The bribes of Hollywood: stars paid for smoking

The bribes of Hollywood: stars paid for smoking


The myths of the golden era of Hollywood, Gary Cooper Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford Henry Fonda, Gary Grant, John Wayne and Bette Davis, were handsomely quantities of food from the tobacco companies to be filmed on the big screen with the inevitable cigarette.
This is what emerges from the confidential documents of some of the largest industries in the area unearthed by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, author of an interesting study published in the journal Tobacco Control Journal (link).
Of this study are the monumental size of the historical symbiosis film-tobacco: almost all the great stars of the thirties, forties and fifties were involved in forms of advertising and promotion of smoking. Many of these, including John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Walt Disney and Betty Grable, died of lung cancer. Researchers in California have made known the mind-boggling numbers of contracts signed by the tobacco giants to actors, actresses and their employers. In the 30s, the only American Tobacco disbursed in a single year the equivalent of $ 3.2 million to promote its best known brand Lucky Strike. Stars such as Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck and Myrna Loy took home $ 10,000 each, the equivalent of nearly $ 150,000 today. Equally pocketed Clarke Gable, Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor and Spencer Tracy. Just under $ 3,000 ($ 44,000 today) Henry Fonda and felt even less Gloria Swanson, who had to settle for $ 1,500 (almost $ 22,000 today). "They wanted to believe that smoking was part of the history of Hollywood and the cigarette artistic tool," explained the researchers. The influence of tobacco companies was such that in the movies of those years also doctors, nurses, athletes and even Santa Claus appeared with a cigarette in his mouth.


The malpractice began in 1927 with Al Jolson. The protagonist of the first talkie, "The Jazz Singer" was declared that the Lucky Strike "cigarette actors" whose "good taste is sweet and comforting as the most beautiful nursery song." It stopped almost completely in 1951, but only because the tobacco companies shifted their attention to the TV, seen as a means of persuasion most innovative and effective cinema. According to Robert Jackler, professor at the School of Medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the study, the agreements benefiting both the major studios, who used tobacco advertising to sell their films, both the giants of smoke, which they used to sell in Hollywood its products and to reassure the public that smoking was not dangerous.

The promotion of cigarettes is a frequent occurrence in Italian films shot in the 70s, even if in the form of indirect advertising. Especially in comedies and thrillers, there was a systematic use of the framing products or their trademarks. It was not uncommon, in fact, see the actors pull out a pack of cigarettes by squeezing it with your thumb and index finger resting on the narrow side of the same: in this way, seemingly uncomfortable and unnatural, the mark of the package appeared prominently and in favor of 'framing. The film, then, was an excellent vehicle for advertising cigarettes.