Ken Burns' History With Grief

Anderson Cooper· Host0:00

[gentle music] The last couple days I've been sifting through old photographs of my dad. He worked as an actor and screenwriter in Los Angeles in the 1950s, long before he met my mom. It's a bit like looking at a stranger. There's so much about him I still don't know, and so much I've forgotten over time. I've never had any videos of my dad as he was when I was a kid, and I've struggled to remember how he moved, the look in his eyes when he talked. Still photos don't give you that. A few weeks ago, I got an email. An archivist found a TV interview my dad gave on Mississippi Public Television, and she sent me the link to watch. I waited a few minutes. I was nervous. And then I clicked on the link, and suddenly there he was, alive. And I wanna show it to you. I want you to meet my dad, Wyatt Cooper.

Wyatt Cooper· Soundbite0:54

I'm at home anywhere I am. I really am. Because, uh, whether I'm in a big city or in the country, I am the same person. And, and in the city, in New York City, for instance, my kids and I go into the park, and, and Central Park in New York is a marvelous place. We have a spring that belongs to us. It belongs to us because only we know about it. We go there and we clean leaves out of the mouth of the spring. And when the water gurgles gratefully out and goes down the thing, we have affected it. So we have had something to do with the soil and with growing