360°

Background:

“I've always loved reporting from the field most of all. There's something about doing live TV and being there as it happens that's always appealed to me. I think there's great value to bearing witness to these events as they're actually happening.” Anderson Cooper

American Emmy award-wining journalist, bestselling author and TV personality Anderson Cooper is best known as the anchor and host of “Anderson Cooper 360°” on CNN. Starting out checking facts for Channel One, the former fashion model for Calvin Klein, Macy's and Ralph Lauren went on to serve as chief international correspondent for the network and then joined ABC news as a correspondent. In 1999, Copper was recruited to anchor the live, interactive, overnight news and interview program, “World News Now,” and from 2001 to 2002, he was the host of the reality program “The Mole.” He also supplied reports for “20/20” and “20/20 Downtown” and became a fill-in co-host on “Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.”

Apart from his work on “Anderson Cooper 360°,” Cooper, who was named “The Anchorperson of the Future” by the president of CNN's U.S. operations, Jonathan Klein, also hosted the documentary “Planet in Peril” (2007) and its installment, “Planet in Peril: Battle Lines” (2008) on CNN. Since 2007, he has been a host on “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute.”

In the world of journalism since the early 1990s, Cooper has received several awards for his work. He won Emmy Awards for his involvement on the ABC coverage of Princess Diana's funeral and for his report on the famine in Niger in 2005. He jointly took home a 2005 International Documentary Association Award for his work in “CNN Presents” and won a GLAAD Media Award in the category of Outstanding TV Journalism for his “20/20 Downtown” report on high school athlete Corey Johnson. Cooper also picked up a Silver Plaque from the Chicago International Film Festival for his report from Sarajevo on the Bosnian civil war, a Bronze Award from the National Educational Film and Video Festival for coverage on political Islam, and a Bronze Telly for his report on famine in Somalia.

Son of writer Wyatt Emory Cooper, Cooper followed in the footsteps of his father with the release of the bestselling memoir “Dispatches from the Edge” in 2006. He has also written a monthly column for Details magazine.

Cooper was named one of People magazine's “Sexiest Men Alive of 2005” and ranked No. 3 on the 2004 Playgirl Magazine List of “Sexiest Newscasters,” under MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity. In May 2007, Out Magazine voted Cooper one of “The Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America” (No. 2).

As for his personal life, Cooper has never married and has been introverted about his relationships.

Dyslexic

Childhood and Family:

The younger son of author/screenwriter Wyatt Emory Cooper and actress/fashion designer/railroad heiress Gloria Vanderbil, Anderson Hays Cooper was born on June 3, 1967, in New York City, New York. His father, who suffered a series of heart attacks, passed away on January 5, 1978, while undergoing open-heart surgery. The death deeply impacted the 10-year-old Andy. Ten years later, in 1988, he experienced another great loss when older brother Carter Vanderbilt Cooper (born on January 27, 1965) committed suicide by leaping from the 14th-floor patio of Vanderbilt's New York City penthouse apartment. This is said to have inspired Andy to start a career in journalism.

Dyslexic as a child, Andy entered The Dalton School, an Ivy League prep school in New York City, and graduated in 1985. He then attended Yale University in New Haven, CT., and earned a BA in Political Science and International Relations in 1989. He later spent a year studying Vietnamese at the University of Hanoi. While at Yale, Andy worked as an intern at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Andy has two older half brothers, Leopold Stanislaus Stokowski (born in 1950) and Christopher Stokowski (born in 1952), from his mother's previous marriage to conductor Leopold Stokowski.

Dispatches from the Edge

Career:

Anderson Cooper was exposed to the entertainment industry at an early age. He posed for Harper's Bazaar under the direction of photographer Diane Arbus when he was a still a baby and appeared alongside her mother on “The Tonight Show” when he was 3 years old. From age 10 to 13, the attractive boy modeled with Ford Models for Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Macy's. Cooper, however, did not decide to pursue a journalism career until after graduating from Yale. He neglected his intern position at the Central Intelligence Agency and took a job as a fact’s checker for Channel One. Within a few months, Cooper had grown bored with his work and turned his attention toward becoming a reporter. He then moved to Burma, in which he filmed his own reports about the student movement against the Burmese government. The news was ultimately bought by Channel One and he eventually became the network's chief international correspondent.

Cooper took a hiatus from reporting and lived in Vietnam for a year, during which time he entered the University of Hanoi. He then returned to making reports from hot spots and various war-torn locations around the world, including Bosnia, Somalia, Iran, Israel, and Rwanda. In 1995, he moved back to New York and began his tenure with ABC.

Cooper made his debut as a correspondent for ABC News in 1995 and had the opportunity to work for the current affairs programs “20/20” and “20/20 Downtown.” By 1999, he had advanced as the co-anchor of the “World News Now” program. He remained with the show until 2000 when the exhausted Cooper entered the world of reality series with ABC's “The Mole.” He appeared as a host in 22 episodes during its first two seasons from 2001 to 2002.

“My last year at ABC, I was working overnights anchoring this newscast then during the day at ‘20/20.’ So I was sleeping in two or four hour shifts and 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.” Anderson Copper

Back to news broadcasting, Cooper joined CNN in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, and assumed his first position with the network as a co-anchor on “American Morning,” opposite Paula Zahn. He quickly rose to the position of CNN's weekend prime time anchor, and since 2002, he has hosted the New Year's Eve special for CNN, which was broadcasted from Times Square.

In 2003, Cooper was named an anchor of “Anderson Cooper 360°,” an hour-long weeknight news program on CNN. As the show's anchor, Cooper covered a number of events in 2005, among them the damage of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka, the elections in Iraq, the Cedar Revolution in Beirut, Lebanon, the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, and the Niger famine from Maradi. However, it was his live coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (also 2005) that helped boost his profile and made Cooper a media star. Lured by the success, in November 2005, “Anderson Cooper 360°” was reformatted and changed to a two-hour program broadcasting between 10 p.m. and midnight (EST). In 2006, the show received two GLAAD Media nominations in the category of Outstanding TV Journalism - News Segment for the segments “School Outing” and “Secret Sex Lives.”

Capitalizing on his success, Copper released an autobiography called “Dispatches from the Edge” on May 23, 2006. Detailing his life as a journalist and human being in a variety of disaster regions and war zones, the book became a chart topper on the New York Times bestseller list in June 2006. Still that year, CBS stated that the prominent journalist would become a contributor to the network's award-winning newsmagazine show, “60 Minutes.”

Opening 2007, Cooper made headlines when he signed a multi-year contract with CNN which doubled his annual salary from $2 million to a reported $4 million. Later, in October, he teamed up with Sanjay Gupta and Jeff Corwin of Animal Planet to host “Planet in Peril,” a four-hour documentary on CNN where the three report on global issues from 13 different countries around the world. He was reunited with Gupta and began his partnership with National Geographic Explorer's Lisa Ling for the 2008 sequel “Planet in Peril: Battle Lines.” Cooper has also hosted “CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute” in 2007 and 2008.

Cooper returned to ABC when he was recruited as a substitute co-host for Regis Philbin for the morning show “Live with Regis and Kathie Lee” when Philbin underwent triple bypass heart surgery in 2007. He went on to appear in several more episodes during the 2008 season.

Awards:

• Emmy: Outstanding Live Coverage of a Breaking News Story - Long Form for his report on famine in Niger, 2006

• International Documentary Association (IDA): IDA Award, Continuing Series, “CNN Presents,” 2005

• GLAAD Media: Outstanding TV Journalism for High School Hero, for his 20/20 Downtown report on high school athlete Corey Johnson, 2001

• Chicago International Film Festival: Silver Plaque, for his report from Sarajevo on the Bosnian civil war

• Bronze Telly: for his coverage of famine in Somalia

• National Educational Film and Video Festival: Bronze Award, for a report on political Islam

• Emmy: for his contribution to ABC's coverage of Princess Diana's funeral