Wyatt Emory Cooper

Wyatt Emory Cooper (September 1, 1927 – January 5, 1978) was an American author, screenwriter, and actor. He was the fourth husband of Vanderbilt family heiress and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt and the father of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.<ref name=IBDB>Wyatt Cooper at IBDB</ref>

Life and career

Cooper had his childhood in the small town of Pleasant Grove, Mississippi, outside of Quitman, Mississippi,<ref>Template:Cite book - Read online from Google Books</ref> the son of Rixie Jane Annie (née Anderson) and Emmet Debro Cooper.Template:Citation needed Cooper was from a poor family with deep Southern roots, and later moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, as a young child. He graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where he majored in theater arts and began a career in acting.<ref name="WCObit1978"/>

In his twenties, Cooper moved to New York City to pursue acting. When Cooper was 26, he appeared on Broadway in the cast of The Strong Are Lonely, a drama that ran for a week at the Broadhurst Theatre in the fall of 1953. Cooper also wrote stories and plays.Template:Citation needed

In his thirties, Cooper lived in Los Angeles, attended both UCLA and UC Berkeley, and worked as a screenwriter. While residing in West Hollywood, then an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, Cooper lived near Dorothy Parker and her husband Alan Campbell. A close friendship developed, and a year after Parker's death in 1967, Cooper published an incisive and widely read profile in Esquire magazine, titled, "Whatever You Think Dorothy Parker Was Like, She Wasn't".<ref>Cooper, Wyatt. "Whatever You Think Dorothy Parker Was Like, She Wasn't." Esquire. July 1968. pp. 56–61, 110–14</ref> Cooper moved to Manhattan in the early 1960s, and worked there as a magazine editor.Template:Citation needed

His writing includes the 1962 film The Chapman Report, the 1972 film The Glass House, and the 1975 book Families: A Memoir and a Celebration.<ref>Wyatt Cooper Dies; Screenplay Writer, The New York Times, Section B, Page 13, January 6, 1978</ref>

Personal life

On December 24, 1963, he married heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, becoming her fourth husband. The couple frequently appeared on the national "best-dressed" list.<ref name="WCObit1978"/> They had two sons: Carter Vanderbilt Cooper (1965–1988)<ref name="1988Death">Template:Cite news</ref> and Anderson Hays Cooper (born 1967), who is an anchor for CNN.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Cooper wrote in his 1975 memoir, "It is in the family that we learn almost all we ever know of loving. In my sons' youth, their promise, their possibilities, my stake in immortality is invested." He died in Manhattan on January 5, 1978, at age 50, during open heart surgery, after having a heart attack the previous December.<ref name="WCObit1978">Template:Cite news</ref>

Written works

• Families: A Memoir and a Celebration (Harper & Row, 1975) Template:ISBN

External links

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