Gloria Laura Mercedes Morgan-Vanderbilt

Gloria Laura Mercedes Morgan Vanderbilt (August 23, 1904–February 13, 1965) was a socialite best known as the mother of fashion designer and artist Gloria Vanderbilt. She is also the maternal grandmother of American television journalist Anderson Cooper.

Early life

Born in Lucerne, Switzerland, Gloria Laura Mercedes Morgan was a daughter of prominent Chilean-American Laura Delphine Kilpatrick and her husband, Harry Hays Morgan, an American diplomat who served as the U.S. consul in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and in Brussels, Belgium.

Her maternal grandfather, Hugh Judson Kilpatrick (1836–1881), was a Union Army general during the American Civil War who also served as the U.S. minister to Chile. Her maternal grandmother, Luisa Kilpatrick, nee Valdivieso Araoz, was a member of a wealthy Spanish family that settled in South America (precisely in Chile) in the 17th century.

Gloria Morgan had two sisters: Consuelo Morgan and an identical twin, Thelma Morgan (1904–1970), who would become Mrs. Thomas Vail Converse and, later, Viscountess Furness. She also had a brother, Harry Hays Morgan, who became an actor.

An ambitious and well-connected mother shipped Gloria and Thelma to New York City where at 17, the twins were living alone in a fourth floor walk-up in Harlem and attending school at the Roman Catholic Convent of the Sacred Heart.

Marriage

In 1923, Morgan became the second wife of Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, an heir to the Vanderbilt railroad fortune. On February 20, 1924, their only child, Gloria Laura, was born in New York City. Reggie Vanderbilt died the following year after a lifetime of alcohol abuse, leaving an estate valued at much less than anybody, least of all his widow, had realized.

After Vanderbilt's death, scandal

Following the death of her husband, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt became the administrator of a $2.5 million trust left to their daughter, and spent the better part of the next six years living in Paris, enjoying the good life with wealthy friends at various chic resorts across Europe.

Influenced by reports from private detectives as well as family servants, members of the powerful Vanderbilt family believed that Gloria was a bad influence and neglectful of her daughter and a custody battle erupted that made national headlines in 1934. As a result of a great deal of hearsay evidence admitted at trial, the scandalous allegations of the elder Gloria's lifestyle—including a lesbian relationship with Nada, Marchioness of Milford Haven (a member of the British royal family) and an affair with a German prince who was rumored to be a fortune-hunter—led to a new standard in tabloid newspaper sensationalism.

Vanderbilt lost custody of her daughter to her influential sister-in-law Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942). Granted only limited parental rights, a devastated Vanderbilt was unable to spend much time with her daughter and under the influence of the child's aunt, their relationship became virtually nonexistent.

The court also removed Vanderbilt as administrator of her daughter's trust fund, whose annual investment income had been her only source of support.

In her later years, Gloria and her twin sister, Thelma, Viscountess Furness lived together in New York City and in Los Angeles, California. They wrote a dual memoir called "Double Exposure"."

Virtually penniless, Vanderbilt died in 1965; only a few loyal Hollywood friends such as Mary Pickford and Buddy Rogers attended her funeral. She was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Five years later, Lady Furness was buried by her side.

In 1978, a New York City socialite and writer, Philip Van Rensselaer, wrote a book about Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt titled "That Vanderbilt Woman."

Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt was portrayed by British actress Lucy Gutteridge in the 1982 television miniseries "Little Gloria ... Happy at Last".