Celebrities and Cigars

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Stars and Cigars

In 1962, mere hours before President Kennedy decreed the Cuban Embargo, he sent an aide to obtain a personal supply of 1,000 H. Upmann Petit Coronas. General Ulysses S. Grant, a chain cigar smoker, would have understood. So would U.S. Senator Henry Clay, whose passion for cigars is immortalized in a brand that bears his name.

Cigar smokers are in good company. Two of the world’s greatest minds, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud were cigar smokers. The range of geniuses stretches to both ends of the spectrum, from Maurice Ravel, who created music in the inspiring haze of cigar smoke, to Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, who had his face on the wrapper of a nickel cigar. Sir Winston Churchill is said to have smoked over a quarter of a million cigars by the time of his death at the age of 91 (this averages out to about 4,000 a year). Churchill always chose maduro cigars, a double-corona w/ a 48 ring gauge (the cigar that was named after him).

The only famous cigar smoker to outlive Churchill was George Burns, who began smoking at the age of fourteen and put down his last smoke shortly after his 100th birthday party. He smoked El Producto Queens exclusively. George Burns shared his cigar trademark with Groucho Marx, who had three famous trademarks: his eyebrows, his moustache, and a gigantic cigar, which he used to smooth out the rough edges of his act. “If you forget a line,” he once said, “all you have to do is stick the cigar in your mouth and puff on it until you can think of what you’ve forgotten.” His on-camera cigars were never lit, but he was a two-cigar-a-day man. His favorite brand was Dunhill 410s.

Edward G. Robinson is also a cigar-prop actor. He made his way to stardom as a gangster chewing on a stogie. Charlie Chaplin also used the cigar to symbolize the evil fat-cat who oppressed the innocent downtrodden. His tramp character would find cigar nubs on the sidewalks, pick them up and smoke them.

Bill Cosby is also an avid smoker. He did not start smoking cigars after he became wealthy; rather he began as a youngster in his grandfather’s basement. Cosby prefers a Hoyo de Monterrey double corona, which he says is his “favorite Cuban since Desi Arnaz.”

Desi’s wife, Lucille Ball, the Queen of Comedy, was a cigarillo smoker. This would not have surprised her fans, who saw her as the wacky, try-anything Lucy she portrayed on television. Lucille Ball is not the first nor the last female cigar smoker. Women cigar smokers today consist of Madonna, Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, supermodel Linda Evangelista, and talk-show host Lauren Hutton.

Famous authors and poets were also known to be avid cigar smokers. Among this elite group are names such as Ernest Hemmingway (who has cigars named after him), James Joyce, William Faulkner, Mark Twain, and Lord Byron, and Rudyard Kipling. Twain was once quoted “If I cannot smoke in heaven, then I shall not go”. Byron is quoted also: “Sublime tobacco! Which from East to West Cheers the tar’s labor or the Turkman’s rest.”

Other celebrities who are known cigar smokers are: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Schriver, Jack Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Costner, Colette, Tom Seleck, Bill Gates, and numerous other celebrities.

Source:
Resnick, Jane. International Connoisseur’s Guide to Cigars. Black Dog and Leventhal Press: New York, 1996.