American tobacco companies, seemingly under attack on all sides, have just received their latest writ - from Hollywood.

Several Los Angeles-based talent unions, including the influential Screen Actors' Guild, are suing the tobacco companies to recover millions in smoking-related medical costs.

In one section of the lawsuit the tobacco companies are accused of using movies to sell their products to children.

It says: "The tobacco companies have also marketed to youth by inserting advertisements for their products into movies that have appeal to children.

"Such movies include, for example, `Superman II,' `Supergirl' and James Bond."

The lawsuit cites a letter, written in 1983 and apparently signed by Sylvester Stallone.

Sylvester Stallone...named in lawsuit

In it the Rocky and Rambo star writes: "I guarantee that I will use Brown and Williamson tobacco products in no less than five feature films.

"It is my understanding that Brown and Williamson will pay a fee of $500,000."

The unions claim some actors were hired to make smoking look like an attractive pastime.

Dave Goerlitz, an actor who portrayed the `Winston Man' for Reynolds' Winston brand of cigarettes, told the US Congress in 1989: "I was clearly told that young people were the market that we were going after.

"It was made clear to us that this image was important because kids like to role play, and we were to provide the attractive role models for them to follow."

The legal action is the latest attack on the US tobacco industry, which is already fending off costly litigation from several American states fed up with having to pick up the bill for smoking-related illnesses.

Smoking has always played a leading role in the movies and numerous film stars, such as John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart and Yul Brynner all died from lung cancer.

Robert Mitchum died last year, aged 79

Robert Mitchum, who died last year of the disease aged 79, told his last interviewer: "Sure I smoke and I drink. I just don't smoke when I'm on the oxygen. That would be the end of me. Boom."

The lawsuit was filed earlier this week on behalf of the health plans of the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists and unions representing screenwriters, directors and technicians.

It seeks unspecified damages and punitive awards.

Fred Altshuler, a lawyer for the unions, said the actors and writers involved had not been behind decisions made in the past to glorify smoking in films.

America's biggest cigarette manufacturers, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and Brown and Williamson, have not commented on the lawsuit.

Brown and Williamson, a subsidiary of London-based BAT, owns a wide range of brands, including Lucky Strike and Pall Mall.
 

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