Fashion designer, artist, actress, author, and socialite, Gloria Vanderbilt lived an extraordinary life.
According to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, one of her four children, Vanderbilt passed away on Monday, June 17, at the age of 95.
“Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman who loved life and lived it on her own terms,” Cooper stated. “She was a painter, a writer, and designer but also a remarkable mother, wife, and friend.”
Cooper continued, “She was 95 years old, but ask anyone close to her, and they’d tell you: She was the youngest person they knew — the coolest and most modern.”
A young Vanderbilt is seen with her mother, also named Gloria, in 1926. Vanderbilt was born in New York in 1924 but grew up in France.Vanderbilt is accompanied by a bodyguard, nurse and chauffeur as she enters her mother’s Manhattan home for an Easter weekend visit in 1935. She was dubbed “the poor little rich girl” amid an intense custody battle.A 12-year-old Vanderbilt attends a horse show in New York in 1935.Vanderbilt, 13, accompanied on the dance floor during a dinner at a Ritz-Carlton hotel. She was determined to make a name for herself despite the constant media attention.Vanderbilt and her first husband, Hollywood agent Pat DiCicco, cutting their wedding cake in 1941. By 21, she took control of a sizable trust fund left by her father.In 1954, Vanderbilt made her stage debut in a romantic drama production called ‘The Swan.’Vanderbilt discusses her poetry on CBS Radio’s ‘The Music Room’ in the 1950s. She published ‘Love Poems’ in 1955.Vanderbilt strolled with Frank Sinatra and Frank Sinatra Jr., just after attending a stage premiere in New York.Vanderbilt goes over her script during rehearsals for ‘The Time of Your Life’ in 1955.After divorcing Stokowski in 1955, Vanderbilt married Hollywood director and producer Sidney Lumet.Vanderbilt poses for a portrait in 1964.Vanderbilt poses with one of her paintings at her private studio in New York in 1966. She began exhibiting her artwork in the late 1940s.Vanderbilt and her fourth husband, writer Wyatt Cooper, attend a party in New York in 1966. She had two sons with Cooper and two with Stokowski.Vanderbilt reclines on a couch for a Vogue magazine shoot in 1966.Vanderbilt poses with her sons Anderson Cooper, left, and Carter Cooper at their home in Southampton, New York, in 1972.Vanderbilt produced fashion and textile designs that earned her the 1969 Neiman Marcus Fashion Award, and in 1976 she started a line of ready-to-wear garments.Vanderbilt joins other fashion designers as they portray themselves in a 1981 episode of ‘The Love Boat.’Vanderbilt attends the funeral of her son Carter in 1988. The 23-year-old had been suffering from depression.Vanderbilt attends an event for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club in New York in 2009, delving back into her love for art and writing.Vanderbilt attends ‘The World of Gloria Vanderbilt,’ a gala of her work benefiting the Huntsville Museum of Art in 2012.Vanderbilt had an art exhibit at the Spoke Club in Toronto in 2014.Vanderbilt and her son Anderson attend the New York premiere of their HBO documentary ‘Nothing Left Unsaid’ in 2016. They later published a joint memoir.Vanderbilt and Cooper appear with Andy Cohen on a 2016 episode of ‘Watch What Happens Live.’Vanderbilt at her apartment in New York in 2016.
