Happy Birthday Anderson Cooper

When I was in my introduction to Public Relations class we were given an assignment that involved picking a real person or product and creating a fake scenario that we would then have to deal with. The scenario doesn’t matter but my person was Anderson Cooper and since today is Coop’s 43^rd birthday I thought it would be fun to post my Biography portion of the project. Enjoy!

BIOGRAPHY OF ANDERSON COOPER

Early life:

Anderson Hayes Cooper was born June 3, 1967, New York City the fourth son of designer and railroad heiress Gloria Vanderbilt and her second with actor and author Wyatt Emory Cooper. Though born into wealth, the teenage Cooper worked summers as a waiter. He pursued his first job, at age 11, as a Ford model because he "wanted to...be financially independent." He attended Dalton School in Manhattan and graduated with honors from Yale in 1989 with a BA in political science.

Tragedy:

In January 1978 Wyatt Cooper, passed away during heart bypass surgery after suffering several heart attacks during the holidays in 1977. Anderson was only 10, and his older brother, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, only 12. Less than ten years later, on July 23, 1988, Carter a committed suicide jumping from the terrace of Gloria Vanderbilt's Manhattan apartment, while Vanderbilt stood mere feet away begging him to stop. The death was later believed to have been a sleepwalking incident caused by insomnia and stress from a recent breakup mixed with allergy drug, Proventil. Both deaths had a profound effect on Cooper -- personally and professionally. It has been reported that his brother's passing was what inspired him to pursue a career in journalism.

Professional life:

In 1990, Cooper Began working as a fact checker for Channel One, a news program made to air in classrooms. After working six months as a fact-checker, 22-year-old Cooper quit the job, secured a fake press ID, bought a video camera and headed on his own to Africa to cover the crisis in Somalia. Soon selling his work to Channel One, who eventually made him chief international correspondent. In 1994, he became a reporter for ABC News. At the age of 28, Cooper was their youngest correspondent. In September of 1999, Cooper became the permanent anchor of World News Now, while continuing to work as a correspondent. In need of a break, Cooper took a two year detour from news into the world of reality TV and became the host ABC's reality show, The Mole for its first two seasons.

After terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Cooper realized his true calling was in helping people tell their stories and in late 2001 was hired by CNN to work as an anchor alongside Paula Zahn on American Morning with Paula Zahn. In September 2003, Cooper took over the evening show with Aaron Brown and it was renamed Anderson Cooper 360°. Cooper gained notoriety and a huge fan base while covering Hurricane Katrina in late 2005, which subsequently led to Anderson Cooper 360 being expanded into a two hour show.