I've always loved this topic, but it is fraught is disaster, misconception, and many convenient pigeonholes.
Like the story of Latakia being cured with camel dung, reported upon by one fanciful British journalist of yesteryear, these stories or "facts" become enmeshed in the culture and regurgitated over and over, and often the case, as with life itself, is much more complex.
It is indeed wellknown that Einstein favored Revelation, but he was only in the USA fulltime from '33 to '55, he was born in 1879, when he did start smoking? What did he smoke back in the Fatherland? More often than not, nobody put forth an effort for indepth research, so the same bullshit gets plastered everywhere.
But it ain't bullshit, at least in Einstein's case, but there are unanswered questions it seems to me.
The thing with Tolkien being a dedicated Capstan Medium smoker rings true to me, but I'm almost sure he smoked other stuff as well.
This old tobacconist receipt sold at Bonham's for $ 2,114 because it had JRRT's siggy onnit, he bought a whole pound of Capstan.
http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20135/lot/221/
In other instances, like Georges Simenon for example, it's noted that Dunhill's Royal Yacht was his favorite smoke, and that may very well be the case, but it certainly wasn't all he smoked. In the photo below you see the ever-present tin of RY, but also a tin of Dobie's Four Square along with an unidentifiable tin...
As for Stalin, I've always read it was Edgeworth, not RY, which was his favorite.
Just like the "camel dung" myth, it was probably started by a well-respected source, like Life magazine or something...
LIFE Jan 1, 1945
...and there is a kernel of truth there - it's been well-documented that he received special gifts of Edgeworth from the American ambassador, just as perhaps he got all his Dunhill pipes from Churchill, but as to "favorite tobacco", most biographical sketches point to his fave being Herzegovina Flor, cigarettes available at any kiosk inwhich he would unroll and stuff into his pipe.
This thread was pretty good,
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/famous-pipe-men-and-their-tobacco
I added a little about William Faulkner and how he was a multivaried smoker, along with the Dunhill blends, he also very much loved Balkan Sobranie and St. Bruno, having them special ordered for him at the Oxford Rexall Drugstore, but he actually seemed to have smoked all kinds of stuff according to the few first-hand accounts from friends and acquaintances that I've read.
I also enjoyed this thread,
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/attn-dunhill-experts
trying to discover the exact Dunhill blend from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.
Despite the pitfalls, it's still fun finding out what the famous folk smoked, just like discovering which typewriters certain writers preferred...
William S. Burroughs:
1950s, various typewriters, since he was constantly pawning them; many of his manuscripts were done on a Remington; Naked Lunch typed from handwritten notes by Kerouac, presumably on Kerouac's Underwood; Hermes Rocket (photo Oct. 1959); Antares (Burroughs shoots up as the Antares watches); Facit Portable (1965 Paris Review interview); Olympia SG1 (cover of Word Virus anthology, 1970s photo); Olivetti Studio 44
Lewis Carroll:
Hammond no. 1, received on May 3, 1888, used to write a mathematical treatise and some letters
Leonard Cohen:
Olivetti Lettera 22
Francis Ford Coppola:
Olivetti Lettera 32
e.e. cummings:
1940s Smith-Corona Clipper
Philip K. Dick:
Hermes Rocket, Olympia SG3
William Faulkner:
Royal KHM, Remington Noiseless desktop, 1930s Underwood portable
Allen Ginsberg:
Remington portable no. 5, Smith Corona Electra
Dashiell Hammett:
Royal De Luxe
Ernest Hemingway:
Corona 3, 1926 Underwood, Underwood Noiseless Portable, various Royal portables (including a Royal Arrow and Royal #P207059), Halda portable model P
Alfred Hitchcock:
'30s black Underwood Champion portable
Aldous Huxley:
Remington portable no. 5 (streamlined with touch regulator)
Franz Kafka:
Oliver 5
Buster Keaton:
Blickensderfer no. 5
Stanley Kubrick:
Adler Tippa S
Jack London:
Standard Folding, Bar-Lock no. 10
H. P. Lovecraft:
1904 Remington Standard (understroke)
Mickey Spillane:
L.C. Smith Standard Super Speed
Mark Twain:
Sholes & Glidden, Hammond no. 2
Kurt Vonnegut:
Smith-Corona Courier, Smith-Corona Coronamatic 2200
J.G. Ballard:
Olympia Monica
Charles Bukowski:
Royal HH, Underwood Standard, Olympia SG1, IBM Selectric II or III
J.R.R. Tolkien: Hammond
& et cetera ampersand et cetera