Smoking in Hollywood
MosThe first female actress who was filmed smoking was Mary
Pickford in the 1911 movie, "The Dream." It was positively
scandalous! People loved scandalous, and it wasn't a big leap
from "scandalous" to "cool." Nobody could
or would ever accuse the movie industry of not taking full advantage
of a "cool" thing. If the public eats it up — whatever
"it" is — the movies will crank it out.
Smoking was still considered "scandalous" for women
until the 1950s. "Nice" girls simply did not smoke,
but they sure loved the "cool" guys who did. Remember
"Joe Cool" and "The Marlboro Man"? Celebrities
smoked, on screen and off, on stage and off. They smoked in private
as well as in public. They not only smoked, but lent their names
to tobacco companies to help sell the products.
The tobacco companies paid megabucks to have their cigarettes
smoked in movies just a few years ago. For example, the producers
of A License to Kill, a James Bond movie, accepted a payment of
$350,000 to have Bond smoke Larks in the movie. In Superman II,
Lois Lane is seen chain-smoking Marlboros, but Phillip Morris
paid only a pittance to get their brand into the movie…$40,000.
The idea of getting celebrities to smoke and promote certain
brands was, of course, to make smoking "cool," and it
worked. Smoking reached its peak of "coolness" in America
somewhere around 1964. Since then, the "coolness" factor
of cigarette smoking has been on the decline, and when the coolness
factor cools off (pun intended) there is a natural decline in
the number of young first-time smokers. Young people immolate
their idols. The folks who make the movies know this. Parents
should know this. The tobacco companies have counted on this fact
for years, and don't ever make the mistake of thinking that they
have given up, packed up their tents, and slipped away into the
night.