Dave Goerlitz

Dave Goerlitz is a professional actor, producer, world-class model, public speaker and educator. His career includes work in film, stage, commercial advertising and tobacco-free activism. Although he has been featured in highly successful commercials for a number of vendors, he is perhaps best known as the lead "Winston Man" in R.J. Reynolds' lucrative "Search and Rescue" advertisement series, which helped move Winston Cigarettes from Number 4 to Number 2 in worldwide sales. Goerlitz was featured in 42 of these ads, more than any other tobacco model, including the "Marlboro Men."

In November 1988, Goerlitz took a historic stand against the tobacco industry: he publicly participated in the "Great American Smoke-Out" and condemned the tobacco industry's advertising, alleging that the sale of tobacco products targets young people of the world. Goerlitz's book, Before the Smoke Screen, is his personal story of how he became hooked on tobacco at age 13, parlayed that addiction into a career as a lead model for Winston cigarettes during the 1980's, then became disillusioned with tobacco advertising, embarking on a ten-year-long, worldwide personal crusade to undo the damage his ads may have done in addicting 3,000 to 5,000 young people every week to tobacco products.

In 2016, Goerlitz was featured in the award-winning documentary film A Billion Lives directed and narrated by Aaron Biebert and distributed by the production company Attention Era Media. In the film, Goerlitz discusses his previous role in fighting the tobacco industry and his efforts in the vaping community.

Goerlitz has been honored by the World Health Organization, The American Cancer Society, The American Lung Association, and The American Heart Association on both the national and local levels. Over the past several years, he has told his story to over 5,000,000 young people and adults throughout North America, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and Sweden.