Battling over an icon

last updated 8 January 2015

Havana

The family of Ernesto “Che” Guevara—a communist revolutionary turned marketing icon—plans to launch a series of lawsuits to regain control of his image. The Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary was executed in 1967 in Bolivia, eight years after he helped Fidel Castro seize power in Cuba. Since then, Che’s photograph—his eyes staring into the distance, his long hair tucked into a beret—has been stamped onto posters, Swatch watches, Zippo lighters, and even Brazilian lingerie. Aleida Guevara, Che’s daughter, said she and her mother, with Cuba’s help, would ask courts worldwide to curb the commercial use of the famous photo. “A limit has to be drawn,” she said.