My Favorite Cigar
Gary Busey • Actor
My Father Le Bijou 1922 Torpedo
People are introduced to cigars in a number of ways. Gary Busey came to them when he was recovering from a cocaine addiction that almost killed him. While working on the 1986 movie Let’s Get Harry, the director gave him Hoyo de Monterreys as props and Busey soon found an appeal in the long, dark Cuban cigars that has stuck with him for more than a quarter century. Today, lighting up a good smoke is one of Busey’s rituals.
“I’m from Texas, so the bigger the better,” Busey says of his favorites, which include My Fathers, San Lotanos and Camachos as well as Havanas. A surfer in real life as well as the movies, he can be found almost daily at the Malibu Cigar Lounge, where his favorite perch is the deck overlooking the Pacific.
The actor who long ago played the title role in The Buddy Holly Story is a real-life musician who has sat in with Leon Russell. His memoir, Buseyisms, refers to his habit of creating a deeper meaning to words using the letters that spell it (e.g, Sober: son of a bitch, everything’s real) and they appear often in conversation. He believes cigars also have a spiritual meaning. “When they smoke it goes right to what they call the great spirit,” he says. “That smoke is a blessing.”
