Anderson Cooper’s heiress mom Gloria Vanderbilt created a secret ‘grief map’ to help him clear out her home after her death – including a calendar permanently set to the day of his brother’s 1988 suicide.
Cooper, 56, has been on a slow journey to uncover his family’s hidden memories and belongings after the death of his father, brother, and mother four years ago.
Once he started clearing out her Upper East Side apartment, he began finding notes she’d left him – which he said created a type of ‘treasure hunt’ for his grief.
Gloria Vanderbilt, once one of the most famous women in the world, died at the age of 95 in 2019. Her apartment was covered in sentimental belongings from Cooper’s late father Wyatt Emory Cooper, reports the NYTimes.
The luxurious home was covered in objects once owned by his beloved older brother, Carter, who died after jumping from his mom’s balcony 35 years ago.
Cooper, 56, has been on a slow journey to uncover his family’s hidden memories and belongings after the death of his father, brother, and his mother four years ago
Once he started clearing out her Upper East Side apartment, he started finding notes she’d left him – which he said created a type of treasure hunt of his grief
Anderson Cooper’s (right) brother Carter (left) died by suicide in 1988 when he was 23 years old. The family is pictured together walking in New York in 1976
Across the rooms, Cooper started uncovering his family member’s possessions – with handwritten notes by his mom. A pair of satin trousers came with the note: ‘These are Daddy’s pyjamas,’ and a pair of spectacles, ‘Daddy’s glasses.’
His father, who was the heiress’ fourth husband, died when the CNN journalist was just 10. He recalled crying in the moment, and then almost never again.
Gloria Vanderbilt had even memorialized what she was wearing on one of the worst days of her life – the death of her son Carter.
Cooper, a father-of-two, found a white silk shirt next to a knitted skirt during his rummage, with the note: ‘Blouse and skirt I was wearing when Carter died.’
Carter, 23, died when Anderson was 21. He jumped off the balcony of their mother’s New York City 14-story apartment building as she pleaded with him not to.
Gloria Vanderbilt, above, wearing a polka dot dress, while she was still married to Leopold Stokowski in an undated photo
Gloria was only 18 months old when her father Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, a drinker and gambler who frittered away his inheritance, died. Too young to take control of her trust, her mother, Gloria Morgan, spent the the money on herself, partied her way across European soignee circles, including with the Prince of Wales, and funded her extravagant lifestyle by pilfering her daughter’s $2.5 million trust fund. Above, Gloria at age 30 in 1954
Cooper started uncovering his family member’s possessions – with handwritten notes by his mom. A a pair of satin trousers, came with the note: ‘These are Daddy’s pyjamas,’ and a pair of spectacles, ‘Daddy’s glasses’
Carter, 23, died when Anderson was 21. He jumped off the balcony of their mother’s New York City 14-story apartment building as she pleaded with him not to
Vanderbilt later reveal in an interview on her son’s talk show, Anderson Live, that she immediately considered killing herself after Carter went over the balcony.
She said to Anderson: ‘There was a moment when I thought I was going to jump over after him…I thought of you and it stopped me.’
When he was going through his late mother’s belongings, another treasure he uncovered was an antique Victorian bronze calendar on her bedside table.
It was locked on a date – July 22, 1988 – which was the day Carter died. She never moved the dial again, and took it with her everywhere she lived after the tragedy.
Anderson now keeps the calendar in his living room.
The Yale-educated journalist says he has about 70 boxes left to go through. When he was sifting through some earlier this year, he found an essay written by his father, which had never been published. It was titled: ‘The importance of grieving.’
He recorded himself sifting through Gloria’s belongings, including a set of her paintbrushes, notes, letters, and photographs.
Since his mother’s death, and the physical and mental unpacking that went with it, Cooper started a podcast on grief, called: ‘All There Is With Anderson Cooper.’
The couple had two children, Chris and Anderson. Above, the family – Cooper, Anderson, Carter, and Vanderbilt – at their home on Southampton, Long Island, on March 30, 1972
The Yale-educated journalist says he has about 70 boxes left to go through. When he was sifting through some earlier this year, he found an essay written by his father, which had never been published. It was titled: ‘The importance of grieving’
Cooper was raised by his mother and father, writer Wyatt Cooper (pictured in 1970), who was Gloria’s fourth husband
The journalist has been on a journey to uncover all of the hidden memories of his family
Gloria Vanderbilt died at age 95 in 2019
The journalist has now used the treasures he found in his mother’s apartment to decorate his own $4.3million Greenwich Village home.
He has covered the wall next to the main staircase with his mother’s paintings and portraits. Gloria was the heiress to the Vanderbilt fortune – and was a common feature in magazines and newspapers from her early adolescence.
Vanderbilt was born into unimaginable wealth on February 20, 1924 as the heiress to a railroad fortune; her life story is one marked by privilege, glamour, powerful friends, famous lovers, and penetrating sadness.
‘She wanted to feel it all, she wanted to feel life’s pleasures, its pains as well,’ said her son, Anderson, after she died.
In 1934, Gloria was just a little girl when she became the center of a sensational lawsuit that was heard and reported around the world, it was dubbed as ‘The Trial of the Century.’
After splitting from her husband, Leopold Stokowski, Vanderbilt dated Frank Sinatra, and they are seen above at a musical opening at the tail end of 1954
Gloria (pictured with her mother in 1939) socialized in Manhattan as she grew up and charmed film and play directors until she made connections in Hollywood
Gloria Vanderbilt married her fourth husband Wyatt Cooper on December 24, 1963 and was with him until his death on January 5, 1978. Above, the couple at supper dance thrown in honor of Liza Minnelli in 1972
Gloria’s paternal aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney sued for custody of little Gloria citing the neglect and immoral influence of her mother as cause.
Salacious details from behind the curtain of America’s richest family captivated the poverty-stricken public during the Great Depression.
Whitney slammed Morgan with reports of her ‘alleged erotic interested in women,’ while the defense argued that Whitney’s work as a celebrated sculptor featured nudes.
Custody was eventually awarded to Gertrude Whitney, but Gloria was left traumatized and even more isolated from the event.
Years later, Gloria would write in her autobiography: ‘If you’ve never had a mother or a father, you grow up seeking something you’re never going to find, ever. You seek it in love and in people and in beauty.’
While the Vanderbilts would become one of America’s most illustrious families, their roots stretch back to a humble Dutch farmer from the village of De Bilt in the Netherlands who came over to the colonies as an indentured servant in 1650, according to the book, ‘Commodore Vanderbilt and his family: A biographical account of the Descendants of Cornelius and Sophia Johnson Vanderbilt.’
Gloria inherited millions, but was also a self-starter, with her own line of blue jeans and a fashion empire that raked in $100 million a year.
Her lavish life made her a much-loved figure of the time. She was married four times and had affairs with the most coveted men – including Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra.
Cooper said in a 2017 documentary: ‘My mom has lived many different lives and has inhabited many different skins.’
Vanderbilt left an indelible mark on the cultural history of America, but her own story of self-invention and survival that has become a symbol of perseverance.
In the eulogy for his mother, Cooper said: ‘She always worked hard, always pressed on, always believed the best was yet to come.’