smokers we love : joanna lumley
B Y R O B E R T H A I N A U L T , C E L E B R I T Y C O R R E S P O N D E N T
Best known for her much-loved role as the emaciated , beehived psychopath Patsy Stone from Jennifer Saunder ' s award-winning sitcom Absolutely Fabulous , Joanna Lumley is more than a pretty face , a killer set of manners and a CV to die for . She ' s also a smoker . nightmare there [ in New York ], you can ' t smoke anywhere ; it seems the stupidest vice to pick on . I mean , I know lots of people must die of smoking-related diseases , but then lots die of alcohol-related diseases and nobody stops you drinking . We smokers are just a whipping boy .'"
Despite playing chain-smoking Patsy , the real Joanna smokes only six cigarettes a day , but she loves them . She has been smoking Rothmans since the mid-70s but sometimes squeezes in a ' sneaky Silk Cut '. Speaking to the Daily Mail in May 2015 she said : ' I ought to smoke . I try to smoke . I ’ d very easily give it up . It just slips away from you and I think : “ Damn , I ought to be smoking !” I do like it — and you ’ ve got to die of something .'
She may not live up to the lung-shredding reputation of Patsy but she has always been a firm defender of smoking . She spoke to Notebook Magazine about censors wanting the new Absolutely Fabulous movie to ' tone down the smoking ' because of the ' message it sends to children .' She said : “ Children can access videos of beheadings and play the most horrifically violent video games , yet they will most definitely smoke if they see someone smoking on TV . It ’ s madness .”
She has repeatedly stood firm about the idiocy of the smoking ban . In 1999 she told the Sunday Times " It ' s a
Despite this , she has always been polite when asked not to smoke . In January of the same year she was caught out by the smoking ban at Edinburgh ' s Tower restaurant and when she was asked to put out her cigarette by a waiter an onlooker reported a nervous silence . " People almost expected a Patsy-like explosion but she was absolutely charming . She apologised immediately and , taking her glass of champagne in one hand and her cigarette in the other , stepped outside ." Onto a freezing terrace , no less .
So perhaps she is a little addicted , or perhaps it is a question of identity . Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph in 2009 she said “ Give up smoking ? No ! One of my few ambitions in life was to become a smoker . I got the idea when I was about seven . I was in Malaya as a child and I saw this wonderful picture of a woman in a magazine ... Beyond her was Manhattan and all those lights and she had a cocktail in the other hand , and I thought , ‘ Yes , that ' ll do .'” Smoking , it seems , isn ' t something you do but is something you are : a smoker . Well , if it ' s good enough for JoLu , it ' s definitely good enough for us . Bolly , sweetie ?
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