10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About Mad Men
9. The Character Of Don Draper Was Inspired By Several Real Life Ad-Men
Don Draper is one of the most complicated characters that has ever graced our TV screens. With his heavy drinking and womanising ways he became instantly iconic, but behind that façade was a deeply complex man that, even with 7 seasons, we still don't completely understand.
With his eclectic set of traits its hard to imagine a real life human-being acting anything like Mad Men's leading man, but in reality Mathew Weiner did take inspiration from historic men from the advertising business.
The most obvious influence came from the 50s ad-man Draper Daniels, who was famous for his Marlboro Man campaign. Besides the obvious influence Weiner took from Daniels' name, Daniels was also a smooth talking ladies man. Weiner called Daniels "one of the great copy guys" and was definitely trying to exude that same successful energy when creating Don.
Another couple of influential ad men that inspired Don were Albert Lasker, who came up with the idea to promote Lucky Strike cigarettes as "toasted", similar to the way Don did on the show. And Emerson Foote, who famously resigned from his post as chairman of his ad agency because he didn't want to help sell cigarettes to the public anymore. Sound familiar?