So much smoking in the black & whites

Nathan

Nathan

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Location
High Desert- Calif.
Sure, I know from first hand experience how much smoking went on back in the day, I was busy doing it myself. I finally quit 12 years ago (wish it had been 50). While I watch those black & white TV shows and movies I look up the actors in Google and read their bios, and find that many had their lives cut short from smoking related illnesses.
I guess it's just a morbid obsession I have, but I'm grateful for every day I live without a terminal diagnoses.
 

Remember Fred and Barney advertising Winston?

Ronald Reagan for Chesterfield

5 of the Marlboro Man died from cancer ....

Another forum, one poster was smirking (verbally) about still smoking and feeling fine. While true at 72, you're not losing much in longetivity, I'd not be a friend as smoking hurts my lungs now.
 
Nathan said:
Sure, I know from first hand experience how much smoking went on back in the day, I was busy doing it myself. I finally quit 12 years ago (wish it had been 50). While I watch those black & white TV shows and movies I look up the actors in Google and read their bios, and find that many had their lives cut short from smoking related illnesses.
I guess it's just a morbid obsession I have, but I'm grateful for every day I live without a terminal diagnoses.
Click to expand...
Smoking was a rite of passage - becoming an adult. The power of advertising. That includes doctors being paid to advertise smoking & cigarettes sold to patients in hospital rooms. Money talks.
I quit 40 years ago. Starting was the dumbest thing I ever did.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qliTr750NOk
 
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win231 said:
Smoking was a rite of passage - becoming an adult. The power of advertising. That includes doctors being paid to advertise smoking & cigarettes sold to patients in hospital rooms. Money talks.
I quit 40 years ago. Starting was the dumbest thing I ever did.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qliTr750NOk
Click to expand...
I actually watched the Yul Brynner PSA about smoking. "Yeah, dude NOW you realize it was stupid, should have quit long ago"

Funny thing about my mother. She'd worked short order cook and at Tektronix. Smoking was so accepted, 9 times breast cysts, all benign. 😇😇
 
We watch Stranger Things on Netflix and each episode is introduced with a warning about violence and smoking. It is set in the 80's.
 
Nathan said:
Sure, I know from first hand experience how much smoking went on back in the day, I was busy doing it myself. I finally quit 12 years ago (wish it had been 50). While I watch those black & white TV shows and movies I look up the actors in Google and read their bios, and find that many had their lives cut short from smoking related illnesses.
I guess it's just a morbid obsession I have, but I'm grateful for every day I live without a terminal diagnoses.
Click to expand...
I know what you mean, I'm grateful not to have any bad health effects from smoking. I quit 40 years ago after smoking for fifteen years. Glad I quit cold turkey, smartest thing I ever did. I loved my Marlboros, but I was starting to get out of breath easily, etc. Husband was a non-smoker, so he did push me to stop and that helped.

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There was a lot of drinking portrayed, too. My mother denounced smoking as a “filthy habit,” but this didn’t stop her from drinking like a fish! Her denunciations didn’t stop my parents from putting out ash trays at home for years for visiting friends who smoked… 🚬

I’m grateful not to have been much exposed to second-hand smoking at home, and second-hand drinking is not a thing, unless you count the very real behavioral issues encountered with excessive consumption. Remember when drunks were considered “funny” on tv comedies? 🍺

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I don't remember thinking anything of it years ago, but when watching the retro shows now, the one that always surprised me most was Lucy smoking on I Love Lucy. I read that she smoked Chesterfields but put them into a Philip Morris box.
 
A friend of mine had a theory that it wasn't the pure tobacco cigarettes that were the problem. It was the filtered cigarettes ? Drawing all that heat & smoke through lord only knows what they [filters] were made from, some fiberglass.

He died from prostate cancer , not sure if smoking played a part or not ?

Glad I gave it up, and glad I never was a heavy smoker when I did smoke .... some 20+ years back.
 
Nathan said:
Sure, I know from first hand experience how much smoking went on back in the day, I was busy doing it myself. I finally quit 12 years ago (wish it had been 50). While I watch those black & white TV shows and movies I look up the actors in Google and read their bios, and find that many had their lives cut short from smoking related illnesses.
I guess it's just a morbid obsession I have, but I'm grateful for every day I live without a terminal diagnoses.
Click to expand...
Right there with you; I quit in 1994 and want to say I never looked back, but I actually dreamed about smoking for, seriously ten years or so after I quit. Might have been longer, not sure.
So glad I did, though. So glad. ( And good for you! ) :)
 
This thread reminds me of the first time I ever lit up a cigarette. My girl friend took a couple cigarettes from her mother's pack and we went outside on the driveway, leaning against the house, which was a good idea because the cigarettes made us so dizzy we would have fallen down if not for leaning on the house. Why we continued smoking after that is a mystery. It's not like it was enjoyable and we weren't "hooked" after just one cigarette.

Anyone else remember their first cigarette?
 
caroln said:
Anyone else remember their first cigarette?
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Yes, I was about 12, and like you it was stolen from my parents. I coughed so hard I am pretty sure little or no smoke was inhaled.

I am lucky, I have only smoked about half a dozen since, and none of those were good experiences. So I never smoked. My parents quit shortly after that first stolen cigarette. That probably helped.

I do have about 8 or 10 cigars a year, but I don't count that as smoking...
 
win231 said:
Smoking was a rite of passage - becoming an adult. The power of advertising. That includes doctors being paid to advertise smoking & cigarettes sold to patients in hospital rooms. Money talks.
I quit 40 years ago. Starting was the dumbest thing I ever did.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qliTr750NOk
Click to expand...
Wow. That brings back memories. I remember smoking in hospital rooms and elevators and the movies. Long time gone.
 
caroln said:
This thread reminds me of the first time I ever lit up a cigarette. My girl friend took a couple cigarettes from her mother's pack and we went outside on the driveway, leaning against the house, which was a good idea because the cigarettes made us so dizzy we would have fallen down if not for leaning on the house. Why we continued smoking after that is a mystery. It's not like it was enjoyable and we weren't "hooked" after just one cigarette.

Anyone else remember their first cigarette?
Click to expand...
Yes, I was eight and I got in such trouble for it. I didn't get sick from the cigarette though. I grew up around smokers and couldn't understand the fuss but eight is kind of young for smoking. :unsure:
 
Watching the X-files, which is fairly recent, there this one really creepy guy that occasionally appears out of the shadows, and every clip of every scene shows him sucking on a cigarette as if he's taken chain smoking to a higher level. I suppose you might give it a pass, because it's sickening to watch this guy, but it's also putting smoking in the minds of youth.

Even after they quit using actors to make blatant product placements for smoking in Hollywood films, they would still introduce smoking with some good looking person saying something like, "I've got to quit smoking." I think that did more harm than good. My father used to say all the time, "I've got to quit smoking." As a youth I assumed getting hooked on cigarettes was an adult thing to do, and eventually, I started smoking, although I did quit in my early thirties.
 
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i was abour 12 , when i tried smoking with all my neighbours we used to go to these posh ladies toilets that were just built up the road from us .....i bought 2 tuppence halfpenny fags and a penny book of matches equal 6d........
i carried on smoking until i was 30 and gave up...
i do still notice , that greek and spanish folk smoke alot ....
 

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