Hollywood 'paid fortune to smoke'

Praxius

Mass'Debater
Dec 18, 2007
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Halifax, NS & Melbourne, VIC


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7632963.stm

Tobacco firms paid huge amounts for endorsements from the stars of Hollywood's "Golden Age".


Industry documents released following anti-smoking lawsuits reveal the extent of the relationship between tobacco and movie studios.

One firm paid more than $3m in today's money in one year to stars.
Researchers writing in the Tobacco Control journal said "classic" films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s still helped promote smoking today.


Virtually all of the biggest names of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s were involved in paid cigarette promotion, according to the University of California at San Francisco researchers.
They obtained endorsement contracts signed at the times to help them calculate just how much money was involved.


According to the research, stars prepared to endorse tobacco included Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford, John Wayne, Bette Davis and Betty Grable.

Big payments

Deals dated from the start of the "talkie" era, with "Jazz Singer" star Al Jolson signing testimonials stating that the "Lucky Strike" brand was "the cigarette of the acting profession".

"The good old flavor of Luckies is as sweet and soothing as the best 'Mammy' song ever written," he wrote.

One of the key documents uncovered by the researchers was a list of payments for a single year in the late 1930s detailing how much stars were paid by American Tobacco, the makers of Lucky Strike.

Leading ladies Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck and Myrna Loy were handed $10,000, equivalent to just under $150,000 in today's money, to endorse the brand, as were Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and Robert Taylor.

Together, the annual price of paying actors was $3.2m in 2008 terms.

Radio adverts

In some cases, tobacco firms would pay movie studios to create radio shows which featured their stars' endorsements.
American Tobacco paid Warner Brothers the equivalent of $13.7m for 1937's "Your Hollywood Parade", and sponsored The Jack Benny Show from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s.


The latter featured stars such as Lauren Bacall giving carefully scripted testimonials.

The researchers, led by Professor Stanton Glantz, said that the effects of the millions poured into Hollywood by "Big Tobacco" could still be felt today, despite a recent self-imposed ban on promotion within films.

They say that smoking imagery in films can influence younger people to start smoking.
They wrote: "As in the 1930s, nothing today prevents the global tobacco industry from influencing the film industry in any number of ways."

"Classic" films with smoking scenes, such as "Casablanca" and "Now, Voyager", and glamorous publicity images helped to "perpetuate public tolerance" of on-screen smoking, they said.
UK anti-smoking group ASH said that while smoking imagery could not be "outlawed completely", there was an argument for clearer warnings before films.

Kind over doing it with the freak out don't you think?

Back then, just about everybody smoked, because nobody knew much about the harms of smoking, and to me, when you think about the time, it was no different then advertising Pepsi, Nike, or Drinking for that matter.

And I understnad people wanting to reduce temptations for smoking, etc.. but banning them in movies.... isn't that going a little too far?

Isn't that censoring writers?

What if the main character smokes? What if the movie is based on a true story and some of the characters were known to smoke?

Frig, sorry to say, but Smoking is a part of everyday life, and although not everybody smokes..... not everybody doesn't at the same time.

Shall we ban scenes in movies that have people drinking, or going to bars?

How about sex?

How about all the other drugs that occasionally make it into movies?

Do people think kids and everybody else are that stupid that they always copy everything they see on tv or in the movies?

I watched Trainspotting back when I was still in school..... I liked the movie... that doesn't mean I was shoving heroin into my body the very next day.... I never touched the stuff.

Wolverine smokes a big ass cigar.... I didn't start smoking until I was 26 years old.... is anybody going to relate Wolverine's cigar to me wanting to finally smoke after so many years?

This whole pampering and isolating reality from children isn't doing anybody any good..... proper education is what is needed.