Gloria Vanderbilt death: Fashion designer, actor and mother of Anderson Cooper dies, aged 95

The news was confirmed by her son on Monday

(Getty)

American artist, fashion and textile designer, actor and author Gloria Venderbilt has died at home at the age of 95.

Vanderbilt’s son, television host Anderson Cooper, confirmed the news in an on-air eulogy on Monday morning on CNN.

Cooper said that his mother had been diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer several weeks ago and died on Monday at her home with family and friends by her side.

“She was ready. She was ready to go,” he told viewers. ”[She died] the way she wanted.”

Born in New York in February 1924, the only child of railroad heir Reginald Vanderbilt and his second wife Gloria Morgan, Vanderbilt lived a life that piqued great media speculation from a young age – when she became the subject of one of the most publicised custody battles in US history.

Her aunt, the sculptor and founder of New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who had looked after her for two years in her New York estate, won custody, while her mother allowed visitation rights at the age of 10.

Living with her aunt, Vanderbilt developed a love of art – the beginnings of a life-long passion. During the 1950s, Vanderbilt studied at the Art Students League of New York.

Her first solo exhibit opened in 1952 at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery. In 1969, a collection of collages were exhibited at the Hammer Galleries.

She also had aspirations for the stage and attended New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse before making her Broadway debut in a revival of William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life in 1955.

Vanderbilt also enjoyed an international modelling career and, later focused her creativity on writing, releasing a collection of love poems in 1955.

Over the years, Vanderbilt was romantically linked to several high-profile men including Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Howard Hughes, and Roald Dahl.

Aged 17, the heiress married Hollywood agent Pat DiCicco and the pair divorced four years later. The aspiring artist went onto marry conductor Leopold Stokowski, with whom she had two sons, Stanley and Christopher, before their split in 1955.

A year later, the star tied the knot to director Sidney Lumet until their marriage ended in 1963.

Her fourth and final marriage was to writer Wyatt Cooper later that year. The couple had two sons, Carter and Anderson, together. Vanderbilt’s husband died during open-heart surgery in 1978. A decade later, the designer’s son, Carter, took his own life.

Through her fashion career, Vanderbilt became known for launching some of the first designer jeans, a pair of tight denim trousers with a swan logo. They were a huge success and she went on to lend her name to perfumes, homewares and shoes.

Her career was so multi-faceted that Life magazine dubbed her “a feminine Renaissance Man” in 1968.

Vanderbilt has inspired several literary works including Barbara’s Goldsmiths’ Little Gloria...Happy at Last which formed the basis of a 1982 NBC TV film of the same name that received nominations for six Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe.

She was also one of several high-society women author Truman Capote dubbed “swans” and featured in his short story, La Côte Basque 1965.

In an interview with the New York Post, Cooper revealed Capote lived in the same building as his family at UN Plaza in New York, describing him as "snide" and "not particularly nice".

In 2016, Vanderbilt and her son Cooper – who is the current primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360° – published a biography of their close relationship, The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss.

The book reached number four on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list in 2016.

“Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman who loved life and lived it on her own terms,” Cooper said during his statement.

“What an extraordinary life. What an extraordinary mum. What an incredible woman.”

On her 95th birthday, Vanderbilt posted a photograph of herself aged 16, along with the caption: “Today I turn 95. It feels like yesterday I was 16 and posing for my first picture for Harper’s Bazaar.

“There is so much I wish I had known then. I do believe that it is only once you accept that life is a tragedy that you can truly start to live.... and, oh, how I have lived! So many lives, so much work, so much love. It is incalculable.”