# Are there ANY movie stars of the 30's, 40's and 50's who did NOT smoke? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 17, 2003, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833 "2003-05-17T03:58:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/21 "2003-05-18T05:00:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > \*\*Nobody thought there was anything wrong with smoking until the 1960s \*\* Well, this quote from King James I of England, from the year 1604, sure sounds like he thought there was something wrong with smoking: > [@](#): > > A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse. (See [here](http://www.la.utexas.edu/research/poltheory/james/blaste/blaste.html) for the full “Counterblaste to Tobacco”.) And it looks to me that he was pretty accurate on the health effects, some 350 years before the Surgeon General’s report! ---
**Author:** ![StreetFighter2Ryu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@StreetFighter2Ryu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StreetFighter2Ryu)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/22 "2017-08-04T02:25:03Z")
In Hollywood, James Cagney, Joe E. Brown, Janet Gaynor, Anita Louise, Roy Roberts, Vinton Hayworth, Colleen Moore, Gene Autry, Clayton Moore, Roy Rogers, Bob Hope, Robert Cummings, Nehemiah Persoff, Julie Adams, Ann Robinson, Mamie Van Doren, Sam Jaffe, William Boyd, Brian Donlevy, Joel Mccrea, Joan Leslie, David Niven, Otis Harlan, Mae West, Karl Malden, Jennifer Jones, Tex Higginson, and Eva Marie Saint were all non-smokers. In the Philippines, Cesar Ramirez, Anita Linda, Ruben Rustia, and Lotta Delgado were all non-smokers. Of the 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai, Daisuke Kato and Minoru Chiaki were the only title character actors who were non-smokers. The others (Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Seiji Miyaguchi, Yoshio Inaba, and Isao Kimura) smoked heavily. Ken Takakura was one Japanese actor who was a non-smoker (he started acting in 1956). ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/23 "2017-08-04T02:34:21Z")
> [@Booker57](#): > > Two big stars popped to mind > \*\* Rin Tin Tin \*\* and \*\* Lassie \*\* Long Ranger horse Sliver didn’t smoke ! ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/24 "2017-08-04T03:11:35Z")
> [@Sylkyn](#): > > …Lucille Ball did smoke in her earlier days on “I Love Lucy”, but not as much during the “Lucy & Desi Comedy Hour” and not at all (that I remember) during her much later shows… Phillip Morris sponsored **I Love Lucy** in the early seasons, but they long gone by the Comedy Hour era. Both the Arnazes did commericals for them and in one episode Lucy even dressed up as Johnny the Bellhop. ---
**Author:** ![Beandip478](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Beandip478](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beandip478)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/25 "2017-08-04T05:03:37Z")
Well, technically, none of them smokes. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/26 "2017-08-04T06:17:57Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Cartoons were also non cigarette free those years; I reacall many W. Disney and other producer´s cartoons were characters smoked quite a bit. The Flintstones was sponsored by Winston in its earlier seasons and Fred & Barney featured in a few fully animated ad spots, along with several intraepisode quick spots. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/27 "2017-08-04T08:22:29Z")
So, are there any films in which zombies smoke? ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/28 "2017-08-04T11:17:42Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > So, are there any films in which zombies smoke? Only after they’re set on fire. ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/29 "2017-08-04T16:54:27Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > **RealityChuck** : Hey, don’t you remember “smoking stunts your growth” ? I remember that line from my childhood. I think the reason was that it was believed that smoking killed appetite. Obviously a still-growing teenager who needed to eat to grow would be affected. Not sure if it was a myth or not, or whether it had been studied, but you can see many examples of folks gaining weight when quitting the habit. May of course be due to increased nervousness and anxiety and the desire to do something with hands and mouth… ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/30 "2017-08-04T17:21:26Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Well, this quote from King James I of England, from the year 1604, sure sounds like he thought there was something wrong with smoking: > (See [here](http://www.la.utexas.edu/research/poltheory/james/blaste/blaste.html) for the full “Counterblaste to Tobacco”.) > > And it looks to me that he was pretty accurate on the health effects, some 350 years before the Surgeon General’s report! Didn’t also say, at that time, that he wanted to ban it completely, as he was a monarch? And didn’t they say at the time, that he can do it at any time. Just so long as he has a way of making up the vast tax income the habit and its support provided? And didn’t obviously cave in to that objection? We may need better statistics, but for people who have disposable income, opportunity to make the purchase, the habit may be more ubiquitous than the mere 45%. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/31 "2017-08-04T17:36:46Z")
> [@MaryEFoo](#): > > Is there any evidence that the studios took tobacco money for product placement? > **[Company Spent $1 Million to Put Cigarettes in Movies, Memos Show (Published...](https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/20/us/company-spent-1-million-to-put-cigarettes-in-movies-memos-show.html)** Company Spent $1 Million to Put Cigarettes in Movies, Memos Show By PHILIP J. HILTS Published: May 20, 1994 _WASHINGTON, May 19— An unusual glimpse into the business of both Hollywood and tobacco companies has been afforded by internal memorandums from the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation. They show that the company spent a million dollars over four years to put images of its cigarettes into movies._ > **[Tobacco giants paid movie stars vast sums for endorsements](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3073607/Tobacco-giants-paid-movie-stars-vast-sums-for-endorsements.html)** > > Tobacco companies paid movie stars vast sums of money to endorse their products in the 1930s and 1940s, a new study has found. _Tobacco giants paid movie stars vast sums for endorsements Tobacco companies paid movie stars vast sums of money to endorse their products in the 1930s and 1940s, a new study has found._ [https://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/history](https://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/history) \*History | Tobacco’s history in Hollywood The U.S. tobacco industry has a long, documented history of collaborating with the U.S. film industry to promote smoking and tobacco brands. The history includes four main periods: 1920s to 1950s | From the advent of talking pictures to the end of the so-called “studio system,” tobacco companies provided most of the national advertising for Hollywood films in newspapers and magazines and on radio. They also put most Hollywood stars under advertising contracts. 1950s to 1970 | As television eclipsed movies, the tobacco companies bought and sponsored their own programs. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, despite tobacco industry efforts to cover up the facts, the public learned more about the health risks of smoking — and cigarettes lost some of their on-screen glamour. After 1970 | In 1971, the U.S. banned broadcast advertising of tobacco products. The tobacco companies then returned to systematic product placement campaigns in Hollywood, affecting hundreds of mainstream movies. For strategic tobacco marketers, it was at least as important to get smoking back into the hands of stars as it was to push a particular brand.\* > **[Cigarettes in Old Movies: Did Tobacco companies pay for this?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=432509)** > > I watch a lot of TCM and smoking was not only common in the movies but at times seemed a little “forced”. It got me wondering if the big tobacco companies paid for this via funding Hollywood productions or straight out purchasing product placement. ... ---
**Author:** ![bardos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bardos/32/1069_2.png) [@bardos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bardos)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/32 "2017-08-04T18:25:25Z")
When doing period piece movies of the 30s and 40s , must include people holding cigarettes for realism ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/33 "2017-08-04T22:25:29Z")
> [@bardos](#): > > When doing period piece movies of the 30s and 40s , must include people holding cigarettes for realism Not _realism_ – that was just propaganda paid for by tobacco companies. They wanted people to think that everybody smoked, especially sophisticated celebrities. Factually, I don’t think there has ever been a time when a majority of Americans smoked. The highest seems to be during WWII, when servicemen could get cigarettes nearly free, and during the early Cold War – then something like 40-45% of the population smoked. Still less than half the people. Now it’s down to about 16-18% – about 1 in 6 people. (Meanwhile, smoking marijuana has gone up to nearly 10% among young people; more of them smoke pot than tobacco.) [Note that in the 1920’s and 30’s, surveys & statistics on smoking were rarely done; estimates have to be made from cigarette sales, etc.] ---
**Author:** ![Lorne\_Armstrong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@Lorne\_Armstrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorne_Armstrong)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/34 "2017-08-06T10:16:41Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Nobody thought there was anything wrong with smoking until the 1960s, The only positive thing to come out of Germany in the 1930s was an anti-tobacco program. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/35 "2017-08-06T13:27:17Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Nobody thought there was anything wrong with smoking until the 1960s, so there was no reason not to portray it. Can’t have zombie errors lurching around. _“Franz Hermann Müller at Cologne Hospital in 1939 published the first such study (correlating smoking with lung cancer), comparing 86 lung cancer ‘cases’ and a similar number of cancer-free controls.4 Müller was able to show that people with lung cancer were far more likely than non-cancer controls to have smoked, a fact confirmed by Eberhard Schairer and Eric Schöniger at the University of Jena in an even more ambitious study from 1943.5 These German results were subsequently verified and amplified by UK and American scholars: in 1950 alone, five separate epidemiological studies were published, including papers by Ernst Wynder and Evarts Graham in the USA and Richard Doll and A Bradford Hill in England. All confirmed this growing suspicion, that smokers of cigarettes were far more likely to contract lung cancer than non-smokers. Further confirmation came shortly thereafter from a series of prospective ‘cohort’ studies, conducted to eliminate the possibility of recall bias. The theory here was that by following two separate and initially healthy groups over time, one smoking and one non-smoking, matched by age, sex, occupation and other relevant traits, you could find out whether smoking was a factor in the genesis of lung disease. The results were unequivocal: Doll and Hill in 1954 concluded that smokers of 35 or more cigarettes per day increased their odds of dying from lung cancer by a factor of 40.”_ > **[The history of the discovery of the cigarette–lung cancer link: evidentiary...](https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/21/2/87)** > > Lung cancer was once a very rare disease, so rare that doctors took special notice when confronted with a case, thinking it a once-in-a-lifetime oddity. Mechanisation and mass marketing towards the end of the 19th century popularised the cigarette... ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/36 "2017-08-06T14:12:05Z")
I’m pretty sure Irene Dunne was a non-smoker, and she was extremely popular in the late 1930s. In fact, she was ranked #1 for years. Why she’s less well-remembered than other actors is complicated, but it has to do with the large number of her films that were remade, making the originals inaccessible until home video in the 80s and 90s. Audrey Hepburn was a heavy smoker, and she survived the Dutch hongerwinter. She once said that sometimes cigarettes were available when food wasn’t. I’ll bet something similar was true during the Depression. Cigarettes used to be very cheap. Also, according to my mother, b. 1940, it was common that lots of people smoked at parties or events, but were not daily smokers. There were probably lots of stars for whom that was true as well. Now, no one does that because we know smoking is bad for you, so unless you are addicted, you don’t do it. But I’ll bet few non-smoking stars would object to lighting up for a part, the way one might do now. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/37 "2017-08-06T18:47:41Z")
You can see in recent movies and made for TV on offs which actors are real life smokers and which are not in just their mannerisms etc… Not many actors who are popular enough to cut all smoking scenes or the won’t act the part. Show business is getting to hard to stay in the top with all the competition. Fake cigs and fake smoking seem more the norm now. YMMV ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/38 "2017-08-06T18:49:08Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > But I’ll bet few non-smoking stars would object to lighting up for a part, the way one might do now. Actually, it’s becoming fairly common to provide either non-tobacco ‘cigarettes’ or e-cigarettes to actors when the part requires them to smoke. Especially in live theatre & local productions, and schools. Not so much in big-budget Hollywood movies. This seems to be more about liability worries of the producing company – fear that 10 years from now the actor who gets cancer will sue your company. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2017, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/39 "2017-08-06T21:00:43Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Can’t have zombie errors lurching around. > > _"Franz Hermann Müller at Cologne Hospital in 1939 published the first such study (correlating smoking with lung cancer)_… And the _Oxford English Dictionary_’s first citation for the term “cancer stick” to mean cigarette is from 1958. (And with such slang terms, the first _printed_ use presumably postdates the first use in everyday speech by some time.) From the same source, “coffin-nail” for cigarette goes back to at least as early as 1888. ---
**Author:** ![StreetFighter2Ryu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@StreetFighter2Ryu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StreetFighter2Ryu)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2017, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/40 "2017-08-07T00:27:50Z")
> [@StreetFighter2Ryu](#): > > In Hollywood, James Cagney, Joe E. Brown, Janet Gaynor, Anita Louise, Roy Roberts, Vinton Hayworth, Colleen Moore, Gene Autry, Clayton Moore, Roy Rogers, Bob Hope, Robert Cummings, Nehemiah Persoff, Julie Adams, Ann Robinson, Mamie Van Doren, Sam Jaffe, William Boyd, Brian Donlevy, Joel Mccrea, Joan Leslie, David Niven, Otis Harlan, Mae West, Karl Malden, Jennifer Jones, Jimmy James, and Eva Marie Saint were all non-smokers. > > In the Philippines, Cesar Ramirez, Anita Linda, Ruben Rustia, and Lotta Delgado were all non-smokers. > > Of the 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai, Daisuke Kato and Minoru Chiaki were the only title character actors who were non-smokers. The others (Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Seiji Miyaguchi, Yoshio Inaba, and Isao Kimura) smoked heavily. Ken Takakura was one Japanese actor who was a non-smoker (he started acting in 1956). Other non-smokers were Fay Wray, Eddie Albert (of Green Acres fame), Ed Begley Sr., Sidney Poitier, Maureen O’Hara, Charlton Heston, Dolores del Rio, Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, Cyd Charisse, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Red Skelton, and Alan Napier. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833.md?page=3)