An original 'Marlboro Man' lives in Scottsville
The Marlboro Man doesn't smoke.
Bill Clune, one of the original Marlboro men in the iconic campaign that identified the cigarette brand, recalls returning home to Scottsville from New York City to learn how to inhale. An aspiring model in the early 1950s, Clune's agent urged him to audition for cigarette campaigns. He didn't make the cut on a few and almost gave up. Until that fateful day when he sat on a split rail fence in a cowboy pose.
"That's our Marlboro Man," the casting director bellowed.
For the next two decades in the 1950s and 1960s, Clune became one of the most photographed men in America. His unconventional tough guy look attracted Madison Avenue ad executives who sought a rugged look. Following the Marlboro Man, Clune appeared in other cigarette advertisements for Kool and Winston and other retail products.
"Remington Tough," Clune recalled the ad for the shaver.
At the rate of $1 per minute, Clune was one of the highest paid models of the 1950s. Not bad for a boy from Scottsville who was fired from his radio job at WBBF that paid $55 a week for swearing on the air on a Sunday.
"I have to thank them for firing me," Clune said.
Farm to fame
The son of legendary newspaperman Henry Clune, who wrote the "Seen and Heard" column for the Democrat and Chronicle, Clune still remembers how difficult it was to make money. Working on a farm as a farm hand, it was tough work for only $35 a week.
From farming to radio, getting fired gave him the push to head to New York with only $100 in his pocket. He worked odd jobs while auditioning, including a stint as a secret shopper. That's when he would try to spot grifters, recalling the ticketing process at a theater. If the ticket taker didn't fully rip the the ticket in half, then he knew that the ticket taker was working with the ticket salesman on pocketing the money.
Fame and modeling work came quickly for Clune. The Marlboro Man became one of the most revered ad campaigns, with Clune helping change the the product from a woman's cigarette to a manly smoke.
Marlboro Man was a game changer, said Courtney Cotrupe, managing director of Partners + Napier advertising agency in Rochester. The brand was originally pitched to women as “Mild as May.” By shifting gears and linking the brand with one of America’s most masculine icons — the cowboy — sales surged into the billions of dollars and Marlboro became the world’s top-selling cigarette. While controversial, the Marlboro Man campaign has become a case history on the power of advertising.
Advertising is a reflection of what’s happening in culture, Cotrupe explained. During the post-war 1950s, gender roles became more defined, and hyper-masculinity celebrated.
"Look at television, where cowboys ruled the roost. No brand tapped into that sensibility more than Marlboro; its ads struck just the right manly chord for the times," she said.
That nose, That Man
From Marlboro Man, Clune landed modeling assignments with Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. He readily admits that he is not a handsome man, but beat out all the good looking guys for the jobs.
"That nose," Clune said, referring to his long beak. Advertising executives liked to mock his nose, he recalled.
"But I didn't care as long as they paid me," he said.
“I’m not a good looking guy at all. I was lucky,” Clune muses. “They were looking for rugged, not pretty guys.”
He was the face for the That Man fragrance campaign. “That man, what does she see in him,” the ad read. It was a precursor to the most interesting man in the world campaign. And then there’s Harvey’s Bristol Cream. “Whenever you drink it’s right to drink Harvey’s Bristol Cream.”
Clune led a double life, toiling with the beautiful crowd in New York with his wife holding down a farm he purchased in Leicester, Livingston County. One of his good friends was writer Wyatt Cooper, the fourth husband to Gloria Vanderbilt and father of television journalist Anderson Cooper. His affinity for pretty ladies and infidelity eventually led to a divorce as well as losing the farm to his ex-wife.
Infidelity was his only vice as Clune didn’t drink or smoke and kept a close eye on his finances. Recalling the hard manual labor for little pay as a farm hand, he never squandered his earnings.
Then and now
Clune still keeps a close eye on his investments, noting that the Dow recently hit over the 20,000 mark. He spends his days at his Scottsville estate, surrounded by his favorite things, framed photos of him in his youth and seven cars in his collection. He’s researching the Chrysler 300, contemplating on adding that to his car stable.
Lean and fit in his golden years, Clune is no longer modeling. The business is not kind to aging, he said, which is why he will not reveal his age. Clune continues to do voiceover work for commercials. He has a lady friend who visits him but most of his contemporaries have passed. With the exception of Carmen Dell’Orefice, the stately silver-haired 85 year-old model who he still keeps in touch with. What a remarkable career she’s had, Clune marveled. Clune worked with her on various assignments in the 1950s. More than 60 years later, she’s still going.
Long time family friend and writer Bill Kauffman, who authored nine books, keeps in touch with Clune. He met the family in 1990 when he was assigned to write a profile about Henry Clune, who had just turned 100, for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Henry Clune wrote a book called Souvenir and Other Stories as a centurion and Kauffman was charmed by the entire family. Henry's wife Charlotte had been an Olympic swimmer and Bill Clune's twin brother Peter had been a stage and movie actor. There are two other sons, George, a New York state trooper and Barry, who worked in advertising. Bill Clune is the now only living member of the family, with Kauffman visiting him to share stories about Madison Avenue.
"It's an interesting, vivid family right here in Scottsville," said Kauffman, who lives in Elba, Genesee County.
Dozens of Marlboro men have appeared in print and television advertisements after Clune. He counts the ones who have passed. There’s George, Peter and Barry. Not smoking extended his longevity, he realizes.
As to whether there are any regrets in his life, there’s at least one. He keeps a photo of a girl with long wavy reddish brown hair and freckled face with large soulful eyes.
“I should have married her,” he said.