Fashion Designer, Artist Gloria Vanderbilt Dies At 95
SOARES: Now we have some sad news to report here at CNN. Gloria Vanderbilt has died at the age of 95. She was an iconic fashion designer, an artist, writer, heiress to the Vanderbilt railroad Fortune. She was also the mother of our colleague, CNN anchor, Anderson Cooper. Of course our deepest condolences go out to him as well as his family. Anderson, in his own words, has more now on Gloria Vanderbilt's incredible life.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Gloria Vanderbilt, my mom, lived her entire life in the public eye. Born in 1924, her father, Reginald Vanderbilt, was heir to the Vanderbilt Railroad Fortune, but gambled away most of his inheritance and died when my mom was just a baby. Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, her mother, wasn't ready to be a mom or a widow. My mom grew up in France, not knowing anything about the Vanderbilt family or the money that she would inherit when she turned 21. She had no idea the trouble that money would create.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And here's the first movie of little Gloria herself. Frightened by the curious crowd, she flees into her aunt's car. Money isn't everything.</s>COOPER: When she was 10, her father's sister, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, sued to have my mom taken away from her own mother. It was a custody battle, the likes of which the world had never seen. It was called the trial of the century, and it took place during the height of the depression, making headlines every day for months. The court awarded custody of my mom to her Aunt Gertrude, whom she barely knew. The judge also fired the one person my mom truly loved and needed, her nanny, whom she called dodo.</s>GLORIA VANDERBILT, MOTHER OF ANDERSON COOPER: She was my mother, my father. She was everything. She was my lifeline. She was all I had.</s>COOPER: As a teenager, she tried to avoid the spotlight, but reporters and cameramen would follow her everywhere. She was determined to make something of her life, determined to make a name for herself, and find the love and family that she so desperately craved. At 17, against her aunt's wishes, she got married. She knew it was a mistake from the get-go.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wedding bells at Santa Barbara's ancient Spanish mission. He is Pasquale DiCicco, Hollywood actors' agent, and he's 32.</s>COOPER (on camera): He was described as a Hollywood agent. Was he an agent?</s>GLORIA VANDERBILT, AMERICAN ARTIST: Well, maybe at one point he was. He had been married to Thelma Todd, who was quite a well-known actress, and she was -- died under mysterious circumstances. And there were sort of rumors around that maybe he had killed her, you know.</s>COOPER (on camera): Wait a minute.</s>COOPER: Wait a minute. So you got married to a guy who there were rumors that he had killed his former wife?</s>VANDERBILT: Yes, yes.</s>COOPER: Did that not seem to give you pause?</s>VANDERBILT: Well, I thought all he needs is me, you know, to --</s>COOPER: Oh, God.</s>VANDERBILT: Sweetheart, I was only 17.</s>COOPER: OK. I know.</s>VANDERBILT: You know.</s>COOPER (voice-over): At 21, she married again and had two sons with the legendary conductor, Leopold Stokowski.</s>COOPER (on camera): This is what he looked like when you first met him?</s>VANDERBILT: Well, it's a terrible photograph of him, but he was 63 when I first met him and married him.</s>COOPER: And was this something like as soon as you saw him, you thought --</s>VANDERBILT: Instant.</s>COOPER: Really?</s>VANDERBILT: I knew him for a week and married three weeks later.</s>COOPER: Really?</s>VANDERBILT: Yes.</s>COOPER: I didn't know that.</s>VANDERBILT: Yes.</s>COOPER: And he was 63?</s>VANDERBILT: Yes.</s>COOPER: Wow. Did any of your friends think it was weird?</s>VANDERBILT: I don't know. I mean --</s>COOPER: They didn't say anything to you?</s>VANDERBILT: It didn't matter to me.</s>COOPER (voice-over): The marriage lasted more than a decade. Then she met and married director Sidney Lumet and then my father writer, Wyatt Cooper. Over the course of her life, my mom was photographed by all the great photographers, and she worked as a painter, a writer, an actress, and designer.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gloria, you're terrific.</s>COOPER (voice-over): If you were around in the early 1980s, it was pretty hard to miss the jeans she helped create. But that was her public face, the one she learned to hide behind as a child. Her private self, her real self, that was more fascinating and more lovely than anything she showed the public. I always thought of her as a visitor from another world, a traveler stranded here who'd come from a distant star that burned out long ago. I always felt it was my job to try to protect her. She was the strongest person I've ever met, but she wasn't tough. She never developed a thick skin to protect herself from hurt. She wanted to feel it all. She wanted to feel life's pleasures; its pains as well. She trusted too freely, too completely, and suffered tremendous losses. But she always pressed on. Always worked hard. Always believed the best was yet to come.</s>COOPER (on camera): You think the next great love is right around the corner?</s>VANDERBILT: Absolutely. Absolutely.</s>COOPER: Is there anyone I should know about right now?</s>VANDERBILT: No.</s>COOPER: I think Ben Brantley said he's never met somebody over the age of 16 who loves being in love as much as you.</s>VANDERBILT: That's true. I think we should always be in love.</s>COOPER (voice-over): And she was always in love. In love with men, or with friends, or books and art. In love with her children and her grandchildren and then her great-grandchildren. Love is what she believed in more than anything. Earlier this month, we had to take her to the hospital. And that's where she learned she had very advanced cancer in her stomach and that it had spread. When the doctor told her she had cancer, she was silent for a while. And then she said, well, it's like that old song, show me the way to get out of this world because that's where everything is. Later, she made a joke and we started giggling. I never knew that we had the exact same giggle. I recorded it and it makes me giggle every time I watch it.</s>COOPER: Joseph Conrad wrote that we live as we die, alone. He was wrong in my mom's case. Gloria Vanderbilt died as she lived, on her own terms. I know she hoped for a little more time, a few days or weeks at least. There were paintings she wanted to make, more books she wanted to read, more dreams to dream. But she was ready. She was ready to go.</s>VANDERBILT: Once upon a time --</s>COOPER: She spent time a lot of time alone in her head during her life. But when the end came, she was not alone. She was surrounded by beauty and by family and by friends. The last few weeks, every time I kissed her goodbye, I'd say, I love you, mom. She would look at me and say, I love you, too. You know that. And she was right. I did know that. I knew it from the moment I was born, and I'll know it for the rest of my life. And in the end, what greater gift can a mother give to her son? Gloria Vanderbilt was 95 years old when she died. What an extraordinary life. What an extraordinary mom. And what an incredible woman.