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.

Gloria Morgan, born in Lucerne, Switzerland, was the daughter of 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. Gloria Morgan's 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 where he met Gloria's grandmother, an aristocrat whose family are said to be descendants of Spain's royal house of Navarre.

Gloria Morgan had two sisters: Consuelo Morgan and an identical twin, Thelma Morgan (1904–1970), who would become Viscountess Furness. An ambitious and well-connected mother shipped Gloria and Thelma to New York City where at 17, Gloria and Thelma were living alone in a 4th floor walk-up in Harlem and attending school at the Roman Catholic Convent of the Sacred Heart.

In 1923, Gloria Morgan became the second wife of Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, an heir to the Vanderbilt railroad and real-estate fortune. On February 20, 1924, their daughter, Gloria 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.

Following the death of her husband, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt became the administrator of a $3 million trust left to their daughter and spent the better part of the next six years living in Paris, France enjoying the good life with rich friends at the various chic resort places across Europe. Influenced by reports by 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 Gloria Morgan'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.

Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt lost custody of her daughter to her influential sister-in-law Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942). Granted only limited parental rights, a devastated Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt was unable to spend much time with her daughter and under the influence of the child's aunt, their relationship became virtually nonexistent. Not only did she lose her daughter, but the court removed her as administrator of her daughter's trust fund, whose annual investment income had been her only source of support.

Gloria and her divorced twin sister, Thelma, Viscountess Furness remained very close throughout their lives, living together for a number of years in New York City and in Los Angeles, California. Together, they wrote a memoir called "Double Exposure."

Virtually penniless, Gloria Morgan 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, Thelma, Viscountess Furness was buried next to her twin sister.

In 1978, New York City socialite Philip Van Rensselaer wrote a book about the custody trial and Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt's life titled That Vanderbilt Woman.

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