Most everyone knows that smoking cigarettes can kill you, yet whether from rebellion or pleasure, people still continue to do so--even celebrities. Though female actresses and musicians may be role models to many young girls, these women aren't immune to vices and addictions. A number of famous women have struggled with smoking and its effects, from iconic screen legends to present-day grunge rockers
Bette Davis
Legendary actress Bette Davis was a lifelong chain smoker, though she claimed she didn't actually inhale. Even after suffering a stroke following a mastectomy in 1983, Davis continued smoking, both on- and off-screen, claiming smoking was "a very useful prop.'' Davis died of breast cancer in 1989, and the words "She did it the hard way" were inscribed on her tombstone. Said fellow actress Joan Collins of Davis, "Considering that she smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes every day of her adult life, it was remarkable that she survived to the relatively ripe old age of 81."
Davis made nearly 100 films in her long career--among them, the classics "Dark Victory," "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" and "All About Eve." She received two Academy Awards and was nominated for ten others. Though irresistible on screen, the star was famously difficult to work with. ''I was a legendary terror,'' she once said of herself. ''I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile and ofttimes disagreeable. I suppose I'm larger than life.''
Betty Grable
Betty Grable, the classic 1940's-era Hollywood bombshell, was known for her platinum blond hair, gorgeous legs and girl-next-door beauty. She was also a smoker. Idealized by women and men alike, her World War II pin-up photographs were wildly popular among American G.I.'s. Grable also appeared in so many successful technicolor musicals, that she eventually became the highest paid female in America, making about $300,000 a year in the 1940's. Her last big hit movie was 1955's "How To Marry A Millionaire," also starring Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall. Grable died of lung cancer in 1973. She was only 56 years old at the time of her death.
Courtney Love
Courtney Love, front-woman of the band Hole and widow of grunge-rocker Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, has a reputation as a heavy chain smoker. This controversial and outspoken musician was even photographed smoking while pregnant in 1992 for Vanity Fair magazine, though editor Tina Brown made the decision to have Love's cigarette airbrushed out of the printed photo. "I was appalled to see a pregnant woman with a cigarette in her hand," said Brown. Years later, Love herself showed similar disgust with her habit. "Someone compared me to Bette Davis in that I make smoking cool for kids," she said in 2010. "I think it was a tragic and truthful statement, and it made me feel, as you can imagine, just horrible." She went on to say that she was "gearing up to quit."
