Famous Pipe Smokers

Stephen Fry: Adventures in Pipe Smoking

May 30, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

6 Comments

The Pipe Smoker of the Year award was conferred annually by the British Pipesmokers' Council from 1965 to 2004, when it was discontinued because of laws prohibiting the promotion or advertising of tobacco products. Stephen Fry, an actor, writer, comedian, narrator, ... Read More

Pipe Smoking Field Marshal Gebhard von Blucher

February 28, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

4 Comments

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, a highly decorated Prussian Field Marshal best known for leading armies in the French Revolutionary (1792-1802) and Napoleonic (1803-1815) wars, also famously smoked pipes in battle. When outmaneuvering Napoleon, however, minutes count, and he engaged a "pipe-master" whose sole job was to maintain Blücher's pipes ... Read More

Adventurer and Pipe Smoker John Fairfax

February 7, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

7 Comments

John Fairfax was the first to traverse an ocean alone by rowboat. It was the Atlantic, and two years later, in 1971, he and his partner, Sylvia Cook, were the first to row across the Pacific. The pipe-smoking adventurer had learned his navigation skills as a pirate and as captain of a vessel smuggling whisky, guns, and cigarettes across the globe. He was familiar with the sea and its creatures. When he was attacked ... Read More

The Legend of Hugh Glass: Pipe-Smoking Frontiersman

January 24, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

10 Comments

Geniuses like Einstein, Hubble, Jung, Tolkien, Sartre, and others have contributed to a stereotype of pipe smokers as intellectual and contemplative personalities, puffing gently, developing theories, and achieving art that changes the world. Yet pipe ... Read More

Lee Van Cleef: Beady-Eyed Villain and Pipe Smoker

January 10, 2025 by Rose Kiser

12 Comments

When I was a young girl, I had an uncle who was obsessed with spaghetti westerns. His entire man cave looked like a set from Bonanza and on the rare occasion that we visited, he would talk about whatever spaghetti western was on the tube. I don't remember a lot from these visits but I do remember one with him showing me the standoff between Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and the unforgettable Lee Van Cleef in The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. Lee's beady eyes ... Read More

John Milton: Pipe Smoker

December 27, 2024 by Chuck Stanion

8 Comments

If you've used the word "pandemonium," perhaps when your life has been upended by craziness or absurdity, you have John Milton to thank — not for the craziness, but for the word to describe it, which he invented. It's from his epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667), and was "the high capital of Satan and all his peers," and the dwelling place of all demons. Its meaning has shifted in modern times, but Milton conceived it. ... Read More

Walter Cronkite: Most Trusted Pipe Smoker

September 6, 2024 by Chuck Stanion

15 Comments

Best known as the anchor of the CBS Evening News from 1962 to his retirement in 1981, Walter Cronkite covered important stories like the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination, the Apollo 11 moon landing, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Watergate scandal. Because of his journalistic integrity ... Read More

Millicent Fenwick: Four-Term Pipe-Smoking Congresswoman

March 29, 2024 by Kayla Ivan

11 Comments

Known as a Firebrand, an orator, a socialite, and an activist, Millicent Fenwick broke down stereotypes and accomplished extraordinary feats, all in the trusted company of her favorite pipes. New Jersey's four-term Congresswoman, Fenwick was also referred to as the "pipe-smoking grandma," which irked her, likely ... Read More

Oscar Peterson: The Greatest Jazz Pianist and Distinguished Pipe Smoker

February 9, 2024 by Rose Kiser