On A Clear Day, You Can See Anderson Cooper.

Anderson Cooper, the respected TV journalist (a short list, getting shorter) has an afternoon talk show. Usually that would spell doom for his reputation, but he pulls it off. Not by advancing the genre, raising the level or having a gimmick. He does it by doing well what afternoon talk shows do best: balancing the lurid and sensational with the sentimental and maudlin. He does have a secret weapon, however, and it’s not his looks – they’re no secret. Imagine a white-haired Ken doll that swapped eyes with a husky and you’re getting close. Nor is it the backdrop to his set, a giant picture window with a view of Manhattan only a Vanderbilt could afford. There, I’ve given you a hint. Anderson Cooper has found a way to combine all of the usual talk show categories and a couple of new ones into a single guest: his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt.

The merest outline of her life sounds like a miniseries: object of a custody battle between her aunt (Whitney Museum) and her mother (madcap heiress) that was splashed across the tabloids of 1934. Hollywood romances with the high and the mighty. Four husbands including the conductor, Leopold Stokowski and the film director, Sidney Lumet. Then a hugely successful clothing company that virtually invented designer jeans. Not to mention the deaths and suicides.

Her appearance is no less striking. Think of Mary Tyler Moore playing Norma Desmond. Her manner is straight out of Sunset Boulevard, too: someone who can’t help being glamorous trying to be dignified. And she sees dead people. Maybe not sees exactly, but she definitely talks with them. I saw her do it. On a recent program, Cooper had both his mother and the psychic, John Edward as guests. I don’t say “reputed psychic” or that he claims to be one because Mr. Edward is very convincing. Partly it’s his high school biology teacher persona and his spiel (energy without bodies/communicating by other means) that is blessedly free of booga booga. Mostly, though, it’s his success at clairvoyance as judged by its effect on other people. He seems to possess knowledge, intimate details, of people’s lives that have no source except the one he claims – dead people talk to him.

Both Gloria Vanderbilt, a devout believer, and Anderson Cooper, an avowed skeptic, communicated with dead relatives through John Edward. It wasn’t limited to them, however. A cameraman, a sound technician and members of the audience got messages, too. Unsolicited, I might add. The afterworld must be a rowdy place with everyone clamoring to get through. As if the Today Show is this world and all the people trying to get Matt Lauer’s attention are in the next.

Who these people (former people?) are and what they may have told the people on Cooper’s show is not important. Except, perhaps, for Marilyn Monroe. Gloria Vanderbilt knew Marilyn Monroe and was not surprised to be contacted by her. John Edward, on the other hand, was flabbergasted. Talking with dead people? Another day at the office. Meeting (in a way) a world-famous movie star like Marilyn Monroe? Totally blows his mind. There’s something touchingly naive about that.

As for Marilyn herself, I hope she’s happy. Up there. Out there. Wherever.