Blogs
Notes From the Ashtray

The Best of the Best

Dylan Gyles

For as long as tobacco has been smoked, there have been individuals that exemplify the craft. Like ducks take to water, these men and women take to their cigarettes, pipes and cigars. They are musicians, world leaders, poets, actors, writers and great thinkers; smoking didn’t make them famous, but they helped make smoking famous. Here we list the greatest smokers of all time:

Mark Twain

Groucho Marx

Bob Dylan

Monica Bellucci

Raymond Carver

Allen Ginsberg

Marlene Dietrich

Humphrey Bogart

Joe Strummer

Winston Churchill

Audrey Hepburn

Hunter S. Thompson

Al Capone

Albert Einstein

Nina Simone

Nat King Cole

Oscar Wilde

David Bowie

Fidel Castro

Lana Del Rey

Johnny Carson

Kurt Vonnegut

James Dean

Keith Richards

Steve McQueen

John Wayne

Madonna

Jimmy Hendrix

John Waters

Sean Connery

Marilyn Monroe

Che Guevara

John Lennon

René Lévesque

Mary Astor

Marlon Brando

Jack Kerouac

Clark Gable

Dylan Thomas

Roger Moore

Leonard Cohen

Alfred Hitchcock

Elizabeth Taylor

Vincent Price

Kurt Cobain

Charles Bukowski

Jack Nicholson

Edie Sedgwick

Larry King

Vincent van Gogh

Sigmund Freud

Lucille Ball

Sammy Davis Jr.

William S. Burroughs

Faye Dunaway

If you can think of any other great smokers we’ve missed, please add them in the comments below.

Tags

Dylan Gyles

Dylan Gyles is a writer and barista. He writes short fiction and creative non-fiction. He is originally from Winnipeg and now lives in Vancouver.


SUGGESTIONS FOR YOU

Writing What We Cannot Fully Remember: A Workshop

A Creative Non-Fiction Writing Workshop with Minelle Mahtani
Geist News
The Editors

Meet the Reading Collective

Behind every issue of Geist is a remarkable group of volunteer readers—meet them here!
Geist News
The Editors

Meet the Reading Collective

Meet our Reading Collective—a community of volunteers who give their time to reading new work and sharing their insights with the editors.