The fan mail keeps coming. At 55, model, artist, graphic designer Rick Dinihanian made history by appearing as Playgirl’s oldest coverboy/centerfold; — making his June 2004 issue the best seller of the year. Every morning, Rick sets his age on an aerobic machine at Gold’s Gym at 36.
Like his father, Rick is a man of action. “If you really want something,” Mr. Dinihanian advised his son, “you have to act like you’ve already got it.” Growing up an unathletic boy in an Armenian family in Portland, Oregon in the all-American era of Eisenhower, Rick learned to define himself for himself.
His path led to a degree in Fine Arts from Stanford University. When he finished his studies at Stanford and a year at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Rick was an accomplished painter, but when he managed to leap from part-time shoe salesman to designer at one of San Francisco’s most prestigious design and architectural firms, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrell, he had to teach himself how to read an architectural ruler.
A few years later, an award-winning piece for the American Conservatory Theatre that Rick designed while at Gensler Associates—another top firm—landed him an A.C.T. scholarship and a job as in-house designer for the theatre company. Thus the seeds for Rick’s acting and modeling career were planted.
The success continued, but at the chronological age of 49 years and 11 months, Rick Dinihanian sported a potbelly, had low energy, and an unsatisfying relationship. Drawing on his studies of Eastern meditation and an extended spiritual journey to India, Rick shifted paradigms. He decided to be healthy, happy, very fit, and 36—which coincidentally was his jean size at the time. Rick believes that we are put here to live with joy, beauty, and laughter and that a healthy body helps us experience this reality. So, out went the chronological age and in came a vision of a transformed body. Add hard work and a good diet, and you’ve got a happy, sexy 36-year-old-56-year-old.
The fan mail keeps coming. At 55, model, artist, graphic designer Rick Dinihanian made history by appearing as Playgirl’s oldest coverboy/centerfold; — making his June 2004 issue the best seller of the year. Every morning, Rick sets his age on an aerobic machine at Gold’s Gym at 36.