- Was romantically linked to Howard Hughes, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Gordon Parks, Bobby Short and even Truman Capote.
- Her first husband, mobster Pat DiCicco, was a henchman for Lucky Luciano. Both men were implicated in the death of Thelma Todd.
- Vanderbilt was born to Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt (1880-1925), a railroad heir, and his second wife, Gloria Laura Mercedes Morgan (1904-1965), who was 19 years old when she gave birth. Little Gloria lived in Europe until she was 9 years old. Her great-great-great-grandfather was business magnate and family dynasty founder Cornelius Vanderbilt. She was a niece of Harry Hays Morgan and of Thelma Morgan (the mistress of the Duke of Windsor when she introduced him to her friend, Wallis Simpson). She also had a much-older half-sister, Mary Cathleen Vanderbilt (1904-1944), by her father Reginald's first marriage to Cathleen Gebhardt Neilson (1882-1927). At just 15 months old, Gloria became the heiress of a $4,000,000 dollar trust following her father's death in 1925. She later studied at the Art Students League of New York.
- A painter, stage and film actress, author, designer of fashion and housewares, she is best-known for her line of designer jeans in the late 1970s and 1980s.
- Her ancestry included English, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, and one eighth Chilean (Spanish and Indigenous). Her maternal great-grandfather, New Jersey-born Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, was a prominent military figure who was an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, and a diplomat to Chile. Her Chilean maternal great-grandmother, Luisa Valdivieso Aráoz, was a niece of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Santiago (Chile) and a reported descendant of Spain's royal house of Navarre.
- Died at her home in Manhattan on June 17, 2019, after having been diagnosed with stomach cancer 9 days earlier.
- Mother of four sons. By husband Leopold Stokowski, she gave birth to Leopold Stanislaus Stokowski (born August 22, 1950) and Christopher Stokowski (born January 31, 1952). By Wyatt Cooper, she gave birth to Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, born January 27, 1965 (committed suicide July 22, 1988) and Anderson Cooper.
- Befriended renowned photographer Gordon Parks when he was commissioned to photograph her for LIFE magazine in 1954.
- Was the center of a fierce custody battle between her mother and her mother's sister-in-law, Gertrude Vanderbilt-Whitney, who was convinced Gloria's mother wan an unfit parent. Mrs. Whitney eventually gained guardianship of the then-11 year old. The incident was the basis of the mini-series Little Gloria... Happy at Last (1982), in which Gloria was played by actress Jennifer Dundas.
- Shared her birthday with her cousin C.V. Whitney.
- Extremely fittingly, after she had passed away, her own son, Anderson Cooper (who had long been working as a news correspondent for CNN) reported her passing and paid much tribute to her on the program.
- Gloria Vanderbilt was said to have inspired Noël Coward's famous song "Poor Little Rich Girl".
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