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Who Was Gloria Vanderbilt?
Gloria Vanderbilt was an American socialite, artist, and fashion icon, who first gained public attention as a child in the 1930s due to a highly publicized custody battle between her mother and her aunt over her care and control of a multi-million-dollar trust fund. This early exposure to fame was only the beginning of her long and varied career.
In her later years, Vanderbilt made her mark in theater, film, and especially fashion, where her designer jeans became a defining element of the 1970s style revolution. She was also a prolific writer, penning several novels and memoirs, including It Seemed Important at the Time: A Romance Memoir. Beyond her literary and fashion pursuits, she was an accomplished visual artist, known for her intricate collages and panoramic works that were featured in exhibitions.
Vanderbilt is also recognized as the mother of renowned broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper, further cementing her legacy in both cultural and media circles.
Early Life
Gloria Vanderbilt, born on February 20, 1924, in New York City, was a prominent member of the renowned Vanderbilt family, whose wealth and influence stemmed from the fortune amassed by her great-grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt, a railroad magnate and one of America’s first millionaires. Her father, Reginald Vanderbilt, struggled with alcoholism and passed away from liver disease when Gloria was just a toddler. His death left her with a multi-million-dollar trust fund.
Vanderbilt’s early years were shaped by a complex family dynamic. Her mother, Gloria Morgan, was known for her love of social events, often prioritizing a life of parties over parenthood. After her father’s death, Vanderbilt spent several years living abroad with her mother but was primarily raised by her maternal grandmother, Laura, and her nurse, Emma, affectionately known as Dodo.
Public Court Battle
At the age of 10, Vanderbilt became the subject of national attention due to a highly publicized and contentious custody trial. Her paternal aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a renowned sculptor and founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art, sought and ultimately won custody of the young heiress. The court’s decision allowed Vanderbilt to spend summers with her mother, though it required the separation from Dodo, her most cherished companion. The case captivated the media, further intensifying the scrutiny surrounding Vanderbilt’s upbringing and inheritance.
Harper’s and Hollywood
Emerging from the strict upbringing of her aunt, Gloria Vanderbilt rose to prominence in her teens as a fashionable young socialite, making her debut in Harper’s Bazaar magazine in 1939. Despite her often reserved demeanor, Vanderbilt soon ventured to Hollywood, where her mother had already established herself within elite social circles. During this time, Vanderbilt began relationships with significantly older men, including actors Errol Flynn and Howard Hughes. In 1941, at just 17 years old, she married Hollywood agent Pat DiCicco.
The marriage, however, was marked by turmoil, with DiCicco subjecting Vanderbilt to emotional and physical abuse. In 1945, she filed for divorce. Even before the marriage ended, Vanderbilt had found new love in the esteemed conductor Leopold Stokowski. The couple married shortly after her divorce, welcoming two sons, Stanley and Christopher. During this period, Vanderbilt also discovered a passion for the arts, studying at the Art Students League of New York and developing an interest in acting, which led her to train under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
Acting Career and Marriages
In 1955, Gloria Vanderbilt made her Broadway debut in the revival of William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life, though the production was short-lived. Throughout the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, she appeared in several television series, showcasing her versatility as an actress. During this period, she also demonstrated literary talent, publishing a collection of Love Poems in 1955.
On the personal front, Vanderbilt experienced significant changes. She divorced her second husband, Leopold Stokowski, and briefly had a romantic relationship with Frank Sinatra. In 1956, she married acclaimed film director Sidney Lumet. Although she continued to take on occasional acting roles, Vanderbilt became more renowned for her social connections. She was a close friend of author Truman Capote and was part of New York’s intellectual and social elite.
In 1963, after her marriage to Lumet ended in divorce, Vanderbilt wed writer Wyatt Cooper. Together, they had two sons, Carter and Anderson, and their marriage was seen as a significant chapter in her dynamic personal life.
Major Personal Loss
In the 1970s, Gloria Vanderbilt made a significant impact on the fashion world by launching a line of jeans that quickly gained immense popularity, each pair distinguished by her signature and iconic swan logo. Building on this success, she expanded her brand to include clothing and perfumes. However, this period of professional triumph was marked by deep personal tragedy when her husband, Wyatt Cooper, passed away during open-heart surgery in 1978.
Vanderbilt drew from her own experiences for creative inspiration, publishing her first memoir, Once Upon a Time: A True Story, in 1985. In addition to her memoirs, she ventured into fiction, with works such as The Memory Book of Starr Faithfull (1994). In A Mother’s Story (1996), Vanderbilt confronted one of her greatest personal challenges, the heartbreaking loss of her son, Carter Cooper, who died by suicide in 1988. Through these works, Vanderbilt shared her profound emotional journey, using her writing to process and reflect on her life’s most difficult moments.
Books, Art, and Son: Anderson Cooper
By the early 1990s, Gloria Vanderbilt faced significant financial challenges. A former lawyer and psychiatrist defrauded her of substantial sums, severely impacting her home-design business and forcing her to sell property. Nearly a decade later, in 2002, her apparel company was acquired by Jones Apparel Group.
In 2004, Vanderbilt candidly reflected on her romantic experiences in It Seemed Important at the Time: A Romance Memoir, and in 2009, she returned to fiction with the release of the erotic novella Obsession. Continuing her literary pursuits, she published a collection of short stories, The Things We Fear Most, in 2011.
Beyond writing, Vanderbilt was an accomplished visual artist, known for her work in collage and surreal, multidimensional dream boxes. Her artwork was exhibited at the New York Design Center in 2012 and 2014. Vanderbilt’s life was further documented in The World of Gloria Vanderbilt, a coffee-table book released in 2010, which captured moments from her storied existence.
Vanderbilt was also the mother of renowned news anchor and television host Anderson Cooper, with whom she shared a close bond. The two appeared together on Cooper’s former CNN program Anderson Live. Their relationship was the focus of the HBO documentary Nothing Left Unsaid, which premiered in April 2016. Coinciding with the documentary, Vanderbilt and Cooper co-authored The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Loss, and Love, a heartfelt joint memoir.
Death of Gloria Vanderbilt
On June 17, 2019, Gloria Vanderbilt passed away at her home in New York City at the age of 95. Her son, Anderson Cooper, paid tribute in a heartfelt statement, saying, “Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman who loved life and lived it on her own terms. She was a painter, a writer, and a designer, but above all, she was a remarkable mother, wife, and friend. Despite her age, anyone close to her would say she was the youngest person they knew—cool, modern, and full of life.”