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Though the stories and
characters have become the focal point for analysis as Mad Men has evolved, early in its
existence there was a great deal of discussion regarding the amount of smoking and
drinking the characters do. (See href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/arts/television/19stan.html?ref=magazine">this
New York Times article from 2007 for one
example).
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How accurate is this presentation? Is
that what the advertising world was like in the 1960s? What about other
businesses?
Essentially: is the
portrayal of business professional smoking and drinking in excess
while at work presented in Mad Men
accurate?
Q: Did ad agency executives really drink that often — and that much — in the
1960s?
A: If anything, it's underplayed. There
was a tremendous amount of drinking. Three-martini lunches were the
norm.
Q: But the show makes it look like
everyone kept a bottle or two in their desk drawer. And it wasn't
Geritol.
A: Bottles in desk drawers were not
the exception but the rule. I had an open bar at the agency in which I kept 10 to 15
bottles of booze. Anyone at the agency could walk in and get it. Invariably, one or two
guys would come in at 9 a.m., pour a shot and slug it down. It was a business of
drinking. The way we lived really would make the characters in Mad Men all look like
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. We drank and screwed around.
Q: Did agency executives really smoke that
much?
A: I smoked three to four packs a day.
Everybody smoked at all times in all meetings. Once, when I was sitting in a meeting for
the Contac account, I had a (lit) cigarette in my hand and another in the ashtray. When
I put down the cigarette to do a chalk talk, I tried to light the piece of
chalk.
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