The first Marlboro Man kicked the bucket this week at his Colorado Springs farm at the mature age of 90 — likely on the grounds that he never really smoked cigarettes.
Weave Norris was an entertainer, farmer and father who assumed the job of a smoking cowhand on announcements, TV and the pages of magazines for a long time.
Promotion executives previously followed the rough Colorado local down at his 63,000-section of land Tee Cross Ranches in Pueblo, in the wake of seeing a photograph of him in a paper, close by his long-lasting buddy John Wayne, his child, Bobby, told WKYT in Colorado Springs.
“They left their vehicle, these folks in their pinstripe suits, and they approached Dad and they stated, ‘How might you want to be in plugs for Marlboro cigarettes?” the child told the station.
“He stated, ‘Well, I’m somewhat bustling at this moment. Why not return one week from now and in case you’re not kidding, we’ll talk.’ They returned the following week.”
Norris quit the business abruptly — in the wake of acknowledging he was setting an awful model for his two little girls and two children.
“He generally disclosed to us kids, ‘I never need to see you smoking,’ so one of us at last asked, ‘On the off chance that you don’t need us smoking, for what reason are you doing cigarette plugs,” Bobby said.
That same day, Norris called up Phillip Morris, which owned the Marlboro brand — and he quit.
This story originally appeared in the New York Post.
