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Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper was a respected TV news journalist who was best known for hosting a nightly news program on CNN, "Anderson Cooper 360" (CNN, 2003- ), which covered a wide-range of topics relating to the day's most newsworthy events. Born and raised in New York City, Cooper was practically born into the public spotlight. His mother was the camera-loving heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, who would often take young Anderson with her whenever she made public appearances. When he was 3 years-old in 1970, Cooper made his first appearance on "The Tonight Show" (NBC, 1954- ), alongside his mother, and from the ages of 10 to 13 Cooper worked as a child model for companies like Calvin Klein and Macy's. When it came time to enter college, Cooper enrolled at Yale. It was there that he studied political science. After earning his bachelor's degree in 1989, Cooper, who had always considered himself a "news junkie," tried to get in on the ground floor at a major news organization. He took an entry level job answering phones at ABC but quickly found the job to be a dead end. Cooper then left ABC and took a job as a fact checker for the youth-oriented news agency Channel One. After a short time working at Channel One, it dawned on Cooper that he could shoot news segments on his own and sell them to the company. With that proactive mindset, he began traveling the world and covering some of the most important news events of the day, including the genocide in Rwanda. Cooper became such a fixture on Channel One that it was only a matter of time before a broadcast news organization came calling. He was hired as a news correspondent by ABC in 1995 and worked at the company for the next five years. By 2000, however, Cooper felt burned out and decided to take his career in a different direction. He began hosting the reality TV game show "The Mole" (ABC, 2001-08), and kept the job for two season. Then the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks happened, and Cooper felt compelled to return to journalism. He was hired by CNN in 2001 and by 2003 was hosting the nightly news program "Anderson Cooper 360." Cooper stayed with CNN throughout the 2000s and 2010s, where he covered some of the most important news stories of the day, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Donald Trump's shocking upset during the 2016 presidential election. In addition to his work with CNN, in 2007 Cooper also began working as a correspondent for "60 Minutes" (CBS, 1968- ), where his segments covered everything from celebrity profiles to long-form investigative journalism.