Nat King Cole Quotes
Get me well so I can get on television and tell people to stop smoking.
Epstein, Daniel Mark. Nat King Cole. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, p. 358.
TV commercial made just before his death—and broadcast after his death—from lung cancer caused by smoking.
The World Health Organization, a component of the United Nations, advocated national restrictive legislation to control and eliminate smoking. The smoking addict, hooked on nicotine was caught between public health efforts to regulate and eliminate tobacco and the efforts to treat the addicts and respect the individual’s right to freedom of choice.
In Japan it was illegal to manufacture and sell cigarettes except for the government which maintains the cigarette monopoly and reaps $18 billion annually as a result. This label was all the government could bring itself to use. Japanese health authorities saw it as a type of victory since prior to this there was no warning whatsoever.
Bloomberg was the first public official in the world to push for and pass a law banning smoking in all offices, hotels, restaurants, and other public places despite huge opposition funded by the tobacco companies and many of the business and restaurant owners. Despite the fact that it would literally save thousands of lives a year, a ban was feared by politicians as it might harm business, tourism and their own political positions. However, after New York banned smoking, other cities started to do the same, not only in America but all over the world. This saved millions of lives. One courageous man, a single politician, changed much of the world, and saved many more lives than most doctors will.
Nathaniel Adams Coles, known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. He recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. His trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Cole also acted in films and on television and performed on Broadway. He was the first African-American man to host an American television series. He was the father of singer-songwriter Natalie Cole (1950–2015).
