The woman who gave Gerber its baby face

Ann Turner Cook 1926–2022

Ann Turner Cook carried a secret almost from birth. As a high school English teacher in Tampa, Cook feared ridicule if her students learned the truth: that her infant likeness was the most recognizable baby face on Earth. Cook was the Gerber baby, a fame she gained when a neighbor in Connecticut submitted a charcoal sketch of her at five months in response to a 1928 contest seeking an image for a marketing campaign. The neighbor, Dorothy Hope Smith, promised to complete the illustration if it were chosen, but Gerber executives took one look at the picture of the cherubic, wide-eyed infant and said that no embellishment was necessary. Over the next 90 years, the image would be reproduced billions of times on products from strained peaches to infant formula, while Cook walked supermarket aisles unrecognized. “I was really no cuter than any other baby,” she said. But Smith “had wonderful artistic talent and was able to draw a very appealing likeness.”

Turner grew up in Westport, Conn., where her father “was a well-known illustrator” who drew syndicated comic strips, said The New York Times. Neighbor Smith was a commercial artist.

Her sketch competed against “lavish paintings done in oils,” but Gerber’s judges “were captivated by its innocent immediacy.” The image proved so popular that it became Gerber’s trademark in 1931, said NBCNews.com, and was subsequently “used in all packaging and advertising.” Smith moved to Florida, married, earned a master’s degree, and became a schoolteacher, but all she earned from her ubiquitous image was $5,000 from a settlement in 1951. “It was enough to make a down payment on a modest house,” she said, “and to buy a first car.”

Gerber’s insistence on keeping the baby’s identity secret, said the Associated Press, ended up “spurring rumors” that the model must have been Shirley Temple or Elizabeth Taylor, or—the most popular theory—Humphrey Bogart. Only when Gerber celebrated the drawing’s 50th anniversary did it reveal the baby to be Cook. After she retired from teaching, Cook wrote mystery novels and fielded the occasional interview request. The appeal of the drawing, she told CBS in 2013, was that it was generic enough to stand in for nearly any newborn. “I can’t think of anything nicer than to be a symbol for babies,” she said. “And that’s what I think I became.”