Anderson Cooper, the son of heiress and renowned designer Gloria Vanderbilt, and author Wyatt Cooper, graduated from Yale in 1989 with a political science degree. At first worked as journalist and war correspondent for Channel One, covering stories in such places as Bosnia and Somalia. In 1992, he spent five months at the University of Hanoi studying Vietnamese. He became an ABC correspondent in 1995 and began filling in as a co-anchor of World News Now.

Anderson left his anchor position to host a reality-based ABC television show titled The Mole. He is the winner of a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Journalism for his 20/20 Downtown report on gay high school athlete Corey Johnson: "For the past two seasons, out and proud Anderson Cooper has hosted the reality series [The Mole]. But with Cooper jumping ship to concentrate on his job as a CNN correspondent, the much straighter Ahmad Rashad is taking over."

CNN isn't exactly the first place one would look to find a male sex symbol, but that's where we found a man who makes hearts flutter. Anderson Cooper is the prematurely gray, ultra-smart, witty and wry anchor and correspondent who's brought a breath of fresh air (not to mention a sense of humor and dignity) to the tabloid world of cable news.

Anderson, who is single and lives with his dog, Ozzie, in New York, is now finishing two documentaries.