Ann Turner Cook is a mystery novelist born on 20th November 1926, in Tampa Bay, Florida USA, but apart from her work as a novelist, she is also well known for being the familiar Gerber Baby infant model, whose face was trademarked in the early ‘30s, and has been used ever since on baby-food packages of the Gerber Products Company.
Have you ever wondered how rich Ann Turner Cook is? According to sources it has been estimated that Ann Turner Cook’s overall net worth is $2 million, acquired primarily through being the trademark face of the famous Gerber Products Company for nearly 90 years. Her later profession as a writer, the author of a series of mystery novels, has only added to her net worth.
Ann Turner Cook Net Worth $2 Million
Ann was the daughter of the cartoonist Leslie Turner, who was famous for drawing the “Captain Easy” comic strip for decades. When she was five months old, their neighbor, artist Dorothy Hope Smith, did a charcoal drawing of Ann, and soon after when the Gerber Company announced they were looking for baby images for their new line of baby food, Smith submitted her drawing which was later chosen. The image was trademarked in 1931, and Turner’s image has been used on all of the company’s baby food packaging ever since, providing her popularity and wealth.
Turner attended the University of South Florida and other post-secondary schools, studying education and English journalism, and earned several degrees, among others a master’s degree in English Education. During her studies she was a sister in the Pi Beta Phi sorority. Upon graduation, Ann became an English teacher at Oak Hill elementary school, and later at Madison Junior High School, Florida. In the mid- 1960’s she started teaching literature and creative writing at Hillsborough High School, where she had joined the English Department. Thanks to her teaching talents, dedication, pleasant personality and friendly attitude, Cook became one of the most loved teachers in the school, and the students dedicated their 1978 Hillsborean yearbook to her, which she then sponsored. These appointments were the basis for her net worth.
Ann only took up writing after retiring from teaching, starting with mystery novels through which she became a member of the Mystery Writers of America. Some of her most popular works include the Brandy O’Bannon novel series, which all have a plot set on Florida’s Gulf Coast. The main character of the novel series, Brandy O’Bannon, is a reporter and an amateur sleuth who brought Turner fame among the writers of the same genre, especially after publishing the books “Trace Their Shadows”(2001) and “Shadows over Cedar Key”(2003). Her net worth rose steadily.
When it comes to her private life, there isn’t much information known to the public. However, Ann is enjoying her retirement with her husband, and the couple live in Tampa. She became a great grandmother in 2014. Other interesting trivia about her life include her appearance on television in an episode of the game show “To Tell the Truth” in 1990.
