Anderson Cooper surprised and delighted basically the entire world when he announced that his son, Wyatt, was born in April this year. With the kind of year we've all collectively had, seeing someone as wholly good as Anderson fulfill his dream of becoming a dad was truly a bright moment in an otherwise tumultuous experience.
Since Wyatt's birth, Anderson has mostly kept the baby to himself, but every so often we get a new photo and it's just as cute and dazzling as the last. Today, Anderson shared that his "happy baby" is about to turn 5 months old, and celebrated by sharing a photo that shows there's definitely a family resemblance! Not only does Wyatt look like his dad, but there are clear echoes of his grandmother, Gloria Vanderbilt, all over his sweet face.
Gloria is known for being a member of the globally recognized Vanderbilt family of New York, and she lived a life that was genuinely riveting. Here's a look at the powerful woman she was, and the little baby who looks a whole lot like her.
First things first: Look at those cheeks! Those little fingers! Those eyes that are so curious and clearly more than a little entertained that he and his favorite person on Earth have somehow been captured inside a little box that his dad is holding up over his head! There's no denying it: Baby Wyatt is absolutely adorable.
He also definitely favors his family, including his grandmother, Gloria. You can especially see the resemblance in his nose and mouth — genetics are wild!
Gloria's life story is also pretty spectacular, and it's almost overwhelming to realize everything she lived through in her lifetime.
Gloria was born in February 1924 in New York City to Reginald Vanderbilt and Gloria Morgan. As a member of a wildly influential and wealthy family, Gloria had access to a life that many people never come close to experiencing. But that life definitely didn't come without its own hardships.
Gloria's father died of liver disease when she was only a toddler, and Gloria often spent a lot of her time with her grandmother, Laura, and her nurse, whom she called Dodo.
When she was 10 years old, Gloria found herself at the center of a heated custody battle. Her aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, fought — and won — custody of her niece. Gloria ended up spending summers with her mother.
The move turned out to be a largely positive one for Gloria. She had already been living with her aunt for two years, and Gertrude, who was a famous sculptor, introduced her young niece to art. In fact, Gertrude founded the Whitney Museum of American Art, so one can definitely assume that Gloria soon found herself steeped in everything the art world has to offer.
Gloria again made waves as a teenager when she began to venture out from under the strict wing of her aunt. She was celebrated as a young socialite, and she soon traveled to Los Angeles, where her mother lived. Gloria found herself quite popular in the city, and she married an agent, Pat DiCicco, even though she was only 17 years old.
Gloria divorced her husband in 1945, which is a bold move for a young woman at any time, but definitely during the 1940s. She married conductor Leopold Stokowski soon after her divorce, and the couple had two sons together: Stanley and Christopher. Ever one to continue to grow and learn, Gloria found herself back in New York as she enrolled in classes at the Art Students League of New York.
Gloria enjoyed an acting career in the 1950s and 1960s, and had roles on Broadway and on TV. She also began writing during the same period, and would go on to publish collections of poems and novels. Far from simply being a socialite married to powerful men, Gloria was truly a force all on her own.
She met and married her third husband in 1956, but the couple divorced a few years later. Gloria married Wyatt Cooper in 1963, and they two had sons, Anderson and Carter, together.
Anderson, of course, is now a widely celebrated journalist. While Gloria had a complicated relationship with some of her children, she and Anderson were close throughout her life. He even created a documentary about his mom in 2016, and published a collection of their letters in 2017 called The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss.
Sadly, Gloria died before she could meet baby Wyatt. But Anderson has shared that he was able to tell his mom that he planned to become a father, and it made a huge difference to him. "I was able to tell her shortly before she died that I was going to have a baby. I hadn't actually — Wyatt hadn't been created at that point. Wyatt wasn't actually a being at that point. But he was an idea in my head and I was in the process of it."
