{{short description|American writer and actor (1927–1978)}} {{More citations needed|date=May 2020}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2013}} {{Use American English|date=June 2023}} {{Infobox person | image = Wyatt Emory Cooper.jpg | caption = Cooper in 1970 | name = Wyatt Emory Cooper | birth_date = {{birth date|1927|9|1}} | birth_place = [[Pleasant Grove, Mississippi]], U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1978|1|5|1927|9|1}} | death_place = [[New York City]], U.S. | burial_place = [[Vanderbilt Family Cemetery and Mausoleum]] | occupation = Author, screenwriter, and actor | education = [[University of California at Los Angeles]] | spouse = {{marriage|[[Gloria Vanderbilt]]|December 24, 1963}} | children = 2, including [[Anderson Cooper]] | yearsactive = 1950–1975 }}
'''Wyatt Emory Cooper''' (September 1, 1927 – January 5, 1978) was an American author, screenwriter, and actor. He was the fourth husband of [[Vanderbilt family]] heiress and socialite [[Gloria Vanderbilt]] and the father of [[CNN]] anchor [[Anderson Cooper]].<ref name=IBDB>[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/wyatt-cooper-102700 Wyatt Cooper] at IBDB</ref>
== Life and career == Cooper had his childhood in [[Pleasant Grove, Mississippi]], United States.<ref>{{cite book | last = Barnwell | first = Marion | title = [[A Place Called Mississippi: Collected Narratives]] | publisher = [[University Press of Mississippi]] | year = 1997 | isbn = 9781617033391|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=KpV3A6jYTVoC&pg=PA276 276]}} - [https://books.google.com/books?id=KpV3A6jYTVoC&pg=PP1 Read online] from [[Google Books]]</ref> Cooper was from a poor family with deep Southern roots, and later moved to [[New Orleans, Louisiana]], as a young child. He graduated from the [[University of California at Los Angeles]] (UCLA), where he majored in theater arts and began a career in acting.<ref name="WCObit1978"/>
In his thirties, Cooper lived in Los Angeles, attended both UCLA and [[UC Berkeley]], and worked as a screenwriter. While residing in [[West Hollywood]], then an unincorporated area of [[Los Angeles County]], Cooper lived near [[Dorothy Parker]] and her husband [[Alan Campbell (screenwriter)|Alan Campbell]]. A close friendship developed, and a year after Parker's death in 1967, Cooper published an incisive and widely read profile in ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'' magazine, titled, "Whatever You Think Dorothy Parker Was Like, She Wasn't".<ref>Cooper, Wyatt. "Whatever You Think Dorothy Parker Was Like, She Wasn't." ''Esquire''. July 1968. pp. 56–61, 110–14</ref>
His writing includes the 1962 film ''[[The Chapman Report]]'', the 1972 film ''[[The Glass House (1972 film)|The Glass House]]'', and the 1975 book ''Families: A Memoir and a Celebration''.<ref>Wyatt Cooper Dies; Screenplay Writer, The New York Times, Section B, Page 13, January 6, 1978</ref>
==Personal life== On December 24, 1963, he married heiress [[Gloria Vanderbilt]], becoming her fourth husband. The couple frequently appeared on the national "best-dressed" list.<ref name="WCObit1978"/> They had two sons: Carter Vanderbilt Cooper (1965–1988)<ref name="1988Death">{{cite news |title=Ms. Vanderbilt's Son Plunges to His Death |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/23/nyregion/ms-vanderbilt-s-son-plunges-to-his-death.html |access-date=18 June 2019 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=July 23, 1988}}</ref> and [[Anderson Hays Cooper]] (born 1967), who is an anchor for [[CNN]].<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://people.com/celebrity/how-anderson-cooper-and-gloria-vanderbilt-coped-after-carter-coopers-suicide/|first= Kathy Ehrich |last=Dowd|title=How Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt Coped After the Suicide of Their Beloved Brother and Son, Carter Cooper|magazine=People|date=March 31, 2016|access-date=March 29, 2019}}</ref>
Cooper wrote in his 1975 memoir, "It is in the family that we learn almost all we ever know of loving. In my sons' youth, their promise, their possibilities, my stake in immortality is invested." He died in Manhattan on January 5, 1978, at age 50, during open heart surgery, after having a heart attack the previous December.<ref name="WCObit1978">{{cite news |last1=Kleiman |first1=Dena |title=Wyatt Cooper Dies; Screenplay Writer |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1978/01/06/110750363.pdf |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=January 6, 1978|access-date=December 16, 2020}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Written works == *''Families: A Memoir and a Celebration'' (Harper & Row, 1975) {{ISBN|0-06-010857-6}}
== External links == * {{IMDb name|178458|Wyatt Emory Cooper}} (as Wyatt Cooper) * {{IBDB name|102700}} (as Wyatt Cooper)
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Wyatt Emory}} [[Category:20th-century American male actors]] [[Category:1927 births]] [[Category:1978 deaths]] [[Category:American male non-fiction writers]] [[Category:American male screenwriters]] [[Category:American male stage actors]] [[Category:20th-century American memoirists]] [[Category:Male actors from Mississippi]] [[Category:People from Meridian, Mississippi]] [[Category:People from Quitman, Mississippi]] [[Category:Screenwriters from Mississippi]] [[Category:Screenwriters from New York (state)]] [[Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni]] [[Category:UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television alumni]] [[Category:Vanderbilt family]] [[Category:Writers from New Orleans]] [[Category:Writers from New York City]] [[Category:20th-century American male writers]] [[Category:20th-century American screenwriters]] [[Category:Burials at the Vanderbilt Family Cemetery and Mausoleum]]