Celebrity and Cigarettes

“Stardom can be a gilded slavery. “

-Helen Hayes.

Calling all fans of Hollywood Yesteryear! What have we got here for you, today?!

Talk about bang for your buck! Deep inside every pack of Turf Cigarettes were a pair of these collector trading cards featuring all the studios’ biggest and brightest stars of the day! Many of them are legendary to this day, and have remained icons of style, grace, talent, and ultimate stardom and celebrity. Trading cards like these were a common marketing device since the 1920s paid for by the Studios to stimulate the allure of the “star”.

What a fascinating way to market these names that include heavyweights like Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Errol Flynn, Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracey, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, and of course Joan Crawford. These are names we all recognize and revere for the impact they continue to make on pop culture today. They are also a constant reminder to the potential for Hollywood Glamour in us all.

Best of all, the collection of cards include names of stars we may not immediately recognize. Names like Myrna Loy, Dorothy Lamour, Christine Norden, Phyllis Calvert, Anton Walbrook, Rhonda Fleming, and Kieron Moore, may not be immediately familiar, so lest we forget!

Makes you wonder why they don’t do things like that today! It’s the least they could do for the millions of people smoking cigarettes around the world (besides CANCER). I mean, a little novelty never hurt anybody!!!

Not sure how many stars these days would accept being thrown into a pack of cigarettes, but things were much different for the star of yesteryear and the star of today. Despite this, what stars do you think would appear in a pack of cards today?

Special thanks to Immortal Ephemera for sharing this awesome collection! Click for more.

“I see stardom very clearly as a construct that’s been created in order to sell things.”

-Julie Christie.

Sincerely,
{theEye}