Cynthia Ann Crawford (born February 20, 1966, in Dekalb, Illinois) is an American supermodel, MTV television personality, celebrity endorser, cover girl, and actress.

Born in DeKalb, Illinois, to Dan Crawford and Jennifer Crawford in 1966, Cindy Crawford's trademark is a visible mole on her face (although most people refer to it as a "beauty mark"). She is so closely associated with this physical feature that she appeared in an advertising campaign for chocolates featuring commercials wherein she "licked off" her own mole. Ironically, the mole was removed from many of her earlier modeling pictures, including her first Vogue cover. Her brother died at a young age from leukemia, and Crawford has made childhood leukemia a focal point of her charity work, donating proceeds of her calendars to medical research.

She was discovered by chance by a newspaper photographer, who noticed then-16-year-old Cindy at work during her summer job of pollinating corn and took a picture of her. The photo and the positive feedback she received were enough to convince her to take up modeling. She entered the John Casablancas Look of the Year contest and was the runner up.

Crawford graduated from high school as valedictorian with a 4.0 GPA. She won an academic scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwestern University, which she attended for only one quarter. She dropped out in order to pursue a full-time modeling career. After working for photographer Victor Skrebneski in Chicago, Cindy moved to Manhattan in 1986.

From 1989 to 1995, Crawford was host of MTV's House of Style. In the mid-1990s Crawford starred in famous Pepsi and Pepsi Stuff advertising. In 1995 Crawford took her first movie role in Fair Game. Her performance was panned by critics, and the film was a financial failure, with expenses of $50 million and $11 million takings at the box office. She has had several other minor acting jobs since then, none of which have been commercially or critically successful. The closest she has come to a commercially successful acting job has been her series of exercise videos.

Crawford is just over 5 feet 9 inches (177 cm) tall, with brown hair and eyes. Her measurements are 34"-24"-35". During the 1980s and 1990s, Cindy was among the most popular supermodels, a ubiquitous presence on magazine covers, runways, and in fashion campaigns. She was the first modern supermodel to pose nude for Playboy magazine, in a shoot by photographer Herb Ritts.

She has been featured on the cover of more than 600 magazines worldwide[citation needed] including Vogue, W, People, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, Cosmopolitan, and Allure. Cindy also appeared in many fashion campaigns during her career, including those for Gianni Versace, Escada, etc. Of her, famous designer Karl Lagerfeld has said: "She is a classical beauty and the all-American dream girl." She was nicknamed "Baby Gia" when she entered the modeling industry because of her resemblance to late supermodel, Gia Carangi.

She was ranked number 5 on Playboy's list of the 100 Sexiest Stars of the 20th century. A 1997 Shape magazine survey of 4,000 picked her as the second (after Demi Moore) most beautiful woman in the world. In 2002, Crawford was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People by People magazine. She continues to provide celebrity endorsement for a variety of projects and was featured as #26 in the 2006 Hot 100 issue of Maxim magazine.

Crawford's marriage to actor Richard Gere lasted from 1991 to 1995. It was heavily rumored that the marriage was a cover for his homosexuality, but this was denied by both. 1 During their marriage, the rumors had been further fueled (and mocked) by Crawford when she appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in a semiprovocative pose with lesbian singer k.d. lang in August 1993.

Crawford and current husband Rande Gerber have two children, Presley, born July 2, 1999, and Kaya, born September 3, 2001. Crawford gave birth to both her children through natural home birth.

Crawford owns her own production company, Crawdaddy Inc.