NOTHING LEFT UNSAID: GLORIA VANDERBILT & ANDERSON COOPER
US, 2016, 108 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Liz Garbus.
This is a portrait of heiress, Gloria Vanderbilt, daughter of rail-wealthy Reginald Vanderbilt and Gloria Morgan. She was famous as a child by being the “poor little rich girl”, having lived with her socialite mother in Paris during the 1920s-1930s, not bonding with her, subject to the custody case and the decision that she go to live with her aunt, the artist and the founder of the Whitney Museum, Gertrude Whitney. While she was cared for, and had a great deal of money, she went off to Hollywood at a young age, was caught up in the glamour of Hollywood, married a mobster, Pat di Cicco, divorced him, married the famous conductor, Leopold Stokowski, forty plus years her senior, had two children, divorced him. She also married the film director Sidney Lumet. Finally, she married Wyatt Cooper and had two sons. She was a socialite, tried acting on stage and screen, was a model, much photographed, created designer jeans, was an artist. Filming this documentary, she was in her early 90s, dying at the age of 95 in 2019. Her story was told in the television film, Little Gloria… Happy at last, with a star cast including Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, Christopher Plummer.
What makes this documentary distinctive is that it is actually a video memoir, discussions between Gloria Vanderbilt and her son, journalist and war correspondent, Cooper Anderson, who is a custodian of her archives and documents.
The moral of the story, almost cliche, is that money can’t buy happiness.
Gloria Vanderbilt emerges from this film quite admirably. She has lived through a very difficult life, wealthy, over-protected, continually breaking out, making extraordinarily bad judgements, yet surviving, and able to look back over her past with a more critical eye than she was able to while she was living it. She is well aided by Anderson Cooper, sympathetic, care for his mother, able to ask are all kinds of questions about the past, able to talk about his own relationship with his father, his childhood, the impact of the suicide of his brother in front of his mother.
There are various locations for the video memories and discussions, but all intercut and edited to give an overview of Gloria Vanderbilt’s life. There is a great deal of newsreel footage, home movie footage, clips from newsreels, clips from films. And there is always a gallery of celebrities throughout. However, there are interviews with her oldest son, Stan Stokowski (his younger brother, Chris, long alienated from his mother). There are commentary from a Vanderbilt cousin who is historian of the family. There is some pathos in the interviews with Pearson Marx, the girlfriend of Carter Cooper who suicided.
Gloria Vanderbilt was never afraid of being in front of the camera. And there is some attention to her being made up for sequences, her being dressed for occasions. But, for a woman in her early 90s and who has had such a chequered life, she is a sprightly and active interviewee.
19th century America and early 20th century America produced an extraordinary number of millionaires, empires, tycoons, wealth, separation from ordinary people. The Vanderbilt stories this kind of story.
Direction is by Liz Garbus who made significant documentaries about Marilyn Monroe, Jacques Cousteau and Nina Simone.
