Editing Anderson Cooper (section)

==Early life and education==
Cooper was born in [[Manhattan]], New York City, the younger son of writer [[Wyatt Emory Cooper]] and artist [[Gloria Vanderbilt]]. His maternal grandparents were millionaire equestrian [[Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt]] of the [[Vanderbilt family]] and socialite [[Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt]], and Reginald's patrilineal great-grandfather was business magnate [[Cornelius Vanderbilt]], who founded the prominent Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Whitaker|first=Barbara|date=July 27, 1988|title=Simple Service for Vanderbilt's Son|page=4; Section: News|work=Newsday}}</ref> He has two older half-brothers, Leopold Stanislaus "Stan" Stokowski (b. 1950) and Christopher Stokowski (b. 1952), from Gloria's ten-year marriage to conductor [[Leopold Stokowski]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Hubbard|first=Kim|date=May 1996|title=Living with Loss|work=People|url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20141166,00.html|url-status=live|access-date=December 15, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160802103055/http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20141166,00.html|archive-date=August 2, 2016}}</ref> In 2014, Cooper appeared in [[Henry Louis Gates Jr.]]'s ''[[Finding Your Roots]]'', where he learned of an ancestor, Burwell Boykin, who was a slave owner from the southern United States.<ref>{{Cite web|date=September 22, 2014|title=PBS|url=http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/television/2014/09/22/gates-pbs-genealogy-vance-stephen-king/16073071/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006095754/http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/television/2014/09/22/gates-pbs-genealogy-vance-stephen-king/16073071/|archive-date=October 6, 2014|access-date=October 9, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Desmond-Harris|first=Jenée|date=February 6, 2015|title=Anderson Cooper was pretty delighted to find out a slave killed his ancestor with a farm hoe|url=https://www.vox.com/2014/12/12/7385217/anderson-cooper-slave-ancestor|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160712132729/http://www.vox.com/2014/12/12/7385217/anderson-cooper-slave-ancestor|archive-date=July 12, 2016|access-date=July 10, 2016|website=[[Vox (website)|Vox]]}}</ref>

Cooper's media experience began early. As a baby, he was photographed by [[Diane Arbus]] for ''[[Harper's Bazaar]]''.<ref name="artsjournal">{{Cite web|last=Green|first=Tyler|date=March 14, 2005|title=MODERN ART NOTES: Name That Baby|url=http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20050301.shtml#97980|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926235343/http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20050301.shtml#97980|archive-date=September 26, 2007|access-date=June 30, 2007|work=ArtsJournal}}</ref><ref name="arbus">[[Patricia Bosworth]], "Diane Arbus: A Biography", NY: W.W. Norton, 1984</ref> At the age of three, Cooper was a guest on ''[[The Tonight Show]]'' on September 17, 1970, appearing with his mother.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}} At the age of nine, he appeared on ''[[To Tell the Truth]]'' as an impostor. From age 10 to 13, Cooper modeled with [[Ford Models]] for [[Ralph Lauren]], [[Calvin Klein]] and [[Macy's]].<ref name="Van Meter">[http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/14301/ Van Meter, Jonathan, "Unanchored", ''New York''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170622041739/http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/14301/|date=June 22, 2017}}, September 19, 2005 (Retrieved on September 27, 2006).</ref>

Wyatt experienced a series of heart attacks while undergoing open-heart surgery, and died January 5, 1978, at the age of 50. Cooper considers his father's book ''Families'' to be "sort of a guide on... how he would have wanted me to live my life and the choices he would have wanted me to make. And so I feel very connected to him."<ref name="Van Meter" />

When Cooper was 21, his older brother, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, died by suicide on July 22, 1988, at age 23, by jumping from the 14th-floor terrace of Vanderbilt's New York City penthouse apartment. Gloria Vanderbilt later wrote about her son's death in the book ''A Mother's Story'', in which she expressed her belief that the suicide was caused by a [[psychotic episode]] induced by an [[allergy]] to the anti-[[asthma]] [[prescription drug]] [[salbutamol]]. Carter's suicide sparked Anderson's interest in journalism:<ref name="Van Meter" />
{{Blockquote|text=Loss is a theme that I think a lot about, and it's something in my work that I dwell on. I think when you experience any kind of loss, especially the kind I did, you have questions about survival: Why do some people thrive in situations that others can't tolerate? Would I be able to survive and get on in the world on my own?}}

Cooper attended the [[Dalton School]], a private co-educational day school on the [[Upper East Side]] of [[Manhattan]]. At age 17, after graduating from Dalton a semester early, Cooper traveled around Africa for several months on a "survival trip". He contracted [[malaria]] on the trip and was hospitalized in [[Kenya]]. Describing the experience, Cooper wrote "Africa was a place to forget and be forgotten in."<ref name="Van Meter" /><ref name="Bronson">{{Cite magazine|last=Bronson|first=Po|date=September 4, 2013|title=Anderson Cooper Profile: His Private War|url=https://www.mensjournal.com/features/anderson-coopers-private-war-20130904/|access-date=June 17, 2021|magazine=Men's Journal}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Bronson|first=Po|date=February 12, 2007|title=Anderson Cooper's Private War|url=http://www.pobronson.com/blog/2007/02/anderson-coopers-private-war.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081017080648/http://www.pobronson.com/blog/2007/02/anderson-coopers-private-war.html|archive-date=October 17, 2008|access-date=July 7, 2012|work=Po Bronson blog}}</ref> Cooper attended [[Yale University]], where he resided in [[Trumbull College]] and was a [[coxswain]] on the [[lightweight rowing]] team. He was inducted into the [[Manuscript Society]] and majored in [[political science]], graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1989.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Palka|first=Mary Kelli|date=October 21, 2007|title=Anderson Cooper: He runs to where others are running from|work=Florida Times-Union|publisher=jacksonville.com|url=http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102107/met_210429102.shtml|url-status=dead|access-date=July 13, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120730103541/http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102107/met_210429102.shtml|archive-date=July 30, 2012}}</ref>