Anderson Cooper Just Released Never-Before-Seen Footage From His Mother Gloria Vanderbilt's 1956 Wedding to Sidney Lumet

Before her passing in 2019, Gloria Vanderbilt was best known for her work as a designer and her status as a socialite, but her four marriages were also widely discussed. In 1941, she married Pat DiCicco in a California ceremony. At the time, Vanderbilt, who was 17 years old, was famous for being the subject of a contentious custody battle between her mother and her aunt. She later proclaimed that this legal fight was what propelled her to search for love. However, just four years later, the couple split due to DiCicco’s physical abuse. They finalized their divorce in 1945. That same year, Vanderbilt married Leopold Stokowski, the famous conductor, who was 62 years old at the time of their wedding. The socialite reportedly knew Stokowski for just a week before agreeing to tie the knot with him. That marriage also ended in divorce; the two called it quits in 1955. A year later, she married Sidney Lumet, a film director. Recently, her son, Anderson Cooper, discovered never-before-seen footage of that wedding day. 

Cooper—who is Vanderbilt’s son from her fourth marriage to Wyatt Cooper—still updates his mother’s Instagram account with moments from her life. One such memory includes that 1956 wedding day to Lumet. “I found an old reel of film in a box my mom had stored away,” the broadcaster wrote in the caption. “It’s from 1956. Her wedding day to the great and kind Sidney Lumet.” In the footage, Vanderbilt spins around in her dress, an ivory French linen gown from the 1830s, with a smile on her face. Rather than keeping her hair down, she put it up, adding a variety of orchids to the top of her updo for a whimsical touch. The video then cuts to the swarm of photographers looking on as the designer and director pose for pictures in front of their wedding cake, a two-tier confection with a dramatic topper. Vanderbilt also holds a small bouquet of flowers in her hand. 

Vanderbilt and Lumet had no children together. Even though they ultimately divorced in 1963, they reportedly remained good friends. The designer married for the final time in 1964, tying the knot with Wyatt Cooper, a writer and magazine editor. Cooper died in 1978, and after that point, the socialite never remarried. However, even though she never headed to the altar again, there’s no doubt that she had a few romances in her later years. In a 2004 interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, Vanderbilt disclosed that she had a new boyfriend who was based in Chicago. In that conversation, she said she was confident in her ability to always find a partner: "Because I know I will. Because you attract what you want. Your energy will attract it. And the phone can ring and your whole life can change in a blink."