Cigarette Ad Role Models

Stories of Tragedy and Regret

When Congress banned cigarette advertising from TV and radio, effective January 1, 1971, the tobacco industry shifted its cigarette advertising to the print medium. Magazines such as TIME, Newsweek, US News & World Report, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Popular Science, EBONY, Rolling Stone, Glamour, and Mademoiselle all published numerous cigarette advertisements in every issue throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Along the way, editorial content on the dangers of smoking virtually disappeared from their pages.

A cover story in Newsweek in 1977 entitled, “What causes cancer?” included a table “Cancer and the Environment: Ten Top Suspects” in which the major carcinogens were listed in alphabetical order. Arsenic was first; tobacco smoke, ninth. Another Newsweek cover story, “Keeping America fit,” featured an ad on the back cover for Merit cigarettes. In 1990, US News and World Report asked, “What causes heart disease?” yet devoted most of the story to cholesterol, with only a passing reference to cigarette smoking. In 1986, publisher Gloria Steinem, the founding publisher of Ms., defended her magazine’s acceptance of cigarette advertising even in its annual health issue, claiming that it could not otherwise remain in business.

This exhibition features stories of tragedy and regret of nine ordinary men and women who were models in cigarette ads….and two celebrities dying from lung cancer who appeared in anti-smoking TV commercials.

Alan Landers

Alan Landers (born Alan Stewart Levine in 1940 in Brooklyn, New York) was an advertising model and actor who was widely seen in print and billboard ads for RJ Reynolds’ Winston cigarettes in the 1960s. Landers, who smoked heavily, became a sought-after anti-smoking speaker in the 1990s. “Looking back on my career,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 2000, “I am ashamed that I helped promote such a lethal and addictive product to the children and adults of this country.”

He told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel in 2009, “When I got the diagnosis [of lung cancer], I thought about killing myself, but that didn’t last. The tobacco companies have been waiting for me to die for years and I haven’t. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of beating me.”

Landers died in 2009 of cancer of larynx, after having survived lung cancer and heart disease.
_______________________

Alan Landers. (2019). Retrieved March, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Landers.

David Goerlitz

Throughout the 1970s, David Goerlitz was featured as the brave Search and Rescue helicopter pilot cigarette-smoking Winston man in more than three dozen national advertisements. Often having to smoke three packs of cigarettes in a single day of shooting the ads while noticing that none of the people from the advertising agency or the tobacco company (R.J. Reynolds) ever lit up, he began questioning his involvement in promoting cigarettes. According to Goerlitz in a story he later frequently recounted, when he asked some of these individuals why they didn’t smoke, one replied, “We wouldn’t smoke that shit. We reserve that right for the young, the poor, the Blacks, and the stupid.”

Soon after his brother was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1988, Goerlitz stopped appearing in Winston ads and became an outspoken anti-smoking advocate, giving talks to school children about the dangers of smoking and sharing his experiences as a cigarette model. “My role quickly became the media darling for the academics, statisticians, physicians, and health care educators as my approach with kids was the same as when I was the role model to get them to do something they never really wanted to do as a young child,” he told interviewer James Dunworth in 2011. Goerlitz also testified at Congressional hearings and in litigation against the tobacco industry. “I was the first real ‘insider’ they had at their disposal.”

Goerlitz eventually became disillusioned with the anti-smoking movement, which he called “The Anti’s,” claiming that he had been brainwashed by them. “After many years of making good money and going to schools all over the country and 7 countries to tell my story on the Anti’s dime, I began to question some of their tactics and statistics as well as the motives to keep the ‘fiscal money train’ rolling. Apparently, they saw that the jig was up (over a few years) and started to script me for my keynote speeches at conferences, summits, workshops and, training seminars to new anti-smoking recruits.

“By 2004 and 2005 it really started to hit the fan as I refused to read from scripts and spout frivolous verbiage to help further their cause and discriminate against my friends the smokers. I never was an anti-smoking zealot. All I really wanted was to get kids to never start. Things went from bad to worse as now I was calling tobacco control more corrupt than the tobacco companies and the attorneys who represented them.

“I watched with interest over the years the development of the new e-cigarette and thought what a novel idea. As I had personally met and spoke with thousands and thousands of smokers who really would like to quit, but just couldn’t for whatever their reason, I started to research the product and this was something I could really get behind. The research was mine and not just propaganda. I got my hands on 20 units and gave them to my smoking friends. Most liked them and are using them to this day. They have either quit altogether or use them to supplement their smoking. The research is, in my humble opinion, proof enough that at the very least it is a product less harmful than traditional smoking. I decided to get involved and try to get as many people using it as possible. I started to talk it up and to my amazement saw the anti-tobacco movement jump all over this device that was helping people who wanted to cut down or even quit and creating controversy where now smokers were further discriminated against and treated like lepers. I became the president of the [e-cigarette] trade association in late 2010 that was hopefully going to lobby and help keep this product legal.”

In recent years Goerlitz has promoted a line of vaping juices on social media and appeared in an independent film, “A Billion Lives,” that endorses e-cigarettes as a life-saving approach to the tobacco pandemic.

Sources:

Martin S: ‘Winston Man’ now campaigns agsinst smoking. Buffalo News May 25,1989 https://buffalonews.com/news/winston-man-now-campaigns-against-smoking/article_c21fc6cd-0668-5be6-a61b-03636f335eff.html

Dunwoth J: David Goerlitz, former Winston Man, attacks the tobacco, anti-smoking AND e-cig industries. Ashtray Blog: chronicling vaping’s journey since 2008. https://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/ashtray-blog/2011/10/david-goerlitz-former-winston-interview-electronic-cigarette.html

Sunan: Dave Goerlitz: Former ‘Winston Man’ speaks out on smoking, anti-smoking, and vaping. Vape Gazette January 24, 2019 https://vapegazette.com/dave-goerlitz-former-winston-man-speaks-out-on-smoking-anti-smoking-and-vaping/

“A Billion Lives.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Billion_Lives

Genzlinger N: Review: ‘A Billion Lives’ Claims There’s a Conspiracy Against Vaping. New York Times October 27, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/movies/a-billion-lives-review.html

Merlin K. “Monte” DuVal

Dr. DuVal (1922-2006) was a surgeon who served as a U.S. Navy air pilot in the Pacific during World War II and went on to became the founding dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in 1964. In 1977, the the American Cancer Society created The National Commission on Smoking and Public Policy, which held eight regional meetings across the country “to take public testimony from knowledgeable persons regarding the problems caused by excessive cigarette smoking, to assess the effectiveness of current anti-smoking activities, and, on the basis for its findings, to recommend possible new approaches to this major public health problem.” On June 14, 1977, Dr. DuVal was the presiding member of the Commission at its seventh regional forum in Atlanta, Georgia, at which Alan Blum, MD gave his first public presentation on the history of health claims in cigarette advertising and the need to tackle the tobacco industry head-on. Afterwards, Dr. DuVal expressed his relief to the audience that Dr. Blum had not shown the Chesterfield cigarettes ad in which he had appeared as a Naval air ace taking on the Japanese Imperial Air Corps. Dr. DuVal regretted having posed for the ad but explained that his modeling career was a means to pay for his medical school tuition. He confessed, too, that he had smoked only Lucky Strikes.

Dr. DuVal also told Dr. Blum that he was most proud to have been one of the first federal officials to warn the public formally about the dangers of smoking when he served as Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare from 1971 to 1973.

Sources:
Letter from Mervin DuVal, MD to Alan Blum, MD, July 7, 1989

https://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/spring06/html/alumni_album.php

“Vince”

In February 2002, after giving a presentation at a medical conference on cigarette advertising and strategies to counteract tobacco use and promotion, I was approached by a member of the audience, who said he would send me a copy of an advertisement published during World War II for Camel cigarettes in which he had appeared. I received the advertisement and the accompanying letter, but I’d discarded the envelope before realizing that I did not have his full name or address.

-Alan Blum, MD

Gary S. Cooper

“It came out like I was promoting smoking, when all I wanted to do was make a statement.”

Gary S. Cooper was a 28-year-old businessman who became a cigarette ad model by chance. Recruited at a Seattle shopping center after telling an interviewer conducting a marketing survey for RJ Reynolds that he smoked Vantage, a new Reynolds brand, Cooper was one of several Vantage smokers whose drawn portraits were featured in advertisements published in TV Guide, TIME, Newsweek, Playboy, and newspapers across the country. After enduring weeks of derision for appearing to have sought the spotlight by endorsing a brand of cigarettes, Cooper requested the ads featuring him be withdrawn, and he stopped smoking.

Source:
Associated Press: Stop the ad, he wants to get off. Miami Herald September 14, 1978.

Maria Font Connolly

Following publication of the December 1983 issue of the New York State Journal of Medicine, devoted to a consideration of the world tobacco pandemic, the editor, Alan Blum, MD, was contacted by Vincent T. Connolly of New York City, who shared a story about the model in the Chesterfield cigarette advertisement on the journal’s cover with the unintended ironic slogan “After a man’s heart”. Mr. Connolly revealed that the model was his wife Maria Font Connolly, 63. He explained that she was sixteen years old when she posed for the illustration by Bradshaw Crandall and 17 when the ad appeared. In order to get work, she made herself several years older in her resume. Mr. Connolly emphasized that she “has never smoked, despite posing for several different cigarette ads.” At this time,” he added, “she is afflicted by cancer of the colon.” He concluded, “my brother died very quickly at age 60 with both lungs blackened by the ugly things.”

Janet Sackman

Janet Sackman (1931-2007) modeled for Chesterfield and Lucky Strike ads in 1947. Sackman began her career as a model after being spotted on a beach by a talent scout. Before long she was being encouraged to smoke by tobacco advertising executives. Sackman recounted, “…a tobacco executive drew me aside. ‘It would be good if you learned to smoke,’ he said earnestly, ‘so you’ll know how to hold a cigarette and puff on it.’ He didn’t pressure me, but at 17 I was eager to be a grown woman.”

In 1983 Sackman was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent surgery to remove her larynx. Sackman became an ardent anti-smoking advocate and speaker, stunning audiences with her raspy voice, the result of the surgery. She joined with Smokefree Educational Services to protest the Virginia Slims Tennis Tournament at New York City’s Madison Square Garden to call attention to the manipulation of young women by Philip Morris and other cigarette makers.

Janel Sackman testifies before New York City Council Health Committee, urging stricter measures against public smoking and cigarette advertising.
News story by Chris O’Donohue, Channel 9, New York
1991

Wayne McLaren

Wayne McLaren worked as a stuntman and rodeo bull-rider and bronc-rider before appearing in advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes in 1976. In the late-1980s McLaren began sending a different message in presentations to teenagers after being diagnosed with lung cancer, which he blamed on his 30-year smoking habit. In 1990 he appeared at the annual shareholders meeting of Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro, to share his story. After his death in 1992, the Massachusetts Department of Health created a television ad that showed the before and after images of McLaren as a Marlboro man and as a patient in his hospital bed dying from lung cancer.

Shareholder Activism at Philip Morris

News Report
Sky 12 News (Richmond)
1990

Dave Morris

His commanding good looks and ever-present cigarette made Dave Morris the perfect model on thousands of billboards, in hundreds of newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, and in dozens of magazines like Sports Illustrated and Playboy in the $30 million national roll-out of Brown & Williamson’s Fact cigarette brand in 1977. Early in 1984, less than eight years after the tobacco maker spread its alternative facts, Dave Morris’ legs became paralyzed. According to his friend Joyce Porter, the diagnosis was lung cancer that had spread to his brain and spine. He never left the hospital, and in 40 days he was dead.

As they were dying from lung cancer, movie star Yul Brynner (“The King and I”) and noted TV actor William Talman (“Perry Mason”) shared their personal stories about smoking that contrasted with the glamorous and vigorous images shown in cigarette ads.

Yul Brynner

Television Commercial
American Cancer Society
1980s

William Talman

Television Commercial
American Cancer Society
1960s

Cigarette Ad Role Models

Stories of Tragedy and Regret

Curated by Alan Blum, MD

Professor and Endowed Chair in Family Medicine
Department of Family Medicine
Director, The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
The University of Alabama School of Medicine, Tuscaloosa

“Cigarette Ad Role Models” is Copyrighted 2021

ALL ITEMS IN THE EXHIBITION ARE FROM THE CENTER’S COLLECTION.

Designed by Kevin Bailey, MA

Collections Manager and Digital Archivist
Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
The University of Alabama

Cigarette Ad Role Models

Alan Landers

Alan Landers. (2019). Retrieved March, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Landers.

I Won’t Settle for Anything Less

Taste Winston Lights

Alan Landers, Winston Man, Dies

After Cancer, No Longer a Model Smoker

Alan Landers the Winston Man

Alan Landers Was Once a Face for Big Tobacco

David Goerlitz

Winston America’s Best

Winston America’s Best

Winston America’s Best

Winston America’s Best

Winston America’s Best

Winston America’s Best

Winston America’s Best

Complaints

Video Production

Dave Goerlitz knows firsthand the seductive power of the dark side of advertising.

Turning Over a New Leaf

Model Smoke Screen

10 Biggest Lies About Smoke & Smoking

Former ‘Winston Man’ Speaks Out

Look to History to See the Future: Christopher Snowden’s Velvet Glove, Iron Fist

David Goerlitz

Merlin K. “Monte” DuVal

Merlin K. DuVal, MD

They Keep on Scoring for Milder Better Taste

"As a matter of fact, at that time I only smoked Lucky Strikes!"

“Vince”

Star Gazer

So their info regarding cigarettes wasn’t too accurate either!

Gary S. Cooper

‘Smoking. Here’s what I‘m doing about it.’

‘Smoking. Here’s What I‘m doing about it.’

Quit Smoking

Stop the Ad, He Wants to Get Off

Maria Font Connolly

After a Man’s Heart

New York State Journal of Medicine

Maria Font Connolly

Janet Sackman

‘Smoke a Lucky to feel your Level best!’

‘Smoke a Lucky to feel your Level best!’

Janet Sackman

Janet Sackman Leads Virginia Slims Protest

So You Think You Want to Smoke

"I Lost My Voice But Found the Words That Matter"

Wayne McLaren

Marlboro Man Dies of Cancer

Wayne McLaren - Marlboro Man

Alan Blum and Wayne McLaren

Wayne McLaren

Dave Morris

"I’m realistic. I only smoke facts."

"...cigarette marketing strategy is aimed at a very large segment of non-smokers - our children."

The Last Cigarette Advertisement

Cigarette Ad Role Models

Curated by Alan Blum, MD

Designed by Kevin Bailey, MA

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