Robert C. Norris , a rancher who took the role of the Marlboro Man in television commercials for the cigarette brand but who abandoned the campaign because, as a nonsmoker, he felt he was setting a bad example for his children, died on Nov. 3 in Colorado Springs. He was 90 .

His death, at Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care, was announced on his Tee Cross Ranches website. No cause was given.

Mr. Norris was featured as the Marlboro Man, a rugged, solitary cowboy figure at home in the vast American West, in commercials that ran for about 14 years in the United States and Europe. His website recounted his decision to give up the work because of the message it was sending to children.

In 1964, the surgeon general declared smoking a health hazard. Pressured by lawsuits, regulators and Congress, Philip Morris, the nation’s largest manufacturer of cigarettes, including Marlboro, acknowledged decades later that smoking causes lung cancer.