Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt & Anderson Cooper

[Tara Ariano]

A collection of conversations between journalist Anderson Cooper and his nonagenarian mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, surveys the railroad heiress's eventful life and their family's storied history in the public eye.

 

Premieres Saturday, April 9 at 9 PM ET.

[dorcastrilling]

I loved this and will watch again.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

I loved this and will watch again.

 

Me too!  I wish they hadn't stopped at 2 hours, she had such an interesting life!  I love both her and Anderson.   

[cpcathy]

My knowledge of Gloria Vanderbilt was a) she is Anderson Cooper's mother and b) she had very popular jeans in the 70's. I didn't intend on watching this and when I got sucked into it this afternoon, was totally enthralled. Very moving.

[txhorns79]

My knowledge of Gloria Vanderbilt was a) she is Anderson Cooper's mother and b) she had very popular jeans in the 70's. I didn't intend on watching this and when I got sucked into it this afternoon, was totally enthralled. Very moving.

 

I think she's kind of fascinating.  She's been through so much drama in her life, and she's emerged fairly stable.  I was curious why she and her son are estranged.  I also thought it was interesting to see Anderson with his half brother, if only because they interacted like polite acquaintances who didn't quite remember how they knew each other.        

[RealityCowgirl]

I noticed that the older brother (Stan?) referred to Gloria as "my mother" during his interactions with Anderson. Polite acquaintances definitely seems like a fitting description. We can speculate about why that might be, based on what was share here and probably would come somewhat close. But only those family members know the real story. Fascinating.

I'm glad I watched this. What an interesting woman. What a strange set of circumstances that led her to this point.

[albaniantv]

I wish there was a bit more about the interactions between Gloria the mother and Gloria the daughter. Especially since that was probably the original rejection, perhaps followed by the second rejection by her aunt Gertrude. Maybe that information exists in books about the Vanderbilts and the custody trial and so the producer or Anderson didn't want to go over all that ground. I just find it mystifying why no one seemed to really want this adorable child and how this doomed her to flit from person to person looking desperately for love secured by stability. 

 

For me, the saddest part in the whole fascinating film was the sort of throwaway line about how Gloria Vanderbilt lost touch with her nanny. Here this woman came and went, came and went at Gloria's beck and call for decades, seemingly loved her in a motherly way, but then Gloria discards her as an adult and lets her die alone and probably in poverty. 

 

Trying not to be an armchair counselor, but the descriptions of Carter's apparent sudden onset of fears and anxiety sound possibly like reactions to medication or development of a mental health crisis. The girlfriend seemed to have more to say than the few comments we heard?

 

Wow, well done HBO --the still great Sheila Nevins always brings it home. 

[txhorns79]

I wish there was a bit more about the interactions between Gloria the mother and Gloria the daughter. Especially since that was probably the original rejection, perhaps followed by the second rejection by her aunt Gertrude. Maybe that information exists in books about the Vanderbilts and the custody trial and so the producer or Anderson didn't want to go over all that ground. I just find it mystifying why no one seemed to really want this adorable child and how this doomed her to flit from person to person looking desperately for love secured by stability.

 

That's interesting.  I got the sense that everyone actually wanted Gloria.  It just seemed like she had the bad fortune to be surrounded by people who didn't know how to properly care for her. 

[junemeatcleaver]

The Daily Mail and the NY Post both have write ups about Chris Stokowski and his estrangement from his family.  The articles are easily found by searching for the name of the documentary.

[Janc]

Trying not to be an armchair counselor, but the descriptions of Carter's apparent sudden onset of fears and anxiety sound possibly like reactions to medication or development of a mental health crisis. The girlfriend seemed to have more to say than the few comments we heard?

 

That was one of Gloria's theories as well: from this article http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/26/books/letting-go.html

 

 

Possibly the inhalant he took for his asthma - she has read the literature, and such drugs have caused psychotic states.

[meep.meep]

I guess I'm the outlier.  I thought this was really draggy and overly reverential.  Anderson Cooper's role is kind of stifling - he's neither objective journalist nor subject.  It's kind of like a home movie that doesn't really dig at the hard stuff.

 

If she was emotionally deprived by her upbringing, why did she ignore the one constant through all the custody battles:  her nanny?  Leaving her to die in poverty is horrible.  Apparently Gloria had money problems caused by a bad attorney later in life - not mentioned here.  The estranged son is glossed over, although mentioned.

[junemeatcleaver]

 

I thought this was really draggy and overly reverential.  Anderson Cooper's role is kind of stifling - he's neither objective journalist nor subject.  It's kind of like a home movie that doesn't really dig at the hard stuff.

 

Yeah if they weren't willing to dig too terribly deep, I would have rather them go into more detail about her relationship with her eldest son.  I know they're close, but I had to read that in various gossip articles about the doc because you sure couldn't tell that from watching the movie.  It would have been nice to hear more from him than the family historian going over stuff you can read about Gloria Vanderbilt on Wikipedia.

[Sarcastico]

Did anyone see the 1982 4-hour, 2-part Little Gloria...Happy at Last which aired on NBC?  It was based on the book about the custody trial by Barbara Goldsmith. It turned up on Lifetime a couple of times in the 1990s-2000s.  Jennifer Dundas as Little Gloria; Lucy Gutteridge as Big Gloria; Glynis Johns as Mrs. Morgan (Big Gloria's mother); and Angela Lansbury as Aunt Gertrude, Christopher Plummer as her father Reginald and Bette Davis as their mother.  Dodo the nanny -- Maureen Stapleton -- really comes across as the villain in the story.  She had poor little Gloria terrifed of her mother (which Gloria admits in the documentary), constantly telling her that her mother was going to kidnap her like the Lindbergh baby.  Little Gloria would scream at the mere sight of her.  And Mrs. Morgan was being bribed by Aunt Gertrude to testify against Big Gloria in the trial. 

 

I can't really remember why they were so eager to get custody.  It may have been something to do with the money.  Big Gloria got a small allowance but I seem to remember that the money was held in trust pretty tightly. Or maybe they were afraid that she'd contest the will and get her hands on the money and spend it all away.  

 

I thought this was really draggy and overly reverential.

 

Yeah, there was too much of Gloria going through her things, like a high-class hoarder. 

 

...but the descriptions of Carter's apparent sudden onset of fears and anxiety sound possibly like reactions to medication or development of a mental health crisis.

 

 

Gloria wrote an article for Vanity Fair in the late 1990s about Carter's death.  In it, she wrote that he was seeing a counselor/therapist/doctor at the time.  IIRC, this person told her that he seemed to be showing all the signs of bipolar disorder ("Manic/depressive" was the term back then.) He had been deteriorating for the past  year and seemed quite seriously ill to everyone who knew him.  At any rate, I think what Anderson said was basically true: he wasn't responsible for his actions.  I don't think he woke up that day and said, "This is the day I'm going to kill myself.  I'm going to jump out the window, with my mother right there."

 

Overlong though it was, I'm glad I saw it because I did gain some respect for Gloria, whom I always remembered as a silly, ditzy "high society" lady whose every move was covered in the NY Daily News and NY Post.  Mainly because she didn't try to explain away why she turned her back on her mother, aunt, and nanny, the three people in the world who cared most for her.  Maybe she learned as an adult how badly they had used her, no matter how much they may have loved her.  Child abuse is child abuse. 

Edited April 13, 2016 by Sarcastico

[dorcastrilling]

I remember the mini series and came away with the same impression of Dodo. I also remember reading somewhere along the way that she brought Dodo back in to her life as an adult; would love to know what eventually happened between them.

I also recall that she supported her mother financially after trying to rebuild a relationship with her but not really connecting.

Speculation: maybe becoming mother herself colored her perception of Dodo, big Gloria and Gertrude?

[txhorns79]

I guess I'm the outlier.  I thought this was really draggy and overly reverential.  Anderson Cooper's role is kind of stifling - he's neither objective journalist nor subject.  It's kind of like a home movie that doesn't really dig at the hard stuff.

 

I sort of agree.  It was interesting, but it was also essentially a vanity project.  I would have liked to seen more of Gloria's relationship with her other children (at least the one who speaks to her) and grandchildren.  I'd also like to get a better sense of Anderson's relationship with his half brother.  I realize there was a big age gap between them, but it felt like they barely have a relationship, despite sharing a mother.     

[dorcastrilling]

Little Gloria Happy at Last is on YouTube

[candall]

I was so torn about whether to watch this.  Gloria Vanderbilt has had a fascinating life, but I'm not a huge Anderson Cooper fan--and is it even possible to produce a fully-realized documentary about an individual when the subject is the interviewer's mother?

 

Sounds like many of the points were dropped before they approached uncomfortable territory and "Nothing Left Unsaid" is a pleasant, pretty fiction.

Edited April 24, 2016 by candall

[Lizzing]

While this did come off as largely a vanity piece, I did find it interesting, as I too only really knew of her as an heir of Cornelius, mother of Anderson, and a tight jean label.  The old Hollywood stuff was most interesting to me; seeing her younger years pictures, I thought: Hey, she looks a bit like Oona Chaplin (Charlie's wife, not the daughter and granddaughter).  Then, I about fell off the couch when she said she was good friends with Oona and Charlie.  OF COURSE they were!  Gloria was a old Hollywood buff (well, contemporary for her, at the time) and had loads of money to travel in the same circles.

And the other reason the vanity piece nature didn't bother me is 99% of the time, HBO docs tend to enrage me and send my blood pressure up a zillion points.  (I love them, but they do tend to focus on shit that pisses me off.)  This one was just a pleasant diversion for the most part.  That could have completely changed if it were told from the POV of Dodo and/or Chris.

[Janc]

Just listened to AC on Howard Stern's show from mid-April, he said his estranged half-brother has made contact with his mom and full brother recently.  That's nice to hear.  

[stillshimpy]

I found this documentary interesting, but ultimately a little sad. There had been a rather trashy factionalized  book (barely factionalized ....I think the name was changed to Vandermeer and everything else was essentially kept)  that told the history of the entire family. My mom had it in the house when I was teen and I read it. Years later I caught a rerun of part of Little Gloria and realized it was the same story. 

Anyway , no tru revelations here and she is an interesting person. Mostly I was sort of amazed by the emotional distance between all parties. There was a veneer of restraint that seemed to mask something in all interactions, but the two sons clearly wanted to try for the sake of the other and to try to get to know this oddly enigmatic and personally chaotic person. Their entire childhood seemed to have been lived in a series of photographic poses. 

I really felt for both of them. Gloria Vanderbilt is an interesting person, but the documentary glossed over the reason for the jeans, etc. --she needed to make some money, no shame in that -- and also just skimmed over the fact that the poor woman lived her life being treated as some sort of bygone age curiosity. Small wonder she's a little odd. Her childlike paintings were rather beautiful, in some instances and more emotionally revealing than anything said. 

Weirdly long ago, when I lived in Princeton, I knew Carter's assigned freshman year roommate. Nothing too earth shaking to reveal there, he was just apparently difficult to live with because he was used to having a maid. Literally that was all that was said about him.  I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to lose their father when Gloria's emotional inaccessibility appears to be her defining characteristic. 

That scene of the two of them standing by the gravestones, exchanging rather surface observations about how pretty it would be in Spring and they should return then was poignant. A family of polite and restrained strangers. 

[stillshimpy]

I have no idea why autocorrect changed fictionalized to factionalized, not one but twice and I cannot convince the board to allow me to edit. I want my freaking computer back, moving gods, tablets are the bane of my existence currently. Yesterday it turned pescetarian into, I shit you not, peace tartan.  

Fictionalized iPad weirdness .

[bosawks]

3 hours ago, stillshimpy said:

I have no idea why autocorrect changed fictionalized to factionalized, not one but twice and I cannot convince the board to allow me to edit. I want my freaking computer back, moving gods, tablets are the bane of my existence currently. Yesterday it turned pescetarian into, I shit you not, peace tartan.  

Fictionalized iPad weirdness .

Huh, that seems fishy......