David Lynch Started Smoking at Age 8 — Now He Needs Oxygen to Walk: 'It's a Big Price to Pay' (Exclusive)

He needs to start doing PSAs at this point. There’s a second Guardian article about this too. He’s been doing an anti-smoking media blitz.

It's not like he wasn't warned many, many, many times by all the labels and ads and campaigns. What did he think was going to happen?

If he didn't listen to anyone about smoking for 70 years, what makes him think anyone's going to listen to him?

I don't mind his trying it, but I'm curious about his thinking on this.

It’s confusing for everyone, because nobody else in public life has said “I was wrong” since LBJ or something.

Duh.

Oh whatever. He's been a creep for decades. If he was accessing cigarettes at age 8 he had bigger problems than smoking -- his home life and childhood was fucked. They say grief resides in the lungs. I would imagine based on his film output he is one fucked up traumatized dude. All the TM and mantras in the world can't take the place of therapy and healing. I wish him the best but dude, his ouvre is sick and twisted, and I imagine his internal chaos took as big a toll on his health as the smoking. Chicken and egg.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Fuck around and find out.

A stitch in time saves nine.

It took him 70 years to figure it out? It's been public knowledge since at least the early 1960s. But he now feels he needs to warn others on a common sense approach that he had dismissed.

Even if the 40's people used to say "You smoke too much" because they were aware of the damage cigarette smoking caused.

Frankly he made it to 78 before serious problems. He should consider himself fortunate.

A lady I know had her larynx removed due to throat cancer caused by decades of chain smoking. She now has a hole in her throat to breathe in oxygen. She also uses the hole in her throat to continue smoking cigarettes. She claims she’ll never quit. She can’t talk and it looks disgusting to watch her inhale smoke through her neck.

I feel sorry for anyone who became addicted when they were too young to understand the risks.

Shit you mean I could smoke for nearly 70 years before I had to give it up? That does not sound so bad.

Just raise the cig tax more. $25 a pack type of prices. Then watch the extremely small numbers of smokers that we have today drop even lower.

Is this like 2 cigarettes a day smoking or 2 packs a day?

At 78 something's going to happen to you anyway.

My friend's mother was a smoker from her late teens until about 88. She's almost 96 now, and while she has some limited lung capacity, she's doing okay. It's important to keep in mind she is very much the exception. Most people come down with either emphysema, lung, esophageal, throat or pancreatic cancer, or heart disease.

R18 not so much if you are not a smoker a boozer, a druggie, or a real fatty etc. lots of people are healthy and major issue free at 80.

Living a healthy life does help a,lot. The next time around I am going to try that.

One of my great grandmothers smoked unfiltered Pall Mall right to the end. She made it to 91.

My only lifelong addiction has been Diet Coke. I guess I'm lucky.

Apparently it was more like 4 packs a day, R17.

R22 I see that as being just marginally better. Over time the ingredients in Diet Coke wreak havoc on your intestinal microbiome and overstimulate your brain synapses.

R21 She sounded fun 🚬

Johnny Carson regretted it too.

[quote]. I would imagine based on his film output he is one fucked up traumatized dude

I feel the same about Ari Aster.

He stopped smoking two years AFTER the diagnosis.

Seriously?

He was a visionary. I hope his final days are comfortable.

[quote]They say grief resides in the lungs.

R6 comment, re-posted without comment.

Losing him will really sadden me. Thank god his film will last forever

[quote] Thank god his film will last forever

Eraserhead certainly seemed to.

No they just seem that way….

Several cancer stricken celebrities have done anti-smoking commercials. I’m old enough to remember Chet Huntley, William Talbot and Yul Byrne’s.

^ iPad won’t let me write Yul BRYNNER

Chet Huntley did?

Four packs of cigarettes a day is hard to fathom. It seems like every waking moment would be devoted to smoking. My mom smoked two packs a day for years and I thought that was a lot.

I had a boss in the 80s who smoked four packs a day (back when I was smoking two) and she ended up getting a heart-and-lung transplant.

And then she died.

Oh yes r24 Diet Coke is just marginally better than cigarettes or booze. God you prisspots are unreal sometimes.

Anyone remember Billy Carter? FIVE packs a day and proud of it.

(He was Jimmy Carter’s fool brother)

Non-smoker here but I get a tad impatient with the FAFO atmosphere around smoking, frankly. People do it and then they die, while meth/heroin/fentanyl addicts are in the “grip of a disease” that must elicit empathy. Fuck that. People engage in dangerous behaviors and then they die. Mount Everest anyone? Almost all the serious smokers I know say it is pleasurable (at least until it isn’t).

Of all societal ills — alcohol, drugs, gambling, sexual abuse, voting for Republicans — I find smokers the least offensive. They usually secrete themselves so that they don’t bother others. A friend of mine says, “I don’t blow smoke in your face, so don’t blow it up my ass!”

There aren't that many smokers anymore, and smoking is banned in all public places. It's a non-issue these days.

Smoking is a drug addiction. It’s almost impossible to stop cravings for nicotine. I’ve been there myself and am still on the patch after 20 years. Even switching from inhaling to the patch was torturous.

Grandma died of it, it's a painful way out.

[quote] Of all societal ills — alcohol, drugs, gambling, sexual abuse, voting for Republicans — I find smokers the least offensive. They usually secrete themselves so that they don’t bother others.

Not until they were required to by law and spent decades giving non-smokers cancer by waving cigs around cafes, restaurants, cinemas, buses, hospitals and planes.

But I agree, the smokers of today are not the smokers of the 1990s.

There are like ten smokers left in the US and nobody's been forced to breathe secondhand smoke in thirty years. Smoking is irrelevant in this day and age.

I have to say I've never known a single person who died from secondhand smoke. I'm not saying it's not unhealthy, but if it were so dangerous, half the people from my parents' and grandparents' generation would've died from it.

Did people know he's a smoker? I had him down as a little higher plane. So much for transcendental meditation. It says he's been meditating twice a day for 20 minutes everyday since 1973. That doesn't come with a little smoking cessation?

Smoking is extremely common in the entertainment business, even today. They just try to hide it.

I know a lot smoke in Hollywood, but why hide it? Do they think they’ll lose fans?

It's just not worth the hassle, apparently. The general public are so against smoking now it's bad for a person's image. Very few public figures who are smokers do it openly these days. Fran Lebowitz and a few others.

The only thing that got me to quit was my primary care, looking me straight in the eye and telling me if I didn't quit, I'd be dead in two years.

I live in a no smoking building. Two years ago someone in the apt below was smoking and I SMELLED IT.

R48 Transcendental Meditation is a cult. Cessation of smoking is a side issue.

My mom tried TM in the 70s. I believe it was a thing back then.

R47 My aunt died at age 51 from cancer in 1975 of second hand smoke. She never smoked a single cigarette. She was surrounded by smoke all of her adult life. Her husband, her circle of bridge friends, her church friends, and most of her coworkers and customers in her restaurant job as a cashier. And a cousin in Italy who never smoked died in his forties, he also was surrounded by smokers.

He kept smoking 2 years after his diagnos at 74. So whatever he had, he made it 10x worse.

My dad started smoking at 10. Back then a kid could walk into a store and buy smokes, no questions asked. He quit at 68 when he had a quadruple bypass. Cancer got him anyway 10 years later.

I’m from a family of smokers on one side snd only my grandfather died early of emphysema. They’re not healthy vivacious people but I’m always shocked that so many family members who have been smoking since their early teens are so healthy. My grandma was fine into her 80s and then got sick and died within one year.

What I mean is they have small manageable illnesses that are maybe related to smoking but nothing that will kill the.

My mother was a smoker until age 60, a drinker, a tennis player and golfer all her life. She had a bad fall at age 85 and died six moth later. Smoking and drinking had nothing to do with it. Really.

He knew the risks and smoked anyway because he LIKED it. Why does he think that other smokers will stop because of his ad when he himself ignored Yul Brynner?

My friend is a nurse. She said that respiratory illnesses are the worst.

My mom also died of lung cancer. She did quit smoking at around age 40, but got lung cancer, anyway, in her 60s.

Towards the end, she (mom) was coughing up blood, which was scary and sad.

So, although there's no good way to die, respiratory illnesses may be a bad way to go.

The only good way is in your sleep.

There are still people in the USA who smoke. The more message they're given, the better.

The sad thing is that poor people will still smoke.

Seems like the tobacco industry was coddled for a long time. Remember all of those cigarette ads from the '70s and '80s and before that.

Then, the "health care" industry must've realized that smokers were costing too much money. So, they lobbied for a crackdown (taxes) on the tobacco industry.

I know myself too well to smoke. If I started, I would not ever be able to quit. Nicotine is too powerfully addictive. I can’t mess with it.

If his hair is real, it’s impressive looking. He looks very rough and defeated in OP’s photo, though.

He looks almost as bad as Jason Bateman’s sister Justine.

His daughter Jennifer is married to a part time mtf I went to college with.

He chain smoked. Like most pics on him on set show him smoking.

I was reading Beautiful Ruins and looked up more info on Richard Burton. 5 packs a day plus a handle of whiskey. I can't imagine.

When I smoked I was like maybe 5 a day at most.

Richard Burton was off the fucking chain. His smoking and drinking was unbelievable. Of course, it killed him when he was only in his fifties.

Second hand smoke has been proven to cause cancer, respiratory disorders and other illnesses. Incidentally, it's 20 years since the first national blanket ban on smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, and tests on bar workers before and a year after the ban had the following results:

[quote]There was a 79% reduction in exhaled breath carbon monoxide and an 81% reduction in salivary cotinine. There were statistically significant improvements in measured pulmonary function tests and significant reductions in self-reported symptoms and exposure levels in nonsmoking barmen volunteers after the ban.

This begs the question: how does an eight-year-old earn (or steal) enough to support their cigarette addiction in the first place? I know cigarettes were cheaper and sin tax lower or nonexistent when Lynch was a child, but [bold]damn[/bold].

Spare change. Stealing. Borrowing just enough to not be noticed.

R73, if Lynch's parents and/or other people in his childhood home were smokers he could get away with sneaking a few cigarettes here and there. Lynch was also an Eagle Scout so he must have been an unusually resourceful and independent boy-- I'm sure finding cigarettes posed no problem for him.

8? Wow. I was around smokers but it never occurred to me to smoke when I was a kid.

My grandmother started smoking at 9. She was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer at 59 and was dead by 61 after it traveled to her brain. She died a very painful death. Despite this, I smoked on and off for about a decade, through college and graduate school. I enjoy smoking, but I quit years ago because I couldn’t rationalize it anymore. The risk ultimately is not worth it to me. For some people, it is. I could die from a million other things at any given moment of course (we all can), but I want to minimize my chances of an early death if I can.

I grew up in a smoking household. Being kissed goodnight was like kissing an ashtray and my clothes smelled like smoke.

R62 a LOT of people do a lot of unhealthy things then get sick or die and they do those unhealthy things because they like them.

I lost a lot of close friends and clients that died that way.

Smoking is a great example of a very popular national addiction that was seen in movies and tv and you could do it damn near anywhere but in church. I had teaches in college that smoked constantly and many of us joined in during class.

Right at half of all adults were daily smokers,

Then the smokers were attacked, hounded, laws were made, enforcement, lots of articles about the danger of smokers and smoking, SGs Reports, and hate aimed at the addict that was causing health and $$$$$ problems for all.

Smokers ended up being a hated “minority”. And minorities ie small in numbers are always easier to attack.

I expect this admin to use the same harsh approach to health issues they don’t like and want to see reduced,

So poppers will go first, Then scary articles about run away disease and deaths, $$$ loss, Then new laws. Then……..

R75 all he needed to do was walk along looking for old bottles that were lying about in the street or etc.. Collect a few and turn them in for a deposit, then with 20 or 25 cents but a pack,

No one needed to be an Eagle Scout. And stores would see to 8 year olds,

R73, cigarettes were cheap then, like 25 cents a pack.

Smoking is GOOD for one medical condition: ulcerative colitis

If I could go back in time and stop smoking in 1980, I wouldn't. That's because I was so sick, in pain, underweight, shitting blood every 2 hrs, and smoking actually helped. I stopped in the early1990s when there was medication, but those years when I was incapacitated with colitis were torture. It isn't just the nicotine in cigarettes that helps, its all those bad chemicals in the smoke.

Pasty’s asses. Arsenic gets a bad rap. Worse than it deserves. So you get a little arsenic with your tobacco smoke. People who sniff poppers should not be the ones complaining about such a small amount of arsenic.

r82 Interesting. Were cigarettes more effective than the meds in calming your gut ulcers or is the relief similar?

r83 I know you're being facetious but you're right, the dose makes the poison.

Of course smoking has been a leading cause of house fires and fatalities in those house fires ever since houses met smoking.

My father died of COPD. He basically just ran out of air. Horrible way to go.

Definitely not, R84. The medication, and I'm on a generic anti-inflammatory for the GI track, works in preventing flares 85% of the time. Smoking helped maybe 50% of the time. There was only ONE medication in the 1970s and I couldn't tolerate it. The other option was colostomy.

My mom's best friend who lived with me all my life and doted on me died at home of small cell lung cancer at 60 in 1997. She started smoking at 20.

I've never seen anyone's health go downhill so quickly before or since. Her death ruined me.

Smoking is good for boredom. I guess also good if you’re planning on being bored in your old age. You won’t have to be there.

Smoking is good for weight control!

Smoking is good for population control.

He once told Charlie Rose he was a "creature of habit" and ate the same thing for lunch (tomatoes, tuna fish, feta cheese, and olive oil) and dinner (chicken, broccoli, and a little soy sauce) every day.

[quote]Just raise the cig tax more. $25 a pack type of prices. Then watch the extremely small numbers of smokers that we have today drop even lower.

R16 Pretty much what they've done here. Cigarettes are $30 a pack of 20 and up, most being around the $35 mark per 20. Not many people smoke now, although vaping which is somewhat less harmful as far as we know has exploded

[quote]I grew up in a smoking household. Being kissed goodnight was like kissing an ashtray and my clothes smelled like smoke.

R78 me too, all the walls, curtains, ceilings etc went brown with it. Parents did eventually stop as me and my brothers pressured them to stop in the 70's

R89 I watched an aunt die of lung cancer, she literally died in front of me when I was a kid. I will never forget that, it was horrific

The average cost of a pack is $8 in the US. The highest price cigs are in New York where it averages $11.96 a pack.

I realize that individual sales can be higher or lower but I’d love to know what state or city the cost is normally $30 a pack.

At $30 or $40 a pack a few more would quit hut a lot less kids would start.

When I used to go to women’s tennis in Madison Square Garden in the 1980s, they’d had out small packs of Virginia Slims on some nights. On others, you could get samples of Weight Watchers cake!

When I first flew commercial they would give away those small packs for free and then you could smoke them anywhere on the plane.

R27 if people want to work with you again after decades, you cannot be this much of a horrible person.

I am envious of his hair, but not his emphysema. Hope his last few years aren’t too too bad.

Before you check out, David, give Dale Cooper a happy ending to his story, dammit!

He did his best to ruin Agent Cooper in that new season.

It's weird that he's frequently included on lists of famous Montanans/celebrities from Montana, but was only born there and raised there for the first TWO MONTHS of his life.

[quote]The highest price cigs are in New York where it averages $11.96 a pack.

In CT a pack of premium cigs like Marlboro or Parliament are about $15 now. The cheaper budget cigs like Pall Mall and Lucky Strike are about $12.

In Manhattan the price of cigarettes range from about $17 to $22.

How much is carton? When I smoked, I paid $15/carton. In the NYC burbs!

In my mother's sunset years, she asked my brother, 'Did I ever talk to you boys about not smoking?'

He (a man of few words) said, "yeah. You said, 'if you smoke, I'll push your face in.'"

R48 He never hid it. In fact, he was proud of it. He smoked throughout his Masterclass program.

Was he smoking the pot?

My grandfather was a heavy smoker & it's sad as I look at the pictures of him how much pain he was clearly in at the end of his life. He was from a different time, but I don't know why this fool didn't put 2+2 together sooner.

R108 Many people don't look far down their future ahead to see their potential mortality. It's a sort of self-denial. My father knew since the early 1960s that smoking can cause lung disease and cancer, and yet he kept smoking until 1998 when he was diagnosed with emphysema and needed an oxygen concentrator machine. His brother died two years earlier of throat cancer he got from smoking. People often discount the risk because it is not immediate, it is gradual and long-term. Almost all cigarette smokers who get a debilitating condition that precipitates their inevitable death have regret.

^tl;dr 🚬🚬🚬

R109 and every one who died of aids, from excess booze, when the chute that does not open after you have jumped

Regret is what we will have its human nature. And then it’s also far to late

[quote]He was from a different time, but I don't know why this fool didn't put 2+2 together sooner.

Nicotine is highly addictive-- as addictive as Schedule I or Schedule II controlled substances like cocaine or heroin. Addicts aren't exactly known for making rational decisions. Obviously most competent adults are aware that smoking has detrimental effects upon their health, but the addiction overrides everything. My mother watched her father die a terrible death from smoking-induced lung cancer that had metastasized to his brain, and she still smoked two packs a day. Again, these are not sensible rational decisions but compulsive behaviors driven by addiction.