Fact Check
Was Humphrey Bogart the model for the Gerber baby?
David Mikkelson
Published Sept. 7, 1997
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Claim:
Claim: The Gerber Baby is a likeness of Humphrey Bogart as an infant.
Origins: Humphrey Bogart
was not the model for the Gerber Baby, nor was the Gerber Baby drawn by Bogart's mother, a commercial illustrator. A drawing of Humphrey as an infant was made by his mother and was used in advertisem*nts for a different brand of baby food many years before Gerber was founded, however.
Bogart's mother, Maud Humphrey Bogart, enjoyed a successful career as a commercial illustrator. As described by her grandson Stephen Bogart:
Her long career as an illustrator of calendars, greeting cards, fashion magazines, and more than books, and as a portrait painter of socialite children, flourished from the 1890s through the 1920s. She worked in the sentimental Victorian tradition, painting stylized cherubic children with round faces, chipmunk cheeks, curly blond ringlets, large eyes, button noses, rosy lips, frilly collars, and long white dresses. Her work promoted Prudential Insurance and Ivory soap, appeared on the covers of Harper's and Century magazines, and was exhibited in and Boston.
And Maud Bogart did create and make good use of sketches of her baby Humphrey:
Maud made drawings of her chubby-cheeked, sparsely-thatched infant, who became famous when he appeared in a national advertising campaign for Mellin's baby food. A celebrity soon after his birth as "the original Maud Humphrey baby," Bogart said, "There was a period in American history when you couldn't pick up a goddamed magazine without seeing my kisser in it."
The connection here is obvious: Bogart's mother was both a commercial artist and a portrait painter of children, her drawings of baby Humphrey were used in national advertisem*nts for a brand of baby food, and Gerber is the most well-known brand of baby food in America. Mix these facts together, shake well, and you've got the makings of a baby food legend.
But Gerber did not begin marketing
Cook was about 4 months old in 1927 when family friend Dorothy Hope Smith sketched the now-famous image in charcoal. Using a neighbor's baby as a model wasn't so unusual in the artist enclave of Westport, Conn., where they lived at the time, and nobody thought too much about it. Least of all Cook's dad, who for wrote and drew "Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy," a daily comic strip that ran in The next year, when Gerber put out the call for images that could be used in ads for its new baby-food products, Smith submitted the drawing, and the company bought it.
Ann Cook's image began appearing on Gerber
products in 1928, and it became the company's official trademark in 1931. The famous "Gerber baby" has appeared in every Gerber advertisem*nt and on the packaging of every Gerber product ever since.
The identity (and even the sex) of the Gerber Baby has been the subject of much speculation over the years. The Humphrey Bogart tale has been the most prominent rumor, and more than a few woman have come forward and claimed to be "the" Gerber baby (or the mother of said baby) over the years as well. To settle any lingering identity and ownership issues, Gerber paid Cook a one-time cash settlement of $5,000 in 1951. (Dorothy Hope Smith was originally paid $300 for the rights to her drawing; neither she nor Cook were paid royalties for the use of the image.)
As an adult, Ann Cook raised four children of her own and taught literature and writing in Tampa, Florida,schools for
Additional information:
 | The Gerber Baby (Gerber.com) |
Last updated: 9 August 2007
Sources:
In Search of My Father.
By David Mikkelson
David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.
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