Anderson Cooper

Emmy Award-winning journalist and author Anderson Cooper is the host of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. He is the author of Dispatches from the Edge, a memoir which chronicles his work in Sri Lanka, Africa, Iraq and post-Katrina New Orleans.

In an April 2009 on-air discussion, Cooper responded as follows to David Gergen's comment that Republicans hadn't found their voice: "It's hard to talk when you're tea-bagging."Huffington Post: Anderson Cooper: "It's Hard to Talk When You're Teabagging" (April 15, 2009) Cooper's term was evidently meant as a double-entendre between the GOP-promoted anti-tax "tea party" protests and the sex act known as "tea-bagging." Asked about the comment during a lecture at UCLA on May 17, 2009, Cooper said that he regretted it, calling it a "stupid, silly, one-line aside."TV Newser: Cooper: "Teabagging" Comment Was "Stupid, Silly" (May 19, 2009)

Cooper is the son of writer Wyatt Emory Cooper and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt. As a baby, he was photographed by Diane Arbus for Harper's Bazaar and, at the age of 3, appeared on The Tonight Show. In 1978, Cooper's father died of a heart attack. Ten years later, his older brother Carter Vanderbilt Cooper committed suicide. After graduating from Yale in the late 80s, Cooper sought employment at ABC. Unable to find work, Cooper created a fake press pass and traveled to Southeast Asia where he reported for the Channel One news agency.Mediabistro.com Interview: So What Do You Do, Anderson Cooper? (May 11, 2004)

• 1995: Joined ABC News
• 2000: Hosted The Mole
• 2001: Joined CNN as co-anchor of American Morning
• 2003: Hosted Anderson Cooper 360
• January 2005: Covered tsunami damage in Sri Lanka
• August 2005: Covered Hurricane Katrina
• January 2010: Covered Haiti Earthquake