Actor Who Advertised Us Cigarette Brand Dies During Cancer Legal Action

The actor who became the face of America's biggest-selling cigarette brand has died in the middle of a multimillion dollar legal action against the tobacco company he blamed for giving him lung and throat cancer.

Alan Landers, 68, who played the rugged Winston man in the 1960s and 1970s, was due to testify against cigarette manufacturer RJ Reynolds in West Palm Beach, Florida, next month. He was one of about 9,000 smokers in Florida suing cigarette companies for failing to warn of the health risks.

"I was expected to portray smoking as stylish, pleasurable and attractive and at no time was I ever told cigarettes could be dangerous to my health," he said two weeks before his death at home in Lauderhill, near Fort Lauderdale.

"I knew some people believed them to be unhealthy but the cigarette manufacturers denied that their product was harmful. Looking back on my career, I am ashamed that I helped promote such a lethal and addictive product."

In 2006, the Florida supreme court threw out a record $145bn (£103bn) class-action lawsuit against tobacco manufacturers, but recommended that the joint applicants bring individual actions. Last month, in the first of the cases to reach trial, a jury in Fort Lauderdale awarded $8m to the widow of a smoker who died in 1993.

Two of the so-called Marlboro men, actors David McLean and Dick Hammer, died of lung cancer, in 1992 and 1995.