The hacking cough is particularly sexy.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills - Brief Article

I was one of those teenagers who took up smoking because I wanted to look sophisticated like the people in the movies of the 1940s. Back then it seemed like all the stars smoked. Even today, smoking is featured in 75 percent of the films. And unfortunately the movies still influence the young. "390,000 kids will take up smoking this year because of what they see their screen idols doing," reports Rusty Marks of the Charleston Gazette on the basis of statistics from the American Lung Association. Christina Ricci, now a major star herself, took up smoking at age 11...