User:Awanmahn/sandbox

Overview
William Leo Thourlby, known as William Thourlby was an American actor, model and writer. He was known for his rugged, cowboy look, when he appeared as the face of the Marlboro (cigarette) campaign in the 1950's. This ad campaign was one of the 20th century's most famous ad campaign that redefined the Marlboro brand image from a cigarette for women to being a manlier, "Macho smoke."

Career
Thourlby started his modelling career by working for the pulp magazine covers. Thourlby is also known for his roles in The Creeping Terror (1964) as Dr. Bradford and as Ben Wiley in Angel’s Flight (1965). He was also the producer of The Angel's Flight. Thourlby was also given credit as the man in the elevator in a Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock movie, Two Weeks Notice in 2002.

He was also given the role of an Indian Chief in a sportsmen's show in New York with Jim Thorpe.

He has also appeared on various broadway shows; one with Jayne Mansfield, another show called "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter" with Mansfield and Walter Matthau, and in "The Manchurian Candidate" with Frank Sinatra.

He was also a published writer, famous for his books: You Are What You Wear (1995), Passport To Power (1992) and, Women The New Power Class (2002). You Are What You Wear and Passport To Power are his best sellers.

He also owned a restaurant partnered with his friend, Jim Thorpe, in Los Angeles, in 1950's, which later closed down.

Personal Life
William Thourlby was born on January 22, 1924 in Detroit, Michigan, USA and died on April 15, 2013 in New York, at the age of 89. He was the son of William H. Thourlby and Edith Thourlby. He had two more siblings, both sisters; Margaret P. Thourlby and Gloria G. Thourlby.

Compared to his other colleagues, who were also the faces of Marlboro during that time, Thourlby claimed that he never smoked cigarettes or consumed alcohol. He was also friends with the world famous athlete, Jim Thorpe when they first partnered together to open up a local restaurant in Los Angeles. William Thourlby once described his relationship with Jim Thorpe as, “Jim adopted me as his son in an Indian ceremony – I called him Dad and he called me ‘my boy.’” Thorpe helped Thourlby land several roles in movies before his Marlboro campaign. When Thorpe died in 1953, that is when Thourlby was offered the Marlboro ad.

Up until he died, Thourlby lived alone in the New York Athlete Club for forty years and was one of the three permanent tenants that resided there. The club has a formal dress code unlike the cowboy look Thourlby is famous for, but he never had a problem abiding to the dress code because he himself, lived by those dressing standards.

Thourlby went through two divorces and had four kids; Jamie Williams, Abby Thourlby, Liza Grace Thourlby and Nana Black. His daughter Liza Thourlby died in March 2006, at the age of 43 in Florida. William Thourlby preferred to spend his latter years mostly in solitude.