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The hunky detective in the Pleasure to Burn print ad campaign for Camel cigarettes looks a lot like Lake Forest's Scott Webster and he doesn't like it. Webster is suing R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in federal court here, accusing the cigarette giant of using his likeness without his OK. The chiseled, blue-eyed model says the tobacco company and ad firm Mezzina Brown & Partners used his 1989 Camel screen test without his permission to create the Camel detective in the current ads. [This graph only]

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Model says he's the real Camel man 

Once billed as a supermodel, Scott Webster peered out from countless fashion spreads and prestigious men's magazine covers.

These days Webster has a new role as plaintiff in a lawsuit against cigarette giant R.J. Reynolds and its ad agency for Camel cigarettes, New York-based Mezzina Brown & Partners Advertising.

On March 14, Webster filed suit in federal district court in Chicago alleging RJR and Mezzina Brown used a computer-generated image of his likeness in a Camel print ad campaign dating back at least until May 2000. That was when Webster picked up a copy of Mademoiselle magazine at the gym and saw one of the Camel ads in question.

Webster is suing RJR and Mezzina Brown for as yet unspecified damages. "An advertiser cannot use my likeness without my consent and certainly not without compensation," says Webster.

His attorney Andrew Goldstein with the Chicago law firm of Freeborn & Peters said no written response to Webster's suit has been filed yet.

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