Alan Landars, former Winson model and now anti-tobacco company adovcate passed away on February 27 from complications of his throat cancer.
He spoke out against tobacco marketing to children and worked to hold the tobacco industry accountable and liable for causing addiction and disease in smokers. He supported regulating tobacco products and nicotine as a drug and was the spokesman for the World Health Organization. Most people in the world of Tobacco Control recognize his testimony against Big Tobacco when he quoted an executive: "We don't smoke it. We just sell it. We reserve that for the young, the poor, the black, and the stupid."
He appeared in the majority of the print ads for the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s as the “Winston Man”. He also appeared on billboards and in magazine advertisments holding a Winston cigarette urging others, young and old, to smoke. Alan was expected to portray smoking as stylish, pleasurable, and attractive and was required to smoke on the set, constant smoking was required to achieve the correct appearance of the cigarette, ash and butt length.
Despite the fact that he worked closely with cigarette company personnel during the shooting, at no time was he ever told that cigarettes could be dangerous to his health.
In 1987, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Since then he faced one medical challenge after another, and, since his second diagnosis in 1993, had survived with only two lobes of his lungs. His lungs looked good, until in late 2008 he was diagnosed with inoperable throat cancer.
To learn more about this tobacco-control advocate, visit his website: http://winstonman.com/
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