Marlboro Man.
Let’s start the story at the end. In 1992, actor Wayne McLaren died of lung cancer. He was the one who started the world’s anti-tobacco campaign when he testified against his former employer, Philip Morris.
The Marlboro brand appeared in 1924 and was originally positioned as a women’s cigarette. That all changed in the early 1950s, when the brand began to “pivot” towards a male audience. The idea to use the cowboy image came to Leo Burnett (Philip Morris’ executive advertising director) in 1949 when he came across pictures in Life magazine taken by Leonard McComb and the story of Texas cowboy Clarence Hailey Long. Other images were also tried — sea captains, sportsmen and gunsmiths. But the image of the cowboy in the United States was the most popular.
Actor William Thourlby was the first Marlboro Man. Models who portrayed the Marlboro Man were New York Giants quarterback Charley Conerly, Jim Patton, Darrell Winfield, Dick Hammer, Brad Johnson, Bill Dutra, Dean Myers, Robert Norris, Wayne McLaren, David McLeany, Tom Mattox and Smith, William George Lazenby, actor who played James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was the Marlboro Man of Europe.
In the aftermath, Wayne McLaren, David McLean, Dick Hammer, and Eric Lawson died of lung cancer. I’m not going to prove that smoking cigarettes is healthy! But there is no documented evidence that smoking leads to cancer either!
Now a little bit about the actor Wayne McLaren. How do you say “actor”… His acting career began just after his contract with Philip Morris, when he “sold his face” for a profit. His acting career is extremely short, from 1968 to 1973. And these are not the first roles, in the movies — only performing horse stunts and one episode in the film “The Honkers” in 1972.
He also starred in episodic roles in various TV shows, exactly 7 episodes to be exact. So you can’t say that at the time he was discovered, he was a wealthy man. The solution to the problem (sorry for the cynicism) was on the surface — to sue Philip Morris for money, there was nothing to lose, plus the doctors of that time gave incontrovertible “proof” of the cause of the disease!
By the way, contrary to childhood myth, the actors in the role of the Marlboro Man did not have to smoke only Marlboros. They were only playing a role that was not verbose. And according to witnesses, Wayne smoked three packs a day… But that didn’t really The flywheel of the “struggle” had already been set in motion.
