Who

A socialite, heiress, and former fashion icon, Vanderbilt is also the mother of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

Backstory

The only child of railroad heir Reginald Vanderbilt, Gloria Laura Madeleine Sophie Vanderbilt was just 15 months old when her hard-living playboy father died of alcohol poisoning, leaving her with a multi-million dollar trust. Following a peripatetic few years in the care of her recklessly spendthrift young mother—Gloria Laura Mercedes Morgan flitted continually from New York to Monte Carlo, London and Paris, and neglected her daughter in favor of drinking and partying—little Gloria became the subject of a tabloid-dominating custody battle between her mother and her aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the sculptress and founder of the Whitney Museum of Art. When the tug-of-war was over (and with her fortune diminished), the 10-year-old was placed with Gertrude at her house in Old Westbury, Long Island. The poor little rich girl later escaped to Hollywood, where she had a slew of high profile lovers, including Howard Hughes, and then married Pat DiCicci (see below) when she was just 17. She eventually returned to New York and became one of the most gossiped-about socialites on the scene, palling around with celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Truman Capote, and shocking the blue-bloods with her outrageous affairs.

In the 1960s Vanderbilt cut back (a bit) on the frenzied socializing and worked as an artist—several of her designs were used commercially by Hallmark and other brands. Although she'd been a staple of society columns for decades, she only became internationally famous in the 1970s when a clothing manufacturer suggested using her name on their products, and she unwittingly got in on the ground floor of the designer jeans craze with the wildly successful Gloria Vanderbilt denim line (followed by Gloria Vanderbilt fragrances and dresses). She's continued her artsy pursuits into the present, albeit with less commercial success, and while her days of being an out-and-about social butterfly are long over, Vanderbilt's dramatic life is one for the socialite record books.

Personal

Vanderbilt's romantic dalliances are as well-known as her son Cooper's are hush-hush. She's been married four times—to abusive Hollywood agent and mobster Pat DiCicco, conductor Leopold Stokowski, director Sidney Lumet, and writer Wyatt Cooper—and she's had affairs with Gene Kelly, Marlon Brando, and CBS chairman Bill Paley, among others. Vanderbilt had two sons with Stokowski and two with Cooper. Her first son with Cooper—Anderson's brother, Carter—committed suicide in 1988 by jumping from the window of his mother's the 14th floor penthouse at 10 Gracie Square. She now lives on Beekman Place. She sold her Southampton home for $2.1 million in 1995.

In print

Vanderbilt wrote about her liaisons in her 2004 memoir, It Seemed Important at the Time: A Romance Memoir, which was enough to make Anderson blush. "Oof, too much information for me," he told reporters in 2005.

No joke

In her memoir, Vanderbilt says Truman Capote based Breakfast at Tiffany's on life in her Manhattan townhouse.

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