Robin Koval is CEO and
President of Legacy, and was
particularly observant of
Mad Men's approach to
smoking over the program's
seven year run. Robin
pointed out that Betty's
diagnosis was revealed on
Mother's Day, a particularly
poignant time to bring attention
to the hazards of cigarette smoking.
As Legacy is dedicated to ending
the tobacco epidemic in the US,
Ms. Koval said that Mad Men
brought the smoking issue full
circle, with Betty's cavalier
resignation at her fate...
hard core smokers know when it's
too late. The key is getting free
before then. One of the lessons
learned from one of television's
great period dramas.
CNN: Koval: Mad Men got the smoking issue right after all...
Mad Men Finale-
Episode 92:
Person to Person...
It was not a happy
ending for Betty...
still smoking at the
kitchen table even
after the diagnosis...
This article by Lizzie Crocker
tracks the use of cigarettes in
the epic television show Mad
Men and how smoking turned
deadly as the show reaches its
climax...
RTS mentioned Betty's problem
yesterday in what became the
most popular post of Romancing
The Smoke since we published
the book and the blog in 2012...
The Daily Beast: How Mad Men made smoking glamorous, then deadly
Spoiler Alert: For all of us
Mad Men fans who have been
holding our breaths these past
weeks leading up to the finale,
the first character bombshell
was dropped last night when
Betty, Don's ex-wife, played
by January Jones, found out
that even though she's barely
forty, she has Stage 4 lung
cancer brought on by smoking
two packs of Salems a day. My
dad died the same year this is
set from lung cancer after
smoking two packs a day.
I can relate.
Take a puff...it's Springtime!
This is quite the parable for a
show that began with her
account executive husband Don
securing the Lucky Strike
advertising account for their up
and coming ad firm. Here are a
few of the ads that no doubt got
Betty hooked on the up and
coming menthol brand...
and one of Betty in action...
As the celebrated series Mad Men
winds up its seven year run on
AMC as one of television's most
popular and award winning shows,
RTS shares the first episode of this
epic program, that, not surprisingly,
was about the firm's efforts to win
the advertising account of a major
brand of cigarettes at a time when
smoking was first recognized as a
serious health issue by the medical
profession. This show presented the
cavalier nature of the habit like
none other on tv.
Mad Men: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Season 1; First episode)
Don Draper actually smoked
only one cigarette in Sunday's
episode of Mad Men. The celeb
photographer Pima, (played
by Mimi Rogers) also had a
cigarette; but the nicotine cloud
fest they had in the early days
of the show has toned down
quite a bit. Perhaps it had to do
with the Surgeon General's
1965 findings or todays FCC
rulings that curtail and vilify
smoking on screen. It was a
strange sort of refreshing and
a long ways from when it began
with "Lucky Strike...it's toasted!"
