“What a very happy birthday to the original Gerber baby, Ann Turner Cook!” the company posted on Saturday on its social media pages.
Cook has been the face of the company since 1928, when her neighbor Dorothy Hope Smith submitted a charcoal sketch of the baby in competition for an advertising campaign, according to the company’s website. The artist said she would finish the portrait if she won, but Gerber decided to use it as such.
This sketch was so popular that Gerber made the chubby-cheeked painting its official trademark in 1931.
“Since then, Gerber Baby has appeared on all Gerber packaging and in every Gerber advertisement,” the company says on its website.
Gerber is best known for its baby food and formula, but it also sells baby clothing, life insurance, and other products.
Gerber Baby’s identity was kept secret until 1978, and the company says for years people speculated it could be sketches by Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Senators Bob Dole and Jane Seymour.
Cook became an English teacher while she was growing up and wrote a series of mystery novels after she retired.
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