Anderson Cooper would love to be able to talk to his father again – to see his smile and hear his voice

We know that Anderson Cooper’s famous mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, remains active at 90.

But the CNN anchor lost his father when he was only 10 years old.

Author Wyatt Cooper died of a heart attack in 1978 at the age of 50.

During a conversation on CNN this week with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. about family genealogy, Anderson was asked which of his ancestors would he want to meet with today if he could.

The Silver Fox picked his dad.

‘Just to be able to ask him about what he thinks of me and what he thinks about all the things that have gone on since he died in our family’s life,’ he said.

‘To just hear his voice, to see his smile and have him talk to me again. For me, that would be an extraordinary thing.’

Gates, of the PBS show Finding Your Roots, traced Anderson’s Southern roots and found that he had ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War.

He also found out that the anchor’s great-great-great-great grandfather on his father’s side owned slaves and, in fact, was killed by one of them in 1860.