# 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:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2017, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/41 "2017-08-07T00:37:41Z")
There was that co-star of Ronald Reagan’s. What was his name? Ah yes, Bonzo. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/42 "2017-08-08T04:39:08Z")
> [@MaryEFoo](#): > > Smoking gives an actor “business” to do during a pause–the hands light the cigarette, the cigarette is drawn on, smoke drifts past a face, etc…Nobody is supposed to be reminded of lung cancer. > > Is there any evidence that the studios took tobacco money for product placement? IIRC product placement is a very new thing. The “fake brands” used when there was a need for a brand in a show was a running gag I remember in the 60’s. OTOH, the brands were mentioned live on air by the stars of the day or radio or TV. There’s the story of WC Fields, whose show was sponsored by Lucky Strike. He kept telling stories and jokes about his son Chester. Everyone was mystified for a while, since he had no kids, until someone figured out that maybe Lucky Strike didn’t want to be sponsoring a show with stories about “Chester Fields”. ---
**Author:** ![race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c4cdca/32.png) [@race\_to\_the\_bottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/race_to_the_bottom)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/43 "2017-08-08T20:46:13Z")
My father went off a non-smoker in 1918 to fight the Bosch on the Western Front and returned a smoker, although not a heavy one. He said that cigarettes were free and that the Knights of Columbus had huge boxes of cigarettes and you could take as many as you wanted. No doubt, these were donated by cigarette companies. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/44 "2017-08-08T22:08:06Z")
> [@Sylkyn](#): > > I don’t remember anybody on the set of “I Dream of Jeannie” smoking Well, how did Jeannie get into her bottle then? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/45 "2017-08-08T22:14:46Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > 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.] Would those figures include only the adult population? Lots of adults and even more teens only smoke when they go out. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/46 "2017-08-09T01:02:20Z")
> [@purplehearingaid](#): > > Long Ranger horse Sliver didn’t smoke ! And, very unfairly, still didn’t get any screen time in the movie named after him: [Sliver (film) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliver_(film)) ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/47 "2017-08-09T13:21:55Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > 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.] As **mangeorge** said 13 years ago, those stats don’t pass the smell test. During my childhood in the early to mid-1960s, I met dozens of my parents’ friends, and the total number of non-smokers among them was 2. I’m usually the last person to argue via personal anecdotes, but given that neither of my parents worked for a tobacco company, it seems to me that either smoking rates on Long Island were much, much higher than in the country as a whole, or the statistics cited above are incorrect. Is it possible that they meant 40–45% of the population as a whole, including infants, children, etc.? As for tobacco industry “propaganda,” I’m afraid I can’t follow any of the above links right now, but if, say, RJ Reynolds was paying producers to get their actors to smoke on-screen, their goal wasn’t to get people to buy cigarettes, but to get people to buy RJ Reynolds cigarettes. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/48 "2017-08-09T15:58:16Z")
The radio programs (a huge industry then, televisions were fairly rare, but everybody had a radio) of the 40s thru the 60s were very often sponsored by the tobacco companies. Fatima was a big name then, responsible for Dragnet, later Chesterfield. One thing I wondered about, during World War II just about everything (as in every thing) was rationed in the continental US, though I’m not sure about tobacco or cigarettes. I suspect they were not rationed but they were impossible to get. American cigarettes were widely considered the best and in high demand. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-movie-stars-of-the-30s-40s-and-50s-who-did-not-smoke/175833/49 "2017-08-09T16:32:57Z")
Tobacco and cigarettes were apparently not rationed in the U.S. during WWII, although there were some shortages as a substantial chunk of output was allocated for the troops: [http://www.ameshistory.org/content/rationed-goods-us-during-world-war-ii](http://www.ameshistory.org/content/rationed-goods-us-during-world-war-ii) [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=2)