Nearly four decades ago, Alan Landers was Madison Avenue's sexy cigarette man, a raven-haired actor who, in a tuxedo or rugged sportswear, hawked tobacco products in slick billboard and magazine ads that proclaimed: "So real. So rich. So good."
Back then, he was living the high life. As owner of the Alan Landers Acting Studio in Hollywood, he tutored Joanne Woodward, Ali McGraw and Shel Silverstein and had parts in movies and television shows such as "Annie Hall, "America's Most Wanted" and "Petrocelli."
By far, though, Landers' most famous role was as the "Winston Man." But the man once famous for urging people to smoke now holds no idealized, romantic notions of cigarettes.
Two bouts with lung cancer have changed all that.
Fire in the Belly
Instead of hawking tobacco, Landers, 60, and lacking a large chunk of one lung, now routinely blasts tobacco makers as "criminals." His pulpit is both domestic and international: he’s a speaker for the American Cancer Society in Broward County, Fla and for the World Health Organization he travels mainly to Southeast Asia, where smoking is part of the culture, to deliver his first-person warnings. He is a modern-day missionary whose fire comes from deep in the belly of a survivor. "I'm very spiritually motivated," he says, of his drive. "I love telling the truth. I want to get the word out that they have a defective product on the market that if used will kill you."
A smoker since age nine, his habit was so bad that he smoked in his hospital bed on the night before cancer surgery after his was first diagnosed in 1987. Landers had a second bout with lung cancer in 1992. Then in October 1996, he underwent double bypass heart surgery, a condition caused by the heart disease that he also blames on tobacco. Sadly, his story mirrors that of other cigarette promoters from the 1960s and 1970s, who posed with tobacco products as part of an overall message that smoking was cool.
A Natural Crusader
While many other cigarette models have not been as fortunate as Landers to survive, he considers the new mission a great gift. He often takes off his shirt to show surgical scars. "I'm kind of a natural for this, being an actor," he says. "I can speak to all ages -- and I do it in a theatrical way."
His dire health experiences over the past 14 years have helped him become more spiritual -- and totally dedicated to getting out the anti-smoking message. "I get up each day and say my prayers -- I'm really blessed," says Landers, whose regimen includes taking vitamins daily and regular exercise. "After all I''ve been through, I have to feel it's my purpose to do this. . .it's the only thing that makes sense to me. Why else would I be alive?"
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