Anderson Cooper

The Early Years

Anderson Hays Cooper was born June 2, 1967 in New York City, New York. He is the son of writer Wyatt Emory Cooper and designer and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt. He graduated from high school at 17 and travelled to Africa where he contracted Malaria. In 1989, he graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in political science. For two years during college, he interned with the CIA.

Professional Career

Anderson Cooper is a renowned television journalist and author. And while he has no formal journalism training, he is ranked at the top of his profession, not only questioning others, but also being the subject of many interviews including those by Larry King, Oprah and Stephen Colbert.

TV Journalist

After college, Cooper took a job as a fact-checker for Channel One, a youth-oriented news show. He spent less than a year there, then quit and moved overseas where he snuck into Burma to report on students who were fighting with the Burmese government. From there, he spent a year in Vietnam and later started filming and reporting from many war-torn areas, including Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia.

When he got back to the United States, Anderson Cooper began his stint for ABC, starting with the ABC News and then advancing to co-anchor of World News Now. However, Cooper wanted a slight career change, and in 2000, took on the role of reality show host of The Mole.

After two seasons and watching the events of September 11, 2001, Anderson Cooper returned to broadcast news and landed a job at CNN, where he co-anchored American Morning with Paula Zahn. A year later, he became CNN's weekend primetime news anchor. In September 2003, he started hosting Anderson Cooper 360°, a highly rated weeknight news program. He has also filled in a number of times for Regis Philbin on Live With Regis and Kelly.

Since coming to CNN, Cooper has reported news from all over the world, including:

• Sri Lanka for the 2005 tsunami
• Baghda, Iraq, covering the ongoing war there
• Beruit, Lebanon, for the Cedar Revolution
• Rome, Italy, covering the death of Pope John Paul II
• London, England, for the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles
• New Orleans, Lousiana, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
• Pensecola, Florida, during Hurricane Dennis

Author

In 2005, Anderson Cooper published his memoirs in the book, Dispatches from the Edge, which describes his experiences reporting from war-torn and disaster-ridden cities. The highly acclaimed best-seller also describes many accounts in Cooper's own life that he said helped mold who he is today.

Personal Life

Cooper is the son of heiress and designer Gloria Vanderbilt and writer Wyatt Emory Cooper.

Cooper's father died during open heart surgery in 1978, and about 10 years later, his older brother, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, committed suicide by jumping from the 14th-floor of his mother's New York City penthouse apartment. He has two older half-brothers, Leopold and Christopher Stokowski, from his mother's first marriage.

And while Anderson Cooper has repeatedly refused to discuss his personal life, including his sexual orientation, Out Magazine has revealed that he is a gay celebrity and ranked him the second on the list of "The Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America" in its May 2007 issue. Cooper has never been married, nor has any children. He is close with Vanderbilt, and in 2007, interviewed her about Mother's Day.

Awards and Honors

As a journalist, Anderson Cooper has been the recipient of several honors, including:

• Emmy Award for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Breaking News Story (2006)
• Emmy Award for Outstanding Feature Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast (2006)
• Emmy Award for Outstanding Coverage of a Current Business News Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast (2006)
• National Headlines Awards (2005)
• Emmy Award for his contribution to the coverage of Princess Diana's funeral (1998)

Anderson Cooper Trivia

• At age three, he appeared with his mother on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
• From the ages of 10-13, he modeled with Ford Models for Calvin Klein, Macy's and Ralph Lauren.
• He was a judge on Iron Chef America.
• He ranked third in Playgirl magazine's "Sexiest Newscaster List" in 2004.
• In 2005, he was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive."
• He started going gray at age 20, and was completely gray by the time he was 35.
• He is of English, Dutch and Irish descent.

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