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Q: Is it true that Timothy Olyphant and Anderson Cooper are related? 

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

Handsome seems to run in the extended Vanderbilt family. 

Former "Justified" star Timothy Olyphant and news talking-head Anderson Cooper are indeed semi-distant cousins (third cousins once removed, if anyone's keeping that kind of score). 

Both are descended from William Henry Vanderbilt and Maria Louisa Kissam -- they were the great-great-great-grandparents of Olyphant on his father's side, and Cooper's great-great-grandparents on his mother's side. They were also the second generation of the megawealthy Vanderbilt family, which made its money in shipping and railroads in the mid-1800s. They were once the richest family in America, and they still command a hefty fortune. 

Many of the Vanderbilt offspring have gravitated to showbiz. Cooper's mother was noted author, designer and artist Gloria Vanderbilt, and another distant relative, James Vanderbilt, is a successful Hollywood screenwriter. He penned such hits as 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man" and this year's Netflix film "Murder Mystery," which itself was set in the world of the upper class. 

 

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