Anderson Hays Cooper is an American journalist, television personality, and author. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news show “Anderson Cooper 360.” Take a look below for 30 more awesome and interesting facts about Anderson Cooper.

1. His program is usually broadcast live from New York City studio, however, Cooper often broadcasts live from CNN’s studios in Washington, D.C., or on location for breaking news stories.

2. He is a correspondent for “60 Minutes.”

3. From September, 2011, to May, 2013, he served as hot of his own eponymous syndicated daytime talk show, “Anderson Live.”

4. Cooper was born in Manhattan, New York City, the younger son of the writer Wyatt Emory Cooper and the artist, fashion designer, writer and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt.

5. His maternal grandparents were millionaire equestrian Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and socialite Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt.

6. His maternal great-great-great-grandfather was business magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who founded the prominent Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune.

7. He is a descendant, through his mother, of Civil War brevet Major General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, who was with General William T. Sherman on his march through Georgia.

8. Through his Vanderbilt line, he is a second cousin, once removed, of screenwriter James Vanderbilt.

9. As a baby, he was photographed by Diane Arbus for Harper’s Bazaar.

10. At the age of three, Cooper was a guest on “The Tonight Show” on September 17, 1970, appearing with his mother.

11. At the age of nine, he appeared on “To Tell the Truth” as an impostor.

12. From ages 10 to 13, cooper modeled with Ford Models for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Macy’s.

13. Cooper’s father suffered a series of heart attacks while underground open-heart surgery, and died on January 5, 1978, at the age of 50.

14. Cooper considers his father’s book “Families” to be, “sort of a guide on…how he would have wanted me to live my life and the choices he would have wanted me to make. And so I feel very connected to him.”

15. Cooper’s older brother, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, died by suicide on July 22, 1988, at age 23, by jumping from the 14th floor terrace of Vanderbilt’s New York City penthouse apartment.

16. Gloria Vanderbilt later wrote about her son’s death in the book “A Mother’s Story,” in which she expressed her belief that the suicide was caused by a psychotic episode induced by an allergy to the anti-asthma prescription drug salbutamol.

17. Cooper cites Carter’s suicide for sparking his interest in journalism.

18. Cooper was educated at the Dalton School, a private co-educational university preparatory school in New York City.

19. At age 17, after graduating from Dalton a semester early, Cooper traveled around Africa for several months on a “survival trip.”

20. He contracted malaria on the trip and was hospitalized in Kenya.

21. Describing the experience, Cooper wrote, “Africa was a place to forget and be forgotten in.”

22. Cooper went on to attend Yale University, where he resided in Trumbull College, and was inducted into the Manuscript Society, majoring in political science and graduating with a B.A. in 1989.

23. During college, Cooper spent two summers as an intern at the Central Intelligence Agency while studying political science.

24. He pursued journalism with no formal journalistic education and is a self-proclaimed “news junkie since [he] was in utero.”

25. After his first correspondence work in the early 1990s, he took a break from reporting and lived in Vietnam for a year, during which time he studied the Vietnamese language at Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

26. After Cooper graduated from Yale University, he tried to gain entry level employment with ABC answering telephones, but was unsuccessful.

27. Apple CEO Tim Cook turned to Cooper for advice before he subsequently made the decision to publicly come out as gay.

28. In 2014, Cooper and his partner purchased Rye House, a historic estate in Connecticut.

29. Cooper is openly gay; according to The New York Times, he is, “the most prominent openly gay journalist on American television.”

30. Cooper has two older half-brothers, Leopold Stanislaus “Stan” Stokowski, and Christopher Stokowski, from Gloria Vanderbilt’s ten year marriage to the conductor Leopold Stokowski.