2 Vanderbilts

Phil Potempa's daily entertainment news column

OFFBEAT: Reader asks about Vanderbilt column and 'Anderson Cooper's Mom'

By Philip Potempa | Posted: Wednesday, April 4, 2012 12:00 am

I wrote a recent column about an etiquette dinner at Valparaiso University, which included some of the famed names in the world of manners and courtesies.

My mention of the late Amy Vanderbilt, who made a career of writing books about the subject of politeness, prompted a few readers to question my reference, because of some confusion with another famous Vanderbilt.

Reader Sharon Atkinson of Hammond asked: "Have you made a mistake about Amy Vanderbilt having died? Isn't she the mother of journalist Anderson Cooper, and to my knowledge, she's still quite alive?"

Thank you to the readers who took the time to email, write or call with the same concerns.

Amy Vanderbilt died at age 66 on Dec. 27, 1974, a result of multiple fractures to the skull after falling from a second-floor window in her townhouse at 438 E. 87th Street in New York City.

(Even today, there is still debate as to whether the fall was suicide or accidental, due to the medications she took for hypertension, as explained by which friends and relatives, who said she had severe dizzy spells.)

The Times readers who contacted me, have Amy Vanderbilt confused with railroad heiress-turned-fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt, who's the mother of Anderson Cooper.

Gloria, whose fourth husband was the late author Wyatt Cooper, is alive and well at age 88, and even appeared last fall on Anderson's syndicated daytime talk show "Anderson" for an interview about the death of her other son, Anderson's brother, Carter, who in July 1988 at the age of 23, fell to his death from the terrace of the family's 14th floor Manhattan apartment.

Gloria is the only child of Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, whose death in 1925 left young Gloria very wealthy and dubbed by the press as "the poor little rich girl." Her family money comes from her great grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who created a fortune from railroads and shipping.

As for Amy Vanderbilt, she always maintained she was a descendant from a brother of Cornelius Vanderbilt and therefore was not recognized as an "official descendant-member" of the Vanderbilt family of railroad notoriety.

It was Cornelius Vanderbilt, who died at age 82 in 1877 with a wealth of more than $100 million, who provided the initial gift in 1873 to found Vanderbilt University, which bears the family name.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.