Gloria Vanderbilt is many things: an heiress, a painter, a muse, a designer, a model, a writer, an entrepreneur, an actor, a socialite, a survivor, an icon. She brought the Vanderbilt name out of the Gilded Age and into the Digital Age, reinventing herself over and over along the way. Hers is a story of charisma, glamour, and heartbreaking loss, told here by Wendy Goodman, who had intimate access to Vanderbilt for this book. The illustrations include portraits of Vanderbilt and her extraordinary homes, filled with original and influential decorating ideas, by such photographic legends as Richard Avedon, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Inge Morath, Horst P. Horst, Francesco Scavullo, and Annie Leibovitz. Vanderbilt’s son, Anderson Cooper, contributes a foreword.
Praise for The World of Gloria Vanderbilt:
"Perhaps the definitive-and certainly the most visually stunning-book to capture her incredible life."
-The Huffington Post
"Goodman's book is flush with gorgeous photos and insider dish."
-Good Housekeeping
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An elegant, witty, frank, touching, and deeply personal account of the loves both great and fleeting in the life of one of America's most celebrated and fabled women.
Born to great wealth yet kept a virtual prisoner by the custody battle that raged between her proper aunt and her self-absorbed, beautiful mother, Gloria Vanderbilt grew up in a special world. Stunningly beautiful herself, yet insecure and with a touch of wildness, she set out at a very early age to find romance. And find it she did. There were love affairs with Howard Hughes, Bill Paley, and Frank Sinatra, to name a few, and one-night stands, which she writes about with delicacy and humor, including one with the young Marlon Brando. There were marriages to men as diverse as Pat De Cicco, who abused her; the legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski, who kept his innermost secrets from her; film director Sidney Lumet; and finally writer Wyatt Cooper, the love of her life.
Now, in an irresistible memoir that is at once ruthlessly forthright, supremely stylish, full of fascinating details, and deeply touching, Gloria Vanderbilt writes at last about the subject on which she has hitherto been silent: the men in her life, why she loved them, and what each affair or marriage meant to her. This is the candid and captivating account of a life that has kept gossip writers speculating for years, as well as Gloria's own intimate description of growing up, living, marrying, and loving in the glare of the limelight and becoming, despite a family as famous and wealthy as America has ever produced, not only her own person but an artist, a designer, a businesswoman, and a writer of rare distinction.
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Born to a railroad baron who died when she was still a toddler, Gloria Vanderbilt knew the comforts of family fortune but never maternal or paternal affection. In A Mother's Story, Gloria reflects on her own childhood tragedies while trying to make sense of--and learn to cope with--her son's suicide. Beautifully written and inspiring, this account of a mother's coping with a son's death will touch and sadden all those who read it.
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In 1988, Gloria Vanderbilt's 23-year-old son Carter committed suicide. As Vanderbilt looked on, Carter swung away from the terrace wall of her 14th-floor New York apartment and, in Vanderbilt's words, "He let go." In this poignant memoir, Vanderbilt reflects on her own painful history and what she describes as "the final loss, the fatal loss that stripped me bare." She thought, she says, that she could not survive the death of her son. This memoir is a testimony to her courage and her own return to life.
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