EVENTS
DAVID GOERLITZ TELLS HOW HE WALKED AWAY FROM A
$100,000-A-YEAR CAREER PROMOTING TOBACCO
A
s the Winston Man, David
Goerlitz only needed to
work for 26 days to collect a
$100,000 annual salary.
David was, quite literally, a poster boy for
smoking from 1981 until 1988 where his
job was to make smoking look glamorous
and appealing to impressionable young
minds.
To do this he was pictured in a series of
rugged locations, taking part in macho
activities for billboards and magazines
throughout the US.
A typical poster would see David rock
climbing or flying a helicopter and he
starred in 45 adverts during those 7.5
years as the Winston Man.
Then at the height of his popularity,
David decided he no longer wanted to
promote smoking to young people and
help set them on a path towards lifelong addiction, sickness, disease and
premature death.
So he stopped smoking and set about
114 VAPOUROUND MAGAZINE USA
telling everybody that the Winston Man
was no longer a smoker.
This public stance did not go down well
with his employer and his job promoting
Winston was no longer tenable.
For David, walking away from a
$100,000-a-year job was surprisingly
easy and he never regretted his decision
for a moment.
The decision was promoted by his
brother being diagnosed with cancer
(which had been caused by smoking)
and by his children learning that
‘smoking kills’ at school while their father
was promoting tobacco on billboards and
magazines.
David then spent the next 16 years doing
all in his power to encourage kids not to
smoke which only served to make him
even more unpopular with the tobacco
industry.
He told Vapouround Magazine: “I want
to make it very clear. Nobody ever put
a gun to my head to make me promote
tobacco. I did it willingly and as an actor
and model at the time I was doing it to
make money and feed my family.
“I wasn’t selling cocaine or heroin. I was
selling what the government collected
billions and billions in tax revenue on so I
had no remorse at the time.
“I just happened to be
really good at enticing,
encouraging and luring
young boys to becoming
addicted to Winstons. The
marketing goal was to get
new replacement 14 to 17
year olds - RJ Reynolds
wanted to capture 60% of
the teenage market so that
they could sustain their
market share.”
The ads always depicted smoking to be
macho, tough, rugged and robust and