CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and his mother Gloria Vanderbilt at a premiere in New York in 2016. Photo: AP
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https://scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3014929/gloria-vanderbilt-heiress-socialite-fashion-icon United States & Canada
Gloria Vanderbilt, heiress, artist, designer and fashion icon, dies aged 95
- Vanderbilt, who wrote four volumes of memoirs as well as two novels, experienced loss and triumph on a grand scale
- Her death was announced on CNN by her son Anderson Cooper
Gloria Vanderbilt in 1964. Photo: AP
Gloria Vanderbilt, the heiress and “poor little rich girl” in a sensational 1930s custody trial who survived a famously disjointed childhood to become an actress, artist, designer and author, has died. She was 95.
Her death was announced on Monday via a CNN report voiced by anchor Anderson Cooper, her son. CNN reported that she died at her home and was suffering from stomach cancer.
The direct descendant of 19th century shipping and railroad baron Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt experienced loss and triumph on a grand scale.
Her multimillionaire father died when she was barely two, her socialite mother abandoned her for the high life on two continents, and the beloved nurse who raised her from birth was fired after the notorious 1934 custody battle. She was raised by paternal aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who founded the Whitney Museum of American Art.
A bodyguard, a nurse and a chauffeur accompany Gloria Vanderbilt into the home of her mother in midtown Manhattan for Easter weekend in 1935. Photo: AP
Vanderbilt conducted the rest of her life as, in her words, “a restless search for love”.
She married four times – her second and third husbands were conductor Leopold Stokowski and film director Sidney Lumet – and had affairs with other legendary men, including Howard Hughes, Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.
She finally found happiness in her last marriage – to writer and editor Wyatt Emory Cooper – but it ended with his premature death at 50 from a heart attack. That loss was compounded a decade later when she witnessed the suicide of one of their sons, Carter.
Richard Avedon, Gloria Vanderbilt and Sidney Lumet at the premiere of “East of Eden” in 1955. Photo: TNS
Towards the end of her marriage to Lumet, she studied at the Art Students League of New York and, after she married Cooper in 1964, began to display her art.
Her wistful, decorative paintings translated easily to textiles, about which she had considerable knowledge; she lined the Cooper flat in vintage patchwork and veneered its floors with varnished calico scraps.
Soon she began designing household goods directly, and made a deal in 1968 with Hallmark Cards. Vanderbilt travelled to promote her studio’s products, while raising Anderson and Carter.
Her life fed the imagination of writer Truman Capote, who used Vanderbilt as a model for Holly Golightly, the hedonistic heroine of his 1958 novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Vanderbilt ended her friendship with Capote after he portrayed her as a vacuous socialite who fails to recognise a former husband in La Cote Basque, a 1975 short story later published as a chapter of his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers.
To later generations, Vanderbilt was best known for putting her name on a slew of mass-marketed merchandise – linens, stemware, perfumes and, most notably, a line of tightfitting designer jeans – that launched celebrity branding in fashion and other everyday wares.
A February 1981 photo of fashion designers Halston, Bob Mackie, Gloria Vanderbilt and Geoffrey Beene on the ‘Love Boat’ set at Warner Brothers Studio in Los Angeles. Photo: AP
She was fond of noting that she earned far more making jeans than her great-great-grandfather and founder of the family fortune had left behind.
She later lost millions in a swindle masterminded by two trusted advisers – her psychiatrist and her lawyer. But her name remained a potent marketing ploy, revived in the early 2000s by companies that hoped the glamorous Vanderbilt brand would sell everything from bath towels to watches.
Vanderbilt wrote four volumes of memoirs as well as two novels. In 2016 she made a documentary film about her life, Nothing Left Unsaid, with her son Anderson. The pair also published a collection of their correspondence, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, the same year.