BBC News | World | Hollywood attacks tobacco

BBC News Online: World

Hollywood attacks tobacco

Saturday, November 29, 1997 Published at 10:14 GMT

image: [ Hollywood talent unions are suing tobacco companies who, they claim, exploited actors ]

Hollywood attacks tobacco
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.

[ image: width=154]

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.

[ image: width=154]

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.

Internet Links

The Screen Actors' Guild
Friends of Tobacco lobby group
State Tobacco Information Centre
American Smokers' Alliance

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Summaries

In this section

India's coalition government shattered
Forest fires threaten Australia again
Septuplets make healthy progress
Czech government falls apart
'Key evidence' in Oklahoma bombing trial
Gunfire in Kinshasa
Court rules Irish teenager can have abortion
Pakistani government apologises for court commotion
Cook promises to end mystery of Nazi gold
Police defend decision not to prosecute Winnie
The testimony against Winnie (From Special Report)
'Mother of the Nation'? (From Special Report)
Belgium bans all tobacco ads from 1999
Blair commits troops to Bosnia
Arab-Israeli partition: a Middle East milestone
UN Palestine partition plan
`Thousands of civilians killed' in Rwanda
Saudis push for rise in oil production (From Business)
Israeli construction projects given the go-ahead
Bootleg booze proves fatal for Russians
Off your trolley! - it's no shop day