40 Vintage Tobacco Advertisements Featuring Female Movie Stars From the Mid-20th Century

The 1920s and 1930s saw the heyday of celebrity endorsement, with celebrities hawking everything from soap and pantyhose to canned beans and cars. Tobacco companies were especially fond of celebrity testimonials, enlisting hundreds upon hundreds of celebrities to endorse their tobacco products well into the 1960s. In these advertisements, movie stars, famous singers, athletes, and even socialites graced the pages of popular magazines, editorials, and newspapers printed across the country.

Famous voices, in this case female movie stars, had a particular appeal for cigarette advertisers. The emphasis on a healthy, clear voice in the movie star s line of work was an ideal avenue for portraying cigarettes as healthful, rather than harmful. The concept was that if a famous actress entrusted her voice and throat her source of revenue to a cigarette brand, then it must not be so bad! In addition to providing health claims, movie stars were also glamorous and represented a walk of life attractive to consumers who were already invested in tabloids and the lives of the show business elite.

It wasn't until 1964 that tobacco companies were banned from using testimonials from athletes, entertainers, and other famous personalities who might be appealing to consumers under 21 years of age.

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The Womens' Pipe Smoking Group, ca. 1930s

The Womens' Pipe Smoking Group affectionately known as the WOPS or Borkum Riffs because of the sweet smells that trail behind them. They meet every early morning of the week and stroll along Olas Altas smoking and discussing shag tobacco. This wonderfully relaxed group sometime mix a blend of prime Moroccan hashish with their fine Borkum Riff fine cut shag from the Netherlands.

There is a waiting list to join these women of the below the knee dress wearing persuasion who want to become involved in this sedate pursuit of strolling and chatting and puffing away on their smooth Calabash Meerschaum pipes like steam locomotives struggling up a hill. The youthful countenances of this group suggest tobacco smoke is good for the complexion and has general health benefits.

There is in fact an offshoot of this women's group that take on all comers and some men where occasionally walks are organised along scenic routes in the countryside outside Mazatlán. Even MazReal members have gone along with keen hiker and organiser Natalia on her countryside pursuits. Smoking pipes are encouraged as they can teach the locals encountered the health giving properties of inhaling fine shag tobacco smoke.

That wonderfully informative ERM! Magazine have awarded WOPS the Health Evangelists Of The Year Award.

33 Badass Photos of Smoking Ladies From the 1960s

A photo set that shows ladies smoking cigarettes in the 1960s.

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Vintage Smokers: That's How Cool Men Smoked Pipes in the Past

An interesting found snapshot album from paws22 that shows how cool men smoked pipes in the past.

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25 Incredible Vintage Photographs Capture a Ladies’ Smoker Night in 1941

On the evening of May 20, members of the Young Women’s Republican Club of Milford, Connecticut, explored the pleasures of tobacco, poker, the strip tease and such other masculine enjoyments as had frequently cost them the evening companionship of husbands, sons and brothers.

Men were strictly forbidden from entering the Ladies’ Smoker Night, although they tried their best to attend, in any way possible.

Thus LIFE photographer Nina Leen chronicled the shenanigans that erupted when a group of GOP women got together for an old-fashioned "smoker" (noun: an informal social gathering for men only) on one long, memorable night in southern New England.

According to an article in the June 16, 1941, issue of LIFE magazine, the evening’s nicotine consumption: 20 cartons of cigarettes, four dozen pipefuls of tobacco, 30 cigars.

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Weird Smoking Inventions of the Past: 6 Bizarre Cigarette Holders Designed by Robert Stern in 1954

Cigarette holders have been one of the most popular cigarette accessories for decades. They have many uses such as filtering cigarette smoke (if you use a filtered cigarette holder), being a great fashion accessory and keeping cigarette smoke further away from your hands.

1. Periscope Holder

2. Umbrella Holder For Rainy Days

3. Ashtray Holder

4. Multiholder

5. The Lovers Holder

6. Telescoping Holder Extends To 4 Feet Long

(Photos by Joel Yale/ LIFE magazine)

How to Hold a Cigarette in Style – 47 Vintage Snapshots Show Smoking Women in the 1940s

Smoking has become a habit of many people. That is not completely a bad habit, it's just not good for your health. Each has a separate smoking way, and this is what smoking women in the 1940s looked like.

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"Be Happy, Go Lucky!" – The Appeal of Vintage Lucky Strike Tobacco Ads From the Early 1950s

These Lucky Strike ads from the Be Happy Go Lucky! campaign of the early 1950s and ads from British brand Kensitas, which followed with its Kensitas that's Good! campaign a year later are appealing to people of all ages, especially teens and young adults, with their vibrant colors, youthful models, fun fonts and carefree messages.

From 1935 to 1959, Lucky Strike sponsored a popular radio show and subsequent TV show, Your Hit Parade, which associated Lucky Strike cigarettes and smoking with fun, music, dancing, and friends. Your Hit Parade featured popular songs and musicians of the day alongside copious advertisements for the cigarette brand. When the show first aired on television, the program opened up with the following Lucky Strike jingle composed by Raymond Scott:

Be happy, go Lucky, Be happy, go Lucky Strike, Be happy, go Lucky, Go Luck-y Strike to-DAY!

At the same time, Lucky Strike began rolling out print advertisements in popular magazines bearing the Be Happy Go Lucky slogan. This followed on the heels of the 1949 campaign, Smoke a Lucky to Feel your Level Best! Both slogans suggested that smoking Luckies resulted in emotional and physical benefits, and both campaigns were colorful and youthful, featuring young, predominantly female models having the times of their lives. These ads presented Lucky smokers as young, attractive, vibrant, athletic, happy, and full of vitality. Without claiming health benefits outright, Lucky Strike portrayed its brand as healthy and enticing through these campaigns.

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When Women Used to Smoke: 26 Interesting Snapshots Show Smoking Habits of Young Girls During the 1970s

For many people smoking doesn't make a hobby, it's just simply a habit hard to give up. Here below is a small collection of interesting snapshots capturing smoking habits of young girls in the 1970s.

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18 Funny Vintage Advertisements of Cigarette From Between the 1950s and 1970s

Here's a collection of 18 funny advertisements about cigarette from between the 1950s and 1970s.

Benson & Hedges 100's Cigarettes with girl wearing hot pants and knee-high boots walking past sailors on a bus, 1971

Camel Cigarettes, 1972

Cigar Institute of America, 'Father & Son', 1962

Hav-A-Tampa Cigars with pretty young women, 1971

Ilustrated 1977 ad. for Parliament Cigarettes with faceless men carrying numbers

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Cigarette "Techniques": How to Smoke Like a Lady in the 1960s

There are many women but only few ladies. Ladies are a select group that live with ease, style and class. To be a lady, you must do things in a ladylike manner. This requires certain affects that can be practised and mastered. One of the most alluring traits of a lady is how she smokes her cigarettes. Anyone can smoke, but not everyone can do so like a lady. Here are a number of suggestions to keep the smoking habit as feminine as possible.

1. Never hold a cigarette in the mouth without the fingers assisting. In other words, no dangling cigarettes.
2. Hold the cigarette in the hand as you strike the match and then place it between the lips for lighting. The fingers must stay in contact with the cigarette.
3. If assistance is offered for lighting the cigarette, graciously lean toward the light.
4. Hold the cigarette as close to the ends of the fingers as possible.
5. Hold the lighted end of the cigarette toward the ceiling so that smoke does not curl through the fingers.
6. Never blow smoke through the nostrils.
7. Do not flick the ashes from the cigarette, roll them off.
8. To put the cigarette out, gently roll it in the ash tray until there is no longer any smoke.

27 Outrageous Vintage Photographs of Dogs Smoking Pipes

Smoking kills - and for these poor dogs the vice has no less fatal consequences. These are the outrageous images taken by pet owners after many forced cigarettes into their animals' mouths and made them smoke.

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