The Marlboro Man
Bob Norris bought into the mythology of the West as a child. Decades later, his face would come to symbolize the place.

Bob Norris and his dog roam his ranch near Colorado Springs. Norris grew up dreaming of becoming a cowboy -- America's most enduring icon. He lived his dream -- and then some.

Our basic myth is that of the frontier. Our hero is the frontiersman. To become urban is to break the spirit of man. Freedom is out on the plains, under endless sky. A pent-in American ceases to be an American. -- Garry Wills, John Wayne's America.

Bob Norris was an Illinois farm boy who had his life mapped out. He wanted cattle drives and horses. Wide-open spaces. A piece of the West. And he knew it early on.

Another Colorado legend: Goldie Griffith

"When I was 3 years old I knew what I wanted to do," he says. "That was before TV. I remember my grandfather, if you called him between 7 and 7:30, he wouldn't talk to you. He was listening to the Lone Ranger. That was his favorite program. He just loved the West."

And Norris did, too. But unlike other kids, Norris wouldn't change his mind, wouldn't flit from fireman to policeman to baseball player and finally settle on accountant.

Norris wanted to be a cowboy -- America's most enduring icon, the embodiment of individualism, an indelible image that still sells everything from trucks to politicians to cigarettes.

"It's the independence, the free-spirit thing," Norris says. "Americans have always liked that. You know: Go west, young man and all that business."

Norris did that -- and more. He would come to Colorado in 1954 and start over, eventually becoming a successful horse breeder and cattleman, the owner of 35,000 acres, a wealthy man and a well-known philanthropist.

And then on a spring day in 1965, Norris would complete the journey that began around his grandfather's radio and arrive in the West of the imagination.

The ad men had come from Chicago to Norris' ranch east of Colorado Springs looking for horses and mountains, a rugged backdrop that would sell their filtered women's cigarette to a generation of men.

Instead, they found Norris -- the real Marlboro Man.

"Hell, Norris is already dirty," the director said as his crew flogged the ground with clothes, getting them dusty for the models. "Let's just use him."

They shot a couple thousand photos of Norris in a pasture blooming with wildflowers that day. Several months later, an ad appeared on the back of Life magazine -- a drawing of Norris with his horse welcoming people to Marlboro Country.

"Why didn't you use one of those photos?" Norris asked the ad men.

"With all those wildflowers," one of them told him, "you looked too queer to be the Marlboro Man."

Norris became part of a stable of real cowboys who made Marlboro into the world's most popular cigarette -- and created another icon of the West.

The relationship lasted a dozen years. Every few months, Norris and his wife flew first-class to a shoot. Norris fed horses from a helicopter, rode his horse on the edge of a waterfall, fly-fished and herded cattle. And all the while he smoked -- five or six packs during a photo session, so many cigarettes his tongue burned. The ad men insisted the ashes look just right.

He was paid $500 for a magazine job, but the real money came on TV. Each time one of his ads ran, Norris pocketed $135.

It was an ego trip for Norris, and it also opened a lot of doors for him and his ranching business.

"When you're the Marlboro Man, people like to meet you for some damned reason," he says. "Today, I wouldn't do it."

Both his parents, lifelong smokers, died of emphysema. For years, he got hate mail accusing him of peddling death. His teen-agers questioned how he could, in good conscience, tell them not to smoke.

"They said, 'Dad, how come you're doing this?' And I said, 'One reason: Greed.' And they said, 'You're a hyprocrite.' And I said, 'Yeah, I guess I am."'

He later quit. Today, Norris is 69, and his days as the Marlboro Man are long behind him. But his face retains the profile that made him famous. Deep-set, dispassionate eyes. A face cut from stone.

He's tall and angular and walks the walk of a man who has spent much of his life in the saddle, a stiff-legged saunter that moves to the music of jangling spurs.

He has strong opinions. About big corporations squeezing ranchers by dumping foreign beef on America. About vegetarians, animal-rights activists and "the chicken people." About the importance of family, helping your neighbor and treating your horse as a partner.

He understands Red River, doesn't get The Horse Whisperer.

"Duke was always the guy in the white hat, doing the right thing," Norris says. John Wayne also was his friend, inviting Norris to Thanksgiving 14 times, even offering to put him in a movie. "It's the one where his son gets kidnapped and is taken to Mexico. And he has that dog. Remember?"

They met at a Hereford cattle sale in California. One, a boy from Illinois who became the Marlboro Man, an icon. The other, a boy from Iowa who became John Wayne, the icon.

"He was true to himself. He stood for something," Norris says. He remembers that Wayne simply shrugged his shoulders when the United States gave the Panama Canal back to Panama. "Duke said, 'Hell, it's their canal and it's across their country. Let 'em have it. If we ever need it, we'll just go take it back."'

Ironically, Norris the rancher is more the genuine article -- more a cowboy -- than Wayne the actor ever was. No matter. "He was my idol," Norris says bluntly.

Norris has driven down to the ranch this day from his home near the Broadmoor hotel. The morning is spent on horseback, rounding up cattle and cutting the heifers from the pairs. It's been a good day so far; the cell phone on his hip hasn't rung once.

All around him, ranchers are subdividing their land and selling it in 35-acre tracts to people drawn by the mystique, if not the hard historical reality, of life on the prairie.

The Colorado that Bob Norris sought out nearly a half-century ago has changed. It will change some more. But unlike many, Norris doesn't resent it, doesn't fear it. He understands.

"As people get more jammed into the cities with all the crowds and the traffic, they're looking for a little breathing space, a little quiet time, a little bit of what I'm seeing when I'm out here."

"I wouldn't rather be anyplace else than here," the Marlboro Man says, slapping the side of his saddle. "I can appreciate people wanting a piece of that. I wanted it, too."

Colorado Millennium 2000 is a yearlong project by the Denver Rocky Mountain News, NEWS4 and the Colorado Historical Society
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