Thursday 16 June 2016

Anderson Cooper

Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American journalist, author,
and television personality. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°. The program is normally broadcast live from a New York City studio; however, Cooper often broadcasts live on location for breaking news stories. In addition he is a major correspondent for 60 Minutes.

From September 2011 to May 2013, he also served as host of his own eponymous syndicated daytime talk show, Anderson Live.

Warner Bros. and Telepictures (both corporate siblings of CNN) announced in September 2010 that Cooper had signed an agreement to host a nationally syndicated talk show. The journalist Brian Stelter (at the time employed by The New York Times, and now by CNN), reported on Twitter that the new Warner Bros. daytime talk show would be named Anderson (now titled Anderson Live). The show premiered on September 12, 2011, and, as part of negotiations over the talk show deal, Cooper signed a new multi-year contract with CNN to continue as the host of Anderson Cooper 360°. On October 29, 2012, it was announced that Anderson Live would end at the conclusion of its second season. The show, slightly renamed after season one and revamped with a variety of co-hosts, failed to achieve the ratings distributor Warner Brothers hoped for. The final Anderson Live aired on May 20, 2013.

Cooper has two older half-brothers, Leopold Stanislaus "Stan" Stokowski (born 1950), and Christopher Stokowski (born 1952), from Gloria Vanderbilt's ten-year marriage to the conductor Leopold Stokowski.

He said to Oprah Winfrey—while promoting his book—that he had suffered from dyslexia as a child. In August 2007 he confirmed his "mild dyslexia" on The Tonight Show to Jay Leno, who also has dyslexia.

Cooper is openly gay; according to The New York Times, he is "the most prominent openly gay journalist on American television." For years, Cooper avoided discussing his private life in interviews.

On July 2, 2012, however, he gave Andrew Sullivan permission to publish an email that stated, in part:

I've begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It's become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something—something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true. ... The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.

Cooper and his boyfriend, gay bar owner Benjamin Maisani, have been dating since 2009. Cooper considered coming out to the public when same-sex marriage became legal in New York in July 2011. In 2014, the couple purchased the Rye House, a historic estate in Connecticut.

In 2014, Cooper appeared in Henry Louis Gates' Finding Your Roots, where he found out about an ancestor, Burwell Boykin, who was a slave owner from the South.

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