Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American journalist, author, and television personality. As of 2011 he is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories. Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career history 2.1 Channel One 2.2 ABC 2.3 CNN 2.4 Syndicated talk show 2.5 CBS 2.6 Broadway 3 Writings 4 Personal life 5 Awards 6 Career timeline 7 References 8 External links Early life and education Anderson Hays Cooper was born on June 3, 1967,[1] the younger son of the writer Wyatt Emory Cooper and the artist, designer, writer, and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, and is a great-great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt of the prominent Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune.[2] Cooper's media experience began early. As a baby, he was photographed by Diane Arbus for Harper's Ba! zaar.[3][4] At the age of 3 Cooper was a guest on The Tonight Show on September 17, 1970, appearing with his mother.[5] At the age of 9, he appeared on To Tell the Truth as an impostor.[citation needed] From age 10 to 13 Cooper modeled with Ford Models for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Macy's.[6] Cooper's father suffered 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."[6] During the second semester of his senior year at the Dalton School at age 17, Cooper went to southern Africa in a "13-ton British Army truck" during which time he contracted malaria and required hospitalization in Kenya. Describing the experience, Cooper wrote "Africa was a place to forget and be forgotten in."[6][7] Cooper graduated fr! om the Dalton School in 1985. He went on to attend Yale Univer! sity, wh ere he resided in Trumbull College, and claimed membership in the Manuscript Society. He studied both political science and international relations and graduated in 1989.[8] Cooper's older brother, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, committed 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 expresses her belief that the suicide was caused by a psychotic episode induced by an allergy to the anti-asthma prescription drug salbutamol. Anderson cites Carter's suicide for sparking his interest in journalism. "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 wo! rld on my own?"[6] During college, he spent two summers as an intern at the Central Intelligence Agency. Although he technically has no formal journalistic education, he opted to pursue a career in journalism rather than stay with the agency after school,[9] having been a self-proclaimed "news junkie" since he was "in utero."[10] After his first correspondence work in the early 1990s, he took a break from reporting and lived in Vietnam for a year, during which time he studied the Vietnamese language at the University of Hanoi.[11] Career history Channel One Anderson Cooper at Qualcomm Stadium during the California wildfires of October 2007 After Cooper graduated from Yale University, he tried to gain entry-level employment with ABC answering telephones, but was unsuccessful. Finding it hard to get his foot in the door of on-air reporting, Cooper decided to enlist the help of a friend in making a fake press pass. At the time, Cooper was working as a fact checker for the smal! l news agency Channel One, which produces a youth-oriented new! s progra m that is broadcast to many junior high and high schools in the United States.[12] Cooper then entered Myanmar on his own with his forged press pass and met with students fighting the Burmese government.[10] He was ultimately able to sell his home-made news segments to Channel One. After reporting from Burma, Cooper lived in Vietnam for a year to study the Vietnamese language at the University of Hanoi. Persuading Channel One to allow him to bring a Hi-8 camera with him, Anderson soon began filming and assembling reports of Vietnamese life and culture that aired on Channel One. He later returned to filming stories from a variety of war-torn regions around the globe, including Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda. On assignment for several years Cooper had very slowly become desensitized to the violence he was witnessing around him; the horrors of the Rwandan Genocide became trivial: "I would see a dozen bodies and think, you know, it's a dozen, it's not so bad."[7] One particular inc! ident, however, snapped him out of it: On the side of the road [Cooper] came across five bodies that had been in the sun for several days. The skin of a woman's hand was peeling off like a glove. Revealing macabre fascination, Cooper whipped out his disposable camera and took a closeup photograph for his personal album. As he did, someone took a photo of him. Later that person showed Cooper the photo, saying, "You need to take a look at what you were doing." "And that's when I realized I've got to stop, [...] I've got to report on some state fairs or a beauty pageant or something, to just, like, remind myself of some perspective."[7] ABC In 1995, Cooper became a correspondent for ABC News, eventually rising to the position of co-anchor on its overnight World News Now program on September 21, 1999. In 2000 he switched career paths, taking a job as the host of ABC's reality show The Mole: My last year at ABC, I was working overnights anchoring this newscast, then during the d! ay at 20/20. So I was sleeping in two- or four-hour shifts, an! d I was really tired and wanted a change. I wanted to clear my head and get out of news a little bit, and I was interested in reality TV — and it was interesting.[10] Cooper was also a fill-in co-host for Regis Philbin for the TV talk show Live with Regis and Kelly in 2007 when Philbin underwent triple-bypass heart surgery.[13] CNN Cooper left The Mole after its second season to return to broadcast news in 2001 at CNN, commenting: "Two seasons was enough, and 9/11 happened, and I thought I needed to be getting back to news."[10] His first position at CNN was to anchor alongside Paula Zahn on American Morning. In 2002 he became CNN's weekend prime-time anchor. Since 2002, he has hosted CNN's New Year's Eve special from Times Square. On September 8, 2003, he was made anchor of Anderson Cooper 360°. Describing his philosophy as an anchor, Cooper has said: I think the notion of traditional anchor is fading away, the all-knowing, all-seeing person who speaks from on high. I don't! think the audience really buys that anymore. As a viewer, I know I don't buy it. I think you have to be yourself, and you have to be real and you have to admit what you don't know, and talk about what you do know, and talk about what you don't know as long as you say you don't know it. I tend to relate more to people on television who are just themselves, for good or for bad, than I do to someone who I believe is putting on some sort of persona. The anchorman on The Simpsons is a reasonable facsimile of some anchors who have that problem.[10] Cooper covered a number of important stories in 2005, including the tsunami damage in Sri Lanka; the Cedar Revolution in Beirut, Lebanon; the death of Pope John Paul II; and the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. Cooper marching on January 11, 2007, in New Orleans against violence During CNN coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he confronted Sen. Mary Landrieu, Sen. Trent Lott, and the Rev. Jesse Jac! kson about their perception of the government response. As Coo! per said later in an interview with New York magazine, "Yeah, I would prefer not to be emotional and I would prefer not to get upset, but it's hard not to when you're surrounded by brave people who are suffering and in need."[6] As Broadcasting & Cable magazine noted, "In its aftermath, Hurricane Katrina served to usher in a new breed of emo-journalism, skyrocketing CNN's Anderson Cooper to superstardom as CNN's golden boy and a darling of the media circles because of his impassioned coverage of the storm."[14] In August 2005, he covered the Niger famine from Maradi. In September 2005 the format of CNN's NewsNight was changed from 60 to 120 minutes to cover the unusually violent hurricane season. To help distribute some of the increased workload, Cooper was temporarily added as co-anchor to Aaron Brown. This arrangement was reported to have been made permanent the same month by the president of CNN's U.S. operations, Jonathan Klein, who has called Cooper "the anchorperso! n of the future." [15] Following the addition of Cooper, the ratings for NewsNight increased significantly; Klein remarked that "[Cooper's] name has been on the tip of everyone's tongue."[16] To further capitalize on this, Klein announced a major programming shakeup on November 2, 2005. Cooper's 360° program would be expanded to 2 hours and shifted into the 10 p.m. ET slot formerly held by NewsNight, with the third hour of Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room filling in Cooper's former 7 p.m. ET slot. With "no options" left for him to host shows, Aaron Brown left CNN, ostensibly having "mutually agreed" with Jonathan Klein on the matter.[17] In early 2007 Cooper signed a multi-year deal with CNN, which would allow him to continue as a contributor to 60 Minutes as well as doubling his salary from $2 million annually to a reported
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Before signing off each night, Anderson Cooper ! conclude s AC360 with a segment called the "Ridiculist," during which he comments on some trivial bit of news or pop culture. Read the rest
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Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Read the rest
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Anderson Cooper is heading to daytime in a new talk show, premierin! g this fall on a local station in your area. Read the rest
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Get short, timely messages from Anderson Cooper. Twitter is a rich source of instantly updated information. It's easy to stay updated on an incredibly wide variety of Read the rest
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Big News on Anderson Cooper. Includes blogs, news, and community conversations about Anderson Cooper Read the rest
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Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American journalist, author, and television personality. As of 2011 he is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Read the rest
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Anderson Cooper anchors Anderson Cooper 360°, a nightly newscast committed to going beyond the headlines to tell stories in-depth and from multiple points of view, airs Read the rest
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Discovered via TotallyLooksLike.com. Look-alike by mezzafredda. "This actually does look like me." —Anderson Cooper. What do you think, does this cat "totally Read the rest!
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Anderson Cooper and his CNN news crew claim they were punched, kicked and shoved by a violent mob of pro-Mubarak supporters in Cairo early this morning Read the rest