The Haunting Face Of The Anti-Smoking Movement Has Died

Debi Austin, the woman with a haunting quarter-sized hole in her throat who was the face of the anti-smoking movement, died at 62 this week after a 20-year-long battle with cancer.

"And they say nicotine isn't addictive," Austin famously said in a 1996 ad for the California Department of Health Services (CDPH) as she pulled a cigarette up to the black nothingness in her neck to take a satisfying, toxic drag. "How can they say that?"

Austin smoked her first cigarette at 13 years old and continued even after her larynx was removed due to tobacco-related cancer in 1992.

But in the years leading up to her recent death, she campaigned heavily to convince people to stop smoking.

Austin told the LA Times that she was convincing because, "I'm scary. How many people have ever seen somebody with a hole in their throat that would tell you what it's from?"

The CDPH released a statement hailing Austin's "tremendous courage by sharing her story to educate Californians on the dangers of smoking."

She is survived by two sisters and a brother.

Here are Austin's most haunting ads:

This ad, called "Candle," aired in 2011. An emotional, almost frantic, Austin warns viewers that this might be her last chance to warn people about the dangers of smoking.