Ross R. Millhiser, 83; Philip Morris Exec Saddled Up the Marlboro Man

Ross R. Millhiser, the former Philip Morris executive who expanded Marlboro from a “women’s brand” in 1954 into the top-selling cigarette by hiring the firm that created the Marlboro Man advertising campaign, has died. He was 83.

Millhiser died Saturday of heart failure in his native Richmond, Va.

Known throughout his career as a master of market segmentation, he drew attention when he was named the first brand manager for the small brand of Marlboro. He quickly introduced its trademark flip-top box and hired a new advertising company to target men.

Millhiser oversaw creation of attention-getting print and media ads featuring rugged, handsome cowboys riding the lonely range and stopping for a moment of pleasure with a Marlboro. Under Millhiser’s guidance, the brand soared in sales.

By the time he was named president of Philip Morris USA in 1966, Marlboro had become the No. 2-selling cigarette in the country, helping turn the company into the nation’s second-largest cigarette maker. The brand reached No. 1 in 1975, and Philip Morris USA became the top cigarette company in 1983.

Millhiser also built sales of the firm’s other brands, including Virginia Slims and Merit.

During his tenure, he saw smoking slip from a form of relaxation to a habit criticized for impairing the health of smokers and nonsmokers alike. He continued to defend the practice in the terms he had always stressed to his children -- that smoking was “an adult pleasure.”

In 1978, wading into the scientific fray over the dangers of smoking, Millhiser wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times defending the practice as contributing to mental health. Smoking, he insisted, provides “a certain sense of personal satisfaction, relaxation and even pleasure.”

Educated at Yale, Millhiser chose to work for Philip Morris because it was based in his hometown. He began in 1941 as a cigarette-machine oiler.

But he interrupted his career to serve in the Army during World War II. He spent five months of his years in uniform as a prisoner of the Nazis.

When he returned to Philip Morris in 1945, he quickly moved up through the ranks and, by 1953, was transferred to New York. After serving as president from 1966 to 1978, he was named vice chairman of Philip Morris Cos. He retired in 1985 but remained on the board two more years.

Philip Morris is now a part of Altria Group.

Millhiser, who returned to Richmond this year after the death of his wife, is survived by four children, Ross R. Jr. and Timothy of New York, and Thomas and Mary of Richmond; a brother, Kenneth, of Piedmont, Calif.; and eight grandchildren.