As Cigar Aficionado magazine approaches 20 years in print, we are taking a look back at some of the most memorable stories we have published over the years. In this step back into our vaults, we go to 1994, when we put legendary comedian George Burns on our cover. It was one of his final interviews. Few people in history have been more closely associated with cigars, and when Burns was buried, he was wearing his finest suit, complete with three cigars in his breast pocket.
Comedian George Burns is not only a living legend, he's living proof that smoking between 10 and 15 cigars a day for 70 years contributes to one's longevity.
"If I'd taken my doctor's advice and quit smoking when he advised me to, I wouldn't have lived to go to his funeral," deadpans the 98-year-old comedian from a chair in his Hollywood office the morning I show up to discuss his career as one of the world's most renowned cigar smokers. As if to emphasize his point, he takes a puff of the cigar in his hand and exhales the smoke in my direction. He knows I couldn't object to secondhand smoke since I had spent so many years in the company of another renowned cigar aficionado, my father, Groucho Marx.
He flicks a cigar ash into an ashtray and takes a sip of tea from the teacup that is perched precariously on the edge of his desk near his right hand, which is partially covered by a gauze bandage. I start to shake that hand, then think better of it, withdraw mine and ask him if he has injured his. "No, I just have a little itch," he explains. "The bandage keeps me from scratching it."
