Gloria Vanderbilt.

Gloria Laura Vanderbilt was born on February 20, 1924, in New York City, the second child of railroad heir Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and his 19-year-old wife Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt. Her father died when she was 15 months old, leaving her as the heiress of a $4 million trust fund. She spent her early childhood in Europe until age 9. Then she returned to the US to become the center of a fierce custody battle between her mother and her aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who eventually gained guardianship. Young Gloria studied at the Art Students League of New York, Miss Porter’s School, the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, and the Wheeler School, developing early interests in art and acting.

Vanderbilt made her television acting debut in 1948 on the series Studio One, playing Elizabeth Alexander. She appeared on shows like Adventures in Paradise 1959, Shirley Temple’s Storybook 1958, and The Love Boat 1977, and was a frequent guest on The Mike Douglas Show and The Colgate Comedy Hour. She also studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. In the late 1970s, she launched a line of designer jeans that became a cultural phenomenon, making her a household name. The jeans were marketed with her signature and were a massive commercial success throughout the 1980s.

Vanderbilt married Pat DiCicco in 1941, a mobster linked to Lucky Luciano and implicated in Thelma Todd’s death; they divorced in 1945. Later that year, she married conductor Leopold Stokowski, with whom she had two sons: Leopold Stanislaus Stokowski born 1950 and Christopher Stokowski born 1952. After divorcing Stokowski in 1955, she married director Sidney Lumet in 1956; they divorced in 1963. In 1963, she married writer Wyatt Cooper, and they had sons Carter Vanderbilt Cooper born 1965 and Anderson Cooper born 1967. Carter died by suicide in 1988 at age 23.

Vanderbilt’s line of designer jeans in the late 1970s revolutionized fashion and made her a style icon. Her childhood custody battle was dramatized in the 1982 miniseries Little Gloria… Happy at Last, with Jennifer Dundas playing her. She inspired Noël Coward’s song Poor Little Rich Girl. She befriended photographer Gordon Parks in 1954, and her relationships with numerous celebrities added to her legend. She is remembered as a resilient heiress who created a lasting fashion empire and as the mother of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who announced her death on air.