Dear Cyndy,

The photo of Samantha is amazing, for many reasons. For one thing, it's an adorable photo. And of course, she looks so much like Baby Face Penny that I will always think of Samantha now when I see that doll.

I had not seen these photographs for years, maybe 30, maybe more. They were packed away in slide trays, along with slides of a multitude of projects, long forgotten. when I saw the photo of Samantha with her puppy, the similarity to Penny stunned me.

Obviously something (Someone) very special did inspire the mental images that inspired Baby Face. Although I did not realize it at the time. I really thought that baby face was just "there", somewhere "out there", never realizing, as I do now, that she was really "somewhere deep inside."

It was my children who were playing hide and seek with me, as I modeled the clay. They were hiding somewhere in the deepest recesses of my heart and memory.

NOTE from PrillyCharmin... I decided to add this page to the Baby Face story, partly because it is further revelation of where inspiration comes from. And, because Mel Birnkrant's daughter Samantha has been immortalized in Baby Face so it seems necessary to add that to the Story since she is part of it. Samantha died of heart failure in January 2002.

Mel says, "Samantha was a beautiful baby, very much like an angel, too good to be true. She had no concept of good or evil, and was never ever naughty."