Famous smokers who died from smoking related disease
All the celebrities in this list were smokers and have died from diseases that are related to smoking tobacco.
The list is not without irony: notable people in this list are the members of the Reynolds family, the family behind the cigaret brand Camel. Patrick Reynolds has seen many of his relatives die from the consequences of cigarettes and is now an anti-tobacco activist.
Four actors that once played the Marlboro Man have died from smoking related diseases: Wayne McLaren, David McLean, Dick Hammer and Eric Lawson.
Other celebrities appeared in tobacco commercials.
Name | Known for | Died at | Cause of death |
Bill Hicks | American comedian | 32 | pancreatic cancer |
Lorraine Hansberry | actress and painter | 34 | pancreatic cancer |
Andy Kaufman | comedian, actor, his life was made into the film Man on the Moon | 35 | lung cancer |
Gerard Smith | bass player in the band TV on the radio | 36 | lung cancer |
Carrie Hamilton | playwriter, singer and actress | 38 | lung cancer |
Wilhelmina Cooper | supermodel from the 60's | 40 | lung cancer |
Eric Carr | drummer from the band Kiss | 41 | heart and lung cancer |
Barb Tarbox | model, anti-tobacco activist | 42 | lung cancer |
Caroline Knapp | writer | 42 | lung cancer |
John Cazale | actor, Fredo Corleone in The Godfather | 42 | lung cancer |
Judy Holliday | actress | 43 | throat cancer |
Ernie Kovacs | actor, comedian, writer | 43 | car accident, while trying to light his cigaret |
John Candy | actor from Splash, Planes, trains and automobiles, Spaceballs, Home alone, Cool runnings,... | 43 | heart attack |
Scott F. Fitzgerald | writer | 44 | heart attack |
Fred 'Sonic' Smith | guitarist in MC5 | 45 | heart failure |
Nat King Cole | singer | 45 | lung cancer |
Mary Reynolds | wife of R.J. Reynolds Jr., son of the founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company | 45 | stomach cancer |
James Hunt | Formule 1 pilot | 45 | heart attack |
Kiel Martin | actor from the TV-show Hill Street Blues | 46 | lung cancer |
Charles Day | gold medal winner in the 1936 Olympics | 47 | lung cancer |
Thomas Schippers | conductor | 47 | lung cancer |
Graham Chapman | Monthy Python | 48 | throat cancer |
Enrico Caruso | opera singer | 48 | abcesses in the lungs |
Jacques Brel | singer | 49 | lung cancer |
Jack Cassidy | actor | 49 | died in a fire caused by smoking in bed |
Raymond Carver | author | 50 | lung cancer |
Marilyn Maxwell | actress | 50 | heart attack, suffered from non-disclosed lung disease |
Errol Flynn | actor | 50 | heart attack |
Steve McQueen | actor, starred in tobacco commercials | 50 | died from a heart attack the day after an operation to remove a mesothelioma (tumor of pleural cavity, caused by asbestos) |
Jim Varney | actor, comedian | 50 | lung cancer |
Robert Shaw | actor | 51 | heart attack |
Carl Wilson | the Beach Boys | 51 | lung cancer |
Wayne McLaren | Marlboro Man | 51 | lung cancer |
Roy Orbison | singer | 52 | heart attack |
Eddie Kendricks | singer-songwriter for The Temptations | 52 | lung cancer |
Frank Zappa | singer | 52 | prostate cancer |
Charlie | the smoking chimpansee | 52 | cause of death unknown |
Elizabeth 'Blitz' Reynolds | first wife of R.J. Reynolds Jr., son of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (Camel) | 52 | colon cancer |
June Pointer | a Pointer Sister | 52 | lung cancer |
Spike Jones | musician and comedian | 53 | emphysema |
Babe Ruth | baseball player | 53 | cancer of the mouth |
Jerry Garcia | Grateful Dead | 53 | heart attack |
Robert Palmer | singer (Addicted to Love) | 54 | heart attack |
Michael Landon | Little Joe uit Bonanza | 54 | pancreatic and liver cancer |
Remedios Varo | Mexican surrealist painter | 54 | heart attack |
Krzysztof Kieślowski | director (Trois Couleurs Rouge, Blanc, Blue) | 55 | heart attack |
Edward Albert | actor | 55 | lung cancer |
Jack Ruby | murder of Lee Harvey Oswald | 55 | lung cancer |
Michael Nyqvist | actor, best known for his part in Millennium and Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol | 56 | lung cancer |
Ian Fleming | creator of James Bond | 56 | heart attack |
Betty Grable | pin-up girl and actress | 56 | lung cancer |
King George VI | father of queen Elisabeth II of England | 56 | lung cancer |
Sinéad O'Connor | Irish singer | 56 | COPD exacerbation and asthma |
Robert Taylor | actor | 57 | lung cancer |
Patrick Swayze | actor | 57 | pancreatic cancer |
Humphrey Bogart | actor | 57 | esophageal cancer |
Vincent Schiavelli | actor (One flew over the Cuckoo's nest, Ghost, Batman Returns, The People vs. Larry Flint) | 57 | lung cancer |
Wolfman Jack | disk jockey, musician | 57 | heart attack |
George Harrison | Beatle | 58 | throat cancer. |
Gary Moore | musician | 58 | heart attack |
Dick Powell | actor, musician, producer | 58 | lymphoma |
Sean Lock | British comedian | 58 | lung cancer |
Clark Gable | actor | 59 | heart attack |
Andreas Katsulas | actor | 59 | lung cancer |
Alex Chilton | singer/songwriter | 59 | heart attack |
R.J. Reynolds, Jr. | heir of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (Camel) | 59 | emphysema |
Amanda Blake | actress | 60 | died from AIDS, while suffering oral cancer caused by heavy smoking |
R.J. Reynolds, III | heir of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (Camel), son of R.J. Reynolds Jr. His wife Marie died from ovarian cancer | 60 | emphysema and congestive heart failure |
Ibrahim Rugova | president of Kosovo | 61 | lung cancer |
Alex Higgins | twofold world champion snooker | 61 | throat cancer |
John Gotti | mobster | 61 | throat cancer |
Alain Bashung | french singer | 61 | lung cancer |
Andre Braugher | Actor, Captain Holt in Brooklyn Nine-Nine | 61 | lung cancer |
J. Robert Oppenheimer | father of the atomic bomb | 62 | throat cancer |
Serge Gainsbourg | singer | 62 | heart attack |
Gary Crosby | actor | 62 | lung cancer |
Franklin D. Roosevelt | American president during WWII | 63 | stroke |
Ulysses S. Grant | president of the USA | 63 | throat cancer |
Edwin Hubble | famous astronomist | 64 | cerebral thrombosis |
Howard Carter | discoverer of Tutankhamun's tomb | 64 | Hodgkin's disease |
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis | president J.F. Kennedy's wife | 64 | cancer |
Sammy Davis Jr. | singer and actor | 64 | throat cancer |
Walt Disney | founder of the Walt Disney studios | 65 | lung cancer |
Yul Brynner | actor, anti-tobacco commercial | 65 | lung cancer |
George Peppard | actor, John « Hannibal » Smith in The A-Team | 65 | lung cancer, pneumonia |
Giacomo Puccini | opera composer (Madame Butterflie, La Boheme, Tosca) | 65 | throat cancer |
Muriel Marston Reynolds | ex-wife of R.J. Reynolds Jr. from the R.J.Reynolds Tobacco Company | 65 | lung cancer |
Paul Avery | American reporter | 66 | emphysema |
Jesse Owens | four time 1936 Olympic gold medallist, appeared in Lucky Strike advertisements | 66 | lung cancer |
Tom Petty | musician | 66 | heart attack |
Gert 'Kralle' Krawinkel | member of the band Trio, known for their hitsingle 'Da da da' | 66 | lung cancer |
Patrick O'Neal | actor | 66 | lung cancer, respiratory failure |
Spencer Tracy | actor | 67 | heart attack |
R.J. Reynolds | founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (Camel) | 68 | pancreatic cancer |
Tex Williams | singer from Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) | 68 | lung cancer |
Johan Cruijff | legendary Dutch football player and coach | 68 | lung cancer, suffered from heart problems earlier |
Muriel Cooper | Book designer, digital designer, researcher, and educator | 68 | heart attack |
Dmitri Shostakovich | Russian composer and pianist | 68 | lung cancer, had several heart attacks in his life |
Gracie Allen | actress en vrouw van George Burns | 69 | heart attack |
David Bowie | Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke | 69 | liver cancer, previously recovered from a hearth attack at the age of 57 |
Freddy Fender | country singer | 69 | lung cancer |
Michelle Delpeche | French chansonnier - best known for Pour un flirt avec toi | 69 | cancer of the throat and tongue |
Dick Hammer | Marlboro Man | 69 | lung cancer |
Alan Rickman | actor, known as Professor Snape from Harry Potter | 69 | pancreatic cancer |
King Edward VII | British monarch | 69 | pneumonia, had several heart attacks and suffered from emphysema |
Renaldo Benson | singer in the Four Tops | 69 | lung cancer |
Jean-Pierre Bacri | French-Algerian actor and screenwriter | 69 | cancer |
Ian Fraser 'Lemmy' Kilmister | rock god, founder of the band Motörhead | 70 | metastasized prostate cancer, cardiac arrhythmia, and congestive heart failure |
King George V | British monarch | 70 | COPD |
Johnny Cash | singer | 71 | complications of diabetes |
Buster Keaton | actor | 71 | lung cancer |
George C. Scott | actor | 71 | aortic aneurysm |
Rudi Carrell | entertainer | 71 | lung cancer |
Margaret Windsor | Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon | 71 | stroke, heart disease |
Cec Linder | Actor | 71 | Emphysema |
Marion Robert Morrison | aka John Wayne | 72 | stomach cancer - underwent a successfully surgery for lung cancer earlier |
Lou Rawls | soul singer | 72 | lung cancer |
Eric Lawson | Marlboro Man | 72 | COPD |
Frank Oppenheimer | Younger brother of J. Robert Oppenheimer, particle physicist and founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco | 72 | lung cancer |
David McLean | Marlboro Man | 73 | emphysema |
Ed Sullivan | television host | 73 | esophageal cancer |
Julie London | singer, actress, pin-up model, performed the Marlboro song | 74 | stroke |
Paul Kantner | founder and guitarist of the band Jefferson Airplane | 74 | complications of heart attack, previously suffered from cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 39 |
Jean-Paul Sartre | French philosopher and Nobel prize winner | 74 | pulmonary edema after heart attacks |
Phil Everly | The Everly Brothers | 74 | COPD |
Mark Twain | famous writer | 74 | heart attack |
Gilbert Bécaud | French chansonnier | 74 | lung cancer |
Johnny Hallyday | The 'French Elvis Presley' | 74 | lung cancer |
Bing Crosby | singer, actor | 74 | heart attack |
Duke Ellington | composer-band leader | 75 | lung cancer and pneumonia |
Václav Havel | Czech President | 75 | suffered from COPD - official cause of death was not made public |
Nancy Reynolds | daughter of RJ Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company | 75 | lung cancer and emphysema |
Alexander Graham Bell | inventor of the telephone | 75 | complications of diabetes |
Marianne O'Brien | atrice, ex-wife of R.J. Reynolds Jr. | 75 | aneurism |
Albert Einstein | nobel prize winner and inventor of theory of relativity | 76 | aneurism |
T.S. Elliot | poet and Nobel laureate | 76 | emphysema |
Lucille Ball | actress, starred in tobocca commercials | 77 | aortic aneurysm |
King Edward VIII | British monarch | 77 | throat cancer |
Jan Hoet | connoisseur of the arts | 77 | heart problems |
Ayn Rand | author and pilosopher | 78 | lung cancer |
Zeppo Marx | actor, comedian | 78 | lung cancer |
Dean Martin | actor | 78 | emphysema |
Walter Matthau | actor in The Odd Couple and Grumpy Old Men | 79 | heart attack |
Robert Mitchum | actor | 79 | emphysema and lung cancer |
Johnny Carson | talk show host | 79 | emphysema |
Richard Briers | British actor - Tom Good from The good life, a TV-show from the 70's | 79 | emphysema |
Boris Karloff | actor | 81 | emphysema, pneumonia |
Don Knotts | actor | 81 | lung cancer |
Pat Nixon | former first lady of the USA, Richard Nixon's wife | 81 | emphysema, lung cancer, mouth cancer, suffered from several strokes |
John Huston | director | 81 | emphysema |
Bette Davis | actress, often smoked in film and in real life | 81 | multiple strokes after breast cancer surgery |
Frank Sinatra | singer, actor, producer, director and conductor | 82 | heart attack |
Vincent Price | actor | 82 | COPD |
Frank Sinatra | singer, actor | 82 | heart attack, bladder cancer |
Leonard Nimoy | Mr Spock from the original Star Trek series | 83 | COPD |
Aaron Spelling | famous producer | 83 | stroke, suffered from oral cancer earlier |
Paul Newman | actor | 83 | lung cancer |
Omar Sharif | actor, 'Lawrence of Arabia' | 83 | heart attack, also suffered from Alzheimer's disease |
Sigmund Freud | psychiatrist | 83 | euthanasia because of cancer of the mouth |
Thomas Edison | inventor | 84 | complications of diabetes |
Henry Corden | Fred Flintstone's voice | 85 | emphysema |
Groucho Marx | actor, comedian | 86 | pneumonia, suffered from heart attacks and strokes during his life |
Claude Monet | painter | 86 | lung cancer |
Jim Trimble | Football coach | 87 | emphysema |
Winston Churchill | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during WWII | 90 | stroke |