Baby deaths rise for third year in a row
INFANT mortality has risen for the third year, with families in poor communities worst hit.
Around 2,600 babies died before their first birthday in England and Wales, says the Office for National Statistics.
Rates had fallen from 12.0 deaths per 1,000 births in 1980 to 3.6 in 2014.
But the latest 2017 figures show 3.9. Comparable EU states average 2.8.
Prof Russell Viner, of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, urged the Government to “tackle social inequality and improve maternal and early years care.”
The Department of Health said it is committed to halving the rate by 2025. SOCIALITE Gloria Vanderbilt, the “poor little rich girl” heiress who built a fashion empire around tight jeans and counted Sinatra and Brando among her lovers, has died.
Her son, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, confirmed her death at the age of 95, and said his mother had learned earlier this month that she had advanced stomach cancer, which had spread.
He said: “When the doctor told her she was silent for a while, and then said, ‘ Well, it’s like that old song – Show me the way to get out of this world, because that’s where everything is.’”
Paying tribute, he said: “What an extraordinary life. What an extraordinary mom and what an incredible woman. Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman, who loved life and lived it on her own terms.
“She was a painter, a writer, and designer but also a remarkable mother, wife, and friend. She was 95 years old, but ask anyone close to her and they’d tell you she was the youngest person they knew, the coolest, and most modern.”
Gloria married four times between 1941 and 1978 and had four children by two of her husbands. Cooper’s father, the actor Wyatt Cooper, was her final husband and died in 1978.
As well as Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, Gloria’s conquests included Howard Hughes and author Roald Dahl.
The jeans queen was making headlines from the moment she was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1924.
She was the daughter of Reginald Vanderbilt, a wealthy but idle aristocrat and a grandson of robber baron and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Reginald, an alcoholic, left huge debts when he died in 1925 of cirrhosis of the liver. But Gloria, who was then just 18 months old, and her older half-sister had a trust fund worth £2million to share. Gloria was left in the care of her 19- year- old mother, “Big Gloria”
Vanderbilt, who was considered a minor and so denied access to the fortune. Instead, she got £3,200 monthly instalments to care for her daughter, but she used the money to party with her twin sister, Thelma Furness.
They blew the cash crossing the Atlantic on luxury liners and partying in Europe’s hot spots for the rich and glamorous, often with baby Gloria in tow.
By 1934, when “Little Gloria” was 10, her aunt, the artist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, sued for custody of her niece, claiming Big Gloria was an unfit mother.
The trial was a tabloid sensation in 1934, and young Gloria was given the nickname of “poor little rich girl”.
Gertrude won custody and kept her niece hidden away at her Long Island estate in Old Westbury.
Gloria started painting and began ROMANCE husband Sidney Lumet, right, and Wyatt Cooper, who she wed months after divorce from Sidney. Brando, left, was among her lovers studying acting, appearing in theatre productions. Truman Capote was said to have modelled the character of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s on her.
In 1941, while still a teenager, Gloria married Hollywood agent Pat DiCicco, but they were divorced after four years.
In 1945, aged 21, she married director Leopold Stokowski. They had two children together, Stanley and Christopher.
Her third marriage, to Sidney Lumet in 1956, lasted until 1963. Her marriage to Wyatt Cooper began four months after her divorce from Lumet. They had two sons, Anderson and Carter.
In the 1970s, Gloria Vanderbilt’s name became synonymous with a lucrative fashion brand, starting with scarves and moving on to the signature stretch jeans that made her even more famous.
In more recent years, she was known for her art and her writing. She wrote books on art and home decor, four volumes of memoirs and three novels, including Obsession: An Erotic Tale.
Reflecting on her life, Gloria once said: “I’m not knocking inherited money, but the money I’ve made has a reality to me that inherited money doesn’t have.”
She went on: “As the Billie Holiday song goes, ‘ Mama may have, and Papa may have, but God bless the child that’s got his own’.”