Fashion designer, and painter, Gloria Vanderbilt has died at the age of 95, as her son who is a famous TV broadcaster with CNN, Anderson Cooper on Monday announced her passing.
Anderson Cooper revealed his mother had been hospitalized recently with severe stomach cancer that had metastasized but did not say if that was the cause of her death, as he released a statement on the sad news. The statement he released a few hours ago reads:
“Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman, who loved life, and lived it on her own terms,”
“She was a painter, a writer, and designer but also a remarkable mother, wife, and friend. 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.”
He added, “As a teenager, she tried to avoid the spotlight, but reporters and cameramen followed her everywhere. She was determined to make something of her life, determined to make a name for herself, and find the love she so desperately needed.”
Vanderbilt was born in 1924 and was the only child of railroad magnate Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt. She was thrust into the spotlight at an early age after her father’s passing when she was just 18 months old. She became the subject of a highly-publicized custody battle between her mother and her aunt Gertrude.
In the 1970s, Vanderbilt launched her signature line of designer jeans and would later move on to dresses, perfumes, and accessories.
In 2016, she and Cooper, her son with her fourth husband, Wyatt Emory Cooper, wrote a book about their relationship, “The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son On Life, Love, and Loss.”
The book also led to a two-hour documentary that aired on HBO that year.