Cigarettes onstage

Someone once told me--but I have no idea on what authority--that Broadway houses in the 20th century never had smoking in the audience. However, of course, movie theatres did have smoking sections I believe some as late as the 1970s (but then again back then you couldn't eat or drink in the live theatre houses either, but could in movie houses). They did of course have smoking lounges--I know in London a number of areas in the lobby still have those signs.

I don't know about the whole 20th century, Eric. Despite rumors to the contrary, I didn't witness all of it.

But there was certainly no smoking in legit theaters (anywhere that I knew of) by the time I started attending professional theaters in 1966 (Broadway in 1971). You're right that there was no eating or drinking either, except in some of the big, outdoor theaters in the heartland, where they sold popcorn and candy in the aisles. It's hard to image that a half-century ago, humans were so little evolved that we could actually go for 90 minutes without a drink of water!

In 1955 over half of all men and a third of all women smoked. (I looked it up.) So I assume most actors just smoked regular cigarettes onstage if their character did.

Side note: as a former but longtime smoker myself, I still find people smoking on stage and in movies pretty amusing. Not only is it obvious when a smoker isn't inhaling, but most scripts/directors have characters lighting a cigarette and then putting it out almost immediately (usually to free their hands). I can promise you that we who were addicted were never so wasteful, not even when smokes were cheap.

Roger, I believe the original impetus for banning cigarettes was concern over fire. Even Shakespeare's Globe Theatre burned down (though I don't know that there were any casualties). 602 people died in the Iroquois Theatre fire of 1903 Chicago, which is more than have been killed by terrorists over the past two years, I believe. (The terrorists are catching up, I'm afraid.)

Also, people were used to not smoking in church, and theater-going was a more formal experience, closer to attending church than to seeing a movie.

But if your impression is that we smoked in a lot of places where we wouldn't dream of smoking now, you are correct. We certainly smoked at work and in college classrooms and in restaurants. Non-smokers were just beginning to push back when I went to college in 1972.

I admit, it was only a recent revelation (I think reading some older novel) that college students smoked in lectures/classes! Even more so, just recently I read a piece written in 1984 and set in that time, at Columbia, where a character casually lit up a smoke in the *library*. *mind blown*

EricMontreal22 said: "Smoking in movie theatres was usually relegated to the back or the balcony (if they had one) One reason of course is because smoke with projections can make the house obviously "foggy"

As Gaveston implies, I assume it was just assumed that, if smoking was treated as casually (if not more so) as eating or drinking, it was something one could put off for 90 mins. If smoking were still commonly tolerated today (I say this as a smoker), you bet people would be puffing away in theatres just as they drink and eat.



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I don't mean to be picky, but since the projector windows were usually at the back of the balcony, putting smokers up there wouldn't have helped clear up the image projected.

One of my first jobs was as an usher in a movie theater where the smoking section was the rear, center section and people who sat there had to pay an extra quarter for the privilege. So that was one reason for segregated smoking sections: it was an excuse to charge more. My entire job consisted of standing guard so that people couldn't sneak into the smoking section after the lights had gone down.

I can attest that the air was truly foul in smoking sections, even though I was a heavy smoker myself. But to go 2 full hours without a smoke was unthinkable!

Updated On: 7/16/16 at 07:03 PM

EricMontreal22 said: "In some ways I think movie going has become more formal. My mom talks about how common it was to just walk into a movie whenever you wanted and were there, and then of course if you liked the movie sticking around to watch the beginning you missed (hence the exit line "This is where I came in"



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Didn't the term "B movie" arise because such pictures were shown along with the main, or "A", feature? Add a cartoon or two, a newsreel, and maybe a short, and the "event" of going to the movies could be 90 minutes (if you only saw the main feature) or several hours!

Updated On: 7/16/16 at 07:15 PM

Of course they smoked real cigarettes. I ran props for a production of "Carmen" and I had to have a fresh pack for the female chorus "cigarette girls" every show.

Thanks, Wonkit. I really couldn't conjure up a picture of myself smoking in the Barnard library. But it has been 34 years. If smoking wasn't allowed at the Barnard library, I'd be surprised if it was allowed at any of the Columbia libraries, since most things--including faculty and rules--had been merged by that point. I'm not even sure we could smoke in class. (For those who don't know the school(s), Columbia and Barnard had merged by the early 1980s, but sort of in the manner of Ontario and Quebec: together in many ways, but still independent in others. That remains true today, though I can't tell you exactly how the partnership works. I really should read the alumni mag.)

But I am sure students could smoke at Florida State when my mother went to grad school there in 1972-74. I remember the traditional school desks were larger for college students and, in most buildings, had ashtrays screwed onto the edge of the desk area. (How they ever got emptied, I don't know.)

Updated On: 7/17/16 at 07:41 AM

Dollypop said: "What show did he do at the Music Box? (A waiter pointed it out to me)"



He hasn't done a show at the Music Box...

Dollypop said: "What show did he do at the Music Box? (A waiter pointed it out to me)



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What thread is this? Who's on first? LOL.