on the cover of the Fall 1958 issue of Physique Pictorial.
The model for that canvas has a story that's compelling in its own right. His name was Dick Dubois. For most of the 1950s, you couldn't pick up a physique or bodybuilding magazine without him in it.
He was nicknamed "The Shape," and he was one of the most popular bodybuilders of the golden age of physique photography. Dick was gifted with a godlike 6-foot-plus physique, a handsome face and a "million-dollar smile." That makes it all the more odd that information about him is so difficult to come by.
Dick was born in the Bronx on March 4, 1933, to an impoverished single mother. Because she was unable to care for him, he grew up in an orphanage. A natural athlete, Dick excelled in sports, especially weight training, boxing and swimming. But he really wanted to be an actor, so he moved to Hollywood in 1952 to take acting lessons. There he was allegedly spotted on Venice's notorious Muscle Beach by Bob Mizer, the publisher of Physique Pictorial, who took Dick under his wing.
dickdub2Bodybuilding took preeminence over acting. In 1953, when Dick was still mostly unknown in the world of professional bodybuilders, he entered the Mr. America contest and won 2nd place. A year later, he won the title — the youngest man ever to win. In 1955, he entered the Mr. Universe competition and came in 2nd. Other titles Dick won in those years were Mr. New York State and Mr. Atlantic Coast. His meteoric rise made him unpopular with many of his fellow bodybuilders, who resented the fact that his fame and success had not been earned by years of training and "paying dues."
dickdub4Dick did land an acting job, by the way. He and his buddy, Steve Reeves, were hired to appear in a 1954 film starring Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell, titled Athena (Dick was billed as Richard Sabre). It was both the beginning and the end of his acting career, but his looks and his fame got Dick noticed by Mae West, who hired him to be the lead gladiator in her stage revue. He remained in the show less than a year. Off-stage, Dick and his statuesque 61-year-old employer enjoyed a steamy relationship, according to the Mae West blog.
Dick-DuboisIn 1957, Dick announced that he was giving up bodybuilding to enter the ministry. He became involved with the Trinity Broadcasting Network, allegedly fathering a love child, Mathew Crouch, with Jan Crouch, then the wife of TBN founding father Paul Crouch. Dick was ordained a Pentecostal evangelist minister in the 1970s. Described by some as a contemplative mystic, he became a disciple of the famous philosopher Anthony Norvell and studied metaphysics and the occult for many years. One Internet source says that during this time, Dick "developed some extraordinary extra-terrestrial communications."
He later married and fathered a son, Elijah. Until his death on Sept. 26, 2007 at age 74, he was pastor for 19 years of Gospel Lighthouse in West Los Angeles. For a man who was so famous — and so conspicuous — for five years, Dick Dubois lived the rest of his life in relative anonymity
