The Faces Behind the Famous Hands

An introduction to the hand models in iconic ads.

America's Top Hand Models

You've seen their hands a million times in glossy magazine ads, in television commercials, and blown-up on billboards. Plenty of corporate ad campaigns use hand models, and the few in the business have been busier than ever since the recent boom in popular handheld electronic devices. Who are these people, and how did they land these gigs? Here's a quick look at some of the faces behind the hands you know so well.

Mia Crowe

The most popular e-reader on the market, the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle, is held upright in ads by hand model Mia Crowe. Though she's posed for Apple (AAPL) products, too, her client base isn't confined to tech companies. Her Web site says, "Turn on the television right now, and you can see Mia's talented hands in commercials doing everything from spreading Philadelphia Cream Cheese on a bagel and twisting open Oreo cookies to pouring test tubes of blue dye onto Tampax feminine pads to test for absorbency."

Kimbra Hickey

When part-time model Kimbra Hickey posed for the cover of Twilight in 2004, she had no idea that the book would be popular. Since then, the image of her hands, cradling an apple, have graced the covers of the millions of copies sold around the world. She still attends events promoting the book and signs autographs.

James Furino

The Staples (SPLS) "Easy Button" ad campaign was so catchy that the office supplies retailer started selling these buttons in stores. Hand model James Furino didn't need to buy one to get his hands on an Easy Button. His index finger does the pressing in one of the memorable ads. He feels lucky to have the hands and the "meticulous" personality that hand modeling requires. Yet he's quick to dispel a common myth about the business. "It is lucrative, but you can't get rich doing it," he says.

Elizabeth Barbour

During a photo shoot in 1983, Elizabeth Barbour says she "tilted her hand in such a way" that the photographers captured the perfect shot of her hand grazing a glass. The shot was the basis for the redesign of the Palmolive soap label, which is still around to this day. She was paid $650 for the shoot and calls the experience "one of the funniest things I've ever done."

Ashly Covington

She rips biscuits apart at just the right speed, spreads icing onto cinnamon buns without making a mess, and folds pie crust like a pro. Pillsbury is just one of full-time hand model Ashly Covington's many clients. She set out to be an actress, not necessarily a hand model. "After college I was trying to get headshots taken," she says, "The agent was far more interested in my hands."

Pamela Moses

Actress Megan Fox is well-known for her good looks, but she also owns a pair of infamously ugly thumbs. When she starred in a Motorola (MOT) commercial that aired during this year's Super Bowl, Fox's hands looked surprisingly normal. That's because they weren't hers. Model Pamela Moses lent her hands to the commercial. More than a few astute Fox fans noticed the substitution.

Ellen Sirot

Ellen Sirot has been in the hand-modeling business for 20 years. She has worked on countless campaigns selling just about everything from nail polish to pregnancy tests. Recently, she has jumped on new opportunities in tech advertising, such as Verizon (VZ) campaign. While some models don't bother to baby their hands, Sirot insists on it. She wears gloves all the time and has even developed her own line of hand cream to keep them moisturized.

Ryan Serhant

AT&T's (T) "hands" campaign won the title of "America's Favorite Magazine Ad," a contest sponsored by Magazine Publishers of America. For the campaign, Italian artist Guido Daniele painted hands, holding electronic devices, with imagery from around the world. Ryan Serhant offered up his hands as the canvas. What's his secret to keeping his hands in perfect form? He explains, "Lots and lots of lotion, gloves when it's cold, gloves when you work out, and gloves when you sleep."