Cause celeb Christy Turlington, in town to emcee tonight's Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Kids dinner at the Ronald Reagan Building, started smoking at
age 13. "I smoked for a little over 10 years," the 31-year-old model told us.
"My dad smoked True, those ridiculous, strangely filtered cigarettes, so I
started out with those. Then I changed to Virginia Slims and then Marlboro
Lights. Finally I was smoking Marlboro Red."

Turlington continued: "It was about four years before I realized I was
addicted. I smoked a little less than a pack a day. At 17 I tried to quit.
And at 19 I tried again. I went to a hypnotist, which was very effective for
two years--mind over matter."

While many models smoke, "modeling is just a microcosm," Turlington said.
"This industry is an industry of young women, and a lot of young women smoke.
But when I started to work and be treated as an adult, people tended to let
me do what I wanted. . . . I quit for good at 26.  I just did it, using
absolutely nothing. Three years ago, my father died from lung cancer. He was
64, and he'd been a smoker for 50 years." Dwaine Turlington, who'd been a
pilot for Pan Am, quit six months before he died.

"So I decided to get involved in the cause of preventing youths from
smoking," Dwaine's daughter told us. "Kids who start smoking often have a
parent who smoked--that's far more influential than something someone sees in
a magazine," said the Danville, Calif., native, who has occasionally appeared
in European fashion magazines brandishing a butt. "On photo shoots in
America, you weren't able to smoke. But the fashion image in Europe is far
more freeing, and you're able to use smoking as an expressive tool. The
cigarette becomes one of the ways you communicate."

Never again.
- Washington Post, May 11, '00, p. C03