Cigarette-Smoking Man- Sinister government operative on the fantasy drama THE X-FILES/FOX/1993-2002. Constantly in a need of cigarette, The Cigarette Smoking Man, (a.k.a. "Cancer Man") worked behind the scenes to manipulate secrets which FBI agent Fox "Spooky" Mulder (David Duchovny) tried to bring to the light of day. CSM worked for a secret cabal of anonymous men with names like the Well-Manicured Man (John Neville) and did whatever it took to keep "The Project" shrouded in secrecy. Per Duchovny, "He's like Nietszche's Socrates - he's the rational man, saving the masses from their own imagination." In the heat of anger, Mulder once called Cancer Man, a "Black-Lunged Son of a Bitch." CSM first spoke on episode No. 20 "Tooms." He smokes cigarettes (Morley brand) because as he said: "You would too, if you had seen what I have seen" (CSM shot & killed JFK). One his more memorable quotes:

 "Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctoral gift that no one ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So, you're stuck with mostly undefinable whipped mint crap, mindlessly wolfed down when there's nothing else to eat while you're watching the game. Sure, once in a while you get a peanut butter cup or an English toffee but it's gone too fast and the taste is fleeting. In the end, you're left with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth shattering nuts, which if you are desperate enough to eat leaves nothing but an empty box of useless brown paper wrappers."

In February 1999 CSM's real name was revealed as C.G.B. Spender. In the climatic two-part series finale of The X-Files series, Spender, thought dead, resurfaced in a desert hideaway. Even though he had lost his throat to cancer, Spender still puffed away on a cigarette through the hole in his neck as missiles from a helicopter gun ship rained down on his rocky retreat.

TRIVIA NOTE: A survey in TV Guide (8/17/1996) found 27.5 % of readers rated "The Cigarette-Smoking Man" (played by William B. Davis) as the nastiest villain on TV. In an interview (Starlog No. 248 March 1998 p. 50) Davis prefers to be called "Il Fumatore," the Italian translation. Actually for his role, Davis (who quite smoking 20 years earlier) smokes an herbal nicotine free version of cigarette; they smoke like a pipe but burn quite hot. See also - SPY GUYS & SECRET ORGANIZATIONS: - "The Shadowy Syndicate"

 

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