Dave Bautista, 55, shared an astonishing throwback snap to when he was 16 years old and had none of the tattoos that now cover his body.
In his 30s, he embarked on a successful career in pro wrestling and MMA, before becoming a movie star at age 45 in Guardians Of The Galaxy.
Over the course of his adult life, his arms and torso gradually became blanketed with tattoos, including the Greek and Philippine flags in honor of his heritage.
But in the flashback he posted to Instagram this week, he stood in a swimsuit in front of an ocean view, revealing he had no body art at the time.
The picture was taken near the end of a rough childhood blighted by poverty and crime – during which he himself got arrested in his early teens.
Dave Bautista , 55, shared an astonishing throwback snap to when he was 16 years old and had none of the tattoos that now cover his body
Dave experienced a difficult upbringing that included stints in the more dangerous neighborhoods in and around Washington, DC.
When he was a little boy, a corpse was discovered on his front lawn and he watched a shooting victim die in the street in front of his home.
He, his sister, and some of the other children in the neighborhood were ‘all standing around looking at this poor guy who was dying,’ Dave recalled later in his memoirs. ‘I think some of us were even telling jokes.’
Dave confessed: ‘By the time I was 13, I started getting in a lot more trouble for skipping school. I also got arrested for petty stuff. I’d get detention or juvenile hall, but the punishment wasn’t severe; I never spent more than a day in jail.’
He insisted he ‘wasn’t stealing or breaking the law to get back at anyone or because I was mad or anything like that. I was stealing because all my friends were doing it. It was no big deal. It just wasn’t out of the norm. It was what you did.’
Dave added: ‘It wasn’t that I was stealing cars or doing dope or anything really, really bad. But I was definitely a thug, and everyone was afraid of where I was headed.’
By age 17 he was on his own, and he drifted eventually into a career as a nightclub bouncer until he engaged in a brawl at work that resulted in another arrest.
He finally escaped poverty in his 30s, when he launched his wildly successful run in pro wrestling and became a four-time World Heavyweight Champion.
Dave experienced a difficult upbringing that included stints in the more dangerous neighborhoods in and around Washington, DC; pictured in recent years on Instagram
He finally escaped poverty in his 30s, when he launched his wildly successful run in pro wrestling; pictured at WrestleMania Goes Hollywood in Los Angeles in 2005
By the mid-2000s, he was also slowly building an acting career, culminating in his rise to international movie stardom in the 2014 film Guardians Of The Galaxy (pictured)
By the mid-2000s, he was also slowly building an acting career, culminating in his rise to international movie stardom in the 2014 film Guardians Of The Galaxy.
Amid a cast that included Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, Dave featured as the hulking Drax The Destroyer.
The movie triggered Dave’s lucrative run in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including in Avengers: Endgame, the second highest-grossing motion picture of all time.
He has also dipped his toe in a number of other franchises, including the Knives Out film series and the Dune movies starring TImothee Chalamet.
Dave has a wide array of projects currently in the pipeline, including a turn as Beowulf in the upcoming film Grendel, based on a novel that flips the Old English epic to tell the story through the eyes of its villainous monster.