Anderson Cooper

• Born: June 3, 1967
• Place of Birth: New York City, NY

As CNN’s prime-time news anchor, host of Anderson Cooper 360°, and a frequent field reporter, Anderson Cooper has covered major events such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

After a successful start with ABC News in the later 1990s, Anderson Cooper’s budding career as a reporter and news anchor was briefly sidetracked in 2001, when he hosted ABC’s reality game show The Mole. After two seasons, he returned to CNN to cohost American Morning with Paula Zahn. As his popularity grew, especially among young people who related to his youthful demeanor, CNN hired him to anchor their prime-time weekend news shows. On September 8, 2003, CNN premiered his hour-long prime-time news show, Anderson Cooper 360°, an opportunity for Cooper to offer in-depth coverage of select news topics. He also began coanchoring NewsNightwith Aaron Brown. In November 2005, CNN replaced NewsNightwith Anderson Cooper 360° and doubled the time slot. The show became known for presenting multiple viewpoints on controversial issues, including gay and lesbian parenting, bullying in schools, and stem cell research. In 2006, he won an Emmy Award for the episode “Starving in Plain Sight,” and was nominated for “The Children: Part One and Part Two.” In 2006, Cooper was hired as a contributor for CBS’s 60 Minutes. During the following year, he also began cohosting CNN’s Planet in Peril and CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute.

Cooper’s New York Times best-selling memoir, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival (2005), recounts his experiences being on the front line as a journalist in Iraq, Niger, Sri Lanka, and New Orleans, while connecting the events to his personal life. The work also discusses the suicide of Anderson’s older brother, his upbringing, and his famous mother, artist and fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt.

In September 2011, the syndication arm of Warner Bros., Telepictures, began airing a new talk show starring Cooper that was initially simply titled Anderson. Though there were concerns that Cooper would have difficulty adjusting to the more lighthearted style of a talk show, especially since he was simultaneously continuing in his position as anchor on CNN, it was also hoped that his reputation would attract a large audience. However, following low ratings in its first season, the show was reworked into a live format and given the new title Anderson Live in an attempt to draw in more viewers. Ultimately, the show was canceled by 2012 and had its last airings in the summer of 2013.

Cooper continued to explore his relationship with his mother through a documentary that premiered on HBO in early 2016 titled Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper. The film was accompanied by the joint memoir The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love and Loss (2016). Along with ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz, Cooper also moderated the second debate of one of the most controversial presidential races in United States' history later that year. In reviews of the debate after its airing, critics largely praised Raddatz and Cooper's performance as moderators overseeing the often heated debate between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, citing their ability to keep the candidates on point and keep the audience from interjecting.

In July 2017, the social media site Facebook funded a new CNN program featuring Cooper, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, for its video-on-demand service Facebook Watch. The program ran new episodes on Facebook Watch every weekday until 2019, when CNN pulled Anderson Cooper Full Circle from Facebook in order to show it on its own digital platform.

Impact

Often appearing in his signature black t-shirt or a designer suit, Anderson Cooper has become one of the world’s most-recognized television personalities for his provocative coverage of prominent social issues and events, as well as his advocacy for environmental causes. Although he has kept his private life separate from his life as a public figure, Cooper publicly confirmed in July 2012 that he is gay. In April 2020, amidst continued reporting of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, he announced live on CNN that he had some happier news to share in that his son, Wyatt, had just been born via surrogacy. A second son, Sebastian Luke, was born via the same manner in 2022. Cooper has received numerous rewards for his work as a journalist, including a Peabody Award and several Emmy Awards.

Bibliography

Cooper, Anderson. Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival. HarperCollins, 2006.

Cooper, Anderson. "An Interview with Anderson Cooper." Interview by Brad Goldfarb. Interview, Oct. 2004, pp. 122–29.

George, Lianne. “Anderson Cooper Feels Your Pain.” Maclean’s, 5 June 2006, pp. 66–68.

Grynbaum, Michael M. "Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper Steered Debate with Sharp Questions." The New York Times, 10 Oct. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/us/politics/anderson-cooper-martha-raddatz.html. Accessed 23 May 2024.

Johnson, Rebecca. "Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper Find Common Ground in Nothing Left Unsaid." Vogue, 20 Feb. 2016, www.vogue.com/article/anderson-cooper-gloria-vanderbilt-documentary-nothing-left-unsaid-hbo. Accessed 23 May 2024.

McLean, Rob. "CNN’s Anderson Cooper Announces Birth of Second Son." CNN, 11 Feb. 2022, www.cnn.com/2022/02/11/media/anderson-cooper-second-baby-sebastian-born/index.html. Accessed 23 May 2024.

Stelter, Brian. "Anderson Cooper Announces the Birth of His Son Wyatt: 'Our Family Continues.'" CNN, 1 May 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/media/anderson-cooper-father/index.html. Accessed 7 May 2020.