george clooney
George Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an Academy Award and two-time Golden Globe winning American actor, director, producer and screenwriter, known for his role in the first five seasons of the long-running television drama ER (1994–99), and his rise as an "A-List" movie star in contemporary American cinema.
Clooney has balanced his cinematic performances in big-budget blockbusters with more modestly budgeted films on serious topics and more commercially risky projects, while expanding his prominence as a movie producer.
Early life
Clooney, an Irish American, was born in Lexington, Kentucky. His mother was a former pageant queen while his father, Nick Clooney, was a journalist, anchorman, game show and American Movie Classics host, as well as a politician from the state of Kentucky. Clooney has a sister, Ada, and is the nephew of singer Rosemary Clooney and actor Jose Ferrer, as well as the cousin of their children, among them actors Miguel and Rafael Ferrer. From an early age, Clooney would hang around his father's sets, often participating in shows, where he proved to be a crowd favorite.
Clooney briefly attended Ohio's William Mason High School but graduated from Kentucky's Augusta High School in 1979. He was a poor student. George did excel in athletics; baseball in particular. He was invited to try out for the Cincinnati Reds in 1977, but was not offered a contract.
He briefly attended Northern Kentucky University from 1979-1981, but did not graduate, earning no more than freshman-level credits. He also very briefly attended the University of Cincinnati, but again did not graduate. His college time was spent mainly on girls and partying.
Career
George Clooney spent most of his "struggling actor" years riding to auditions on a bicycle. His first major role came in 1984 in the television medical comedy/drama, E/R. Though it too takes place in a hospital, it should not be confused with ER, which Clooney more famously starred in several years later. Additionally, he played a handyman on the series The Facts of Life. His first significant break was a semi-regular supporting role in the sitcom Roseanne, playing Roseanne Barr's overbearing boss Booker Brooks, followed by the role of a construction worker on Baby Talk and then as a sexy detective on Sisters. Clooney achieved stardom when he was selected to play Dr. Doug Ross on the NBC hit drama ER, alongside Anthony Edwards's character, as his best friend/partner, Dr. Mark Greene, from 1994 to 1999.
Prior to his success on ER, he befriended Grant Heslov, a later close friend with whom he co-wrote Good Night, and Good Luck. Heslov was also the president of Section 8 Entertainment, Clooney and director Steven Soderbergh's production company. In August 2006, Clooney and Heslov started a new company: Smoke House. Clooney said in an interview that he was driving an RV through the country with Heslov, who, at the time, was getting over a broken engagement, when he got a phone call from his agent telling him that NBC just picked up ER for a full season. Clooney said, "I think I just got my career."
It has been rumored that Clooney was the one to have circulated the videotape of Jesus vs. Santa (the video greeting card which would inspire South Park) around the Los Angeles area in 1995. He has always been a fan of South Park, and after calling Matt Stone and Trey Parker to tell them this, was invited to play a role in the show as the voice of Stan Marsh's gay dog Sparky in the episode Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride, a role with no dialogue except normal dog noises. He later appeared in the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Despite their history, the show's creators, Parker and Stone, lampooned Clooney for his outspoken political views in their feature film Team America: World Police. However, Clooney later said that he would have been offended if he hadn't been made fun of in the film. He was also so mentioned in the episode Smug Alert!. The smugness from an acceptance speech of his had formed a cloud which combined with the clouds of smugness from South Park and San Francisco to form one large smug storm.
Initial success
Clooney continued to star in movies while appearing in ER, his first major Hollywood role coming in From Dusk Till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez. He followed its success with One Fine Day with Michelle Pfeiffer and The Peacemaker with Nicole Kidman, the latter being the initial feature length release from Dreamworks SKG studio. Clooney was then cast as the new Batman, following Val Kilmer, in Batman & Robin. In 1998, he starred in Out of Sight, opposite Jennifer Lopez. This was the first of many collaborations with director Steven Soderbergh. He also starred in Three Kings during the last weeks of his contract with ER.
In 1999, he left the cast of ER to pursue his film career full-time, though, Clooney mentioned a few times that he would like to do a few cameos. To date, he has only done one.
Movie star
After leaving ER, Clooney starred in major Hollywood successes, such as, Three Kings, The Perfect Storm, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. In 2001, he teamed up with Soderbergh again for Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the 1960s Rat Pack film Ocean's Eleven. Alongside Clooney the film also starred Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, and Julia Roberts. To this day, it remains Clooney's most commercially successful movie, earning approximately $444,200,000 worldwide. The film spawned two sequels, Ocean's Twelve in 2004 and Ocean's Thirteen in 2007. In 2001, Clooney founded the production studio Section Eight Productions with Steven Soderbergh.
He made his debut as a director in the 2002 film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, an adaptation of the autobiography of TV producer Chuck Barris. Though the movie didn't do well at the box office, Clooney's direction was praised among critics and general audiences, alike.
In 2005, Clooney starred in Syriana, which was based loosely on former Central Intelligence Agency agent Robert Baer and his memoirs of being an agent in the Middle East. The same year he directed, produced, and starred in Good Night, and Good Luck, a film about 1950s television journalist Edward R. Murrow's famous war of words with Senator McCarthy. Both films received critical acclaim and decent box-office returns despite being in limited release. At the 78th Academy Awards, Clooney was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck, as well as Best Supporting Actor for Syriana. He became the first person in Oscar history to be nominated for directing one movie and acting in another in the same year. He would go on to win for his role in Syriana.
After the success of Good Night, and Good Luck, Clooney said he plans to devote more of his energy to directing. He feels that the directing industry is "a great industry to grow old in," something that doesn't ring true with acting.
Most recently, he appeared in The Good German, a film-noir directed by frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh. The film is set in post-World War II Germany.
Clooney is one of only two people to have been given the title of Sexiest Man Alive twice by People Magazine, first in 1997 and again in 2006 . The other is Brad Pitt. Clooney also received the American Cinematheque Award in October 2006, an award that honors an extraordinary artist in the entertainment industry who is fully engaged in his or her work and is committed to making a significant contribution to the art of motion pictures.
Other ventures
On July 8, 2005, news reports said that Clooney would be working with Cindy Crawford's husband Rande Gerber to design and build a new casino hotel in Las Vegas. And, on August 29, the same year, Clooney officially announced his involvement with the Las Ramblas Resort project. However, the project never came to fruition, and the property on which the resort was to be built was sold in June 2006.
After serving as pitchman outside the U.S. for products like Fiat and Martini vermouth, Clooney lent his voice to a series of Budweiser ads beginning in 2005 (which were still running as of April 2007). Clooney was later criticized by actor Russell Crowe for such extracurricular pursuits. Clooney then responded by pointing out hypocrisy in the form of Crowe's frequent self mastubatory endorsements of his extracurricular rock and roll band.
George secretly financed and executive produced a political thriller short film called "The Endgame Study" in 2006.
Clooney had a 300 pound Vietnamese black bristled, potbellied pig, named Max, that had lived with him for 18 years. Max died on December 1, 2006. He also had two bulldogs named Bud and Lou, after the famous comedy team, Abbott and Costello, who both passed away (one from a rattlesnake attack).
Clooney has only been married once, to actress Talia Balsam from 1989 to 1993. He says he will never get married again, nor have any children, but Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman both bet $10,000 each that he would be a father before he turned 40. They were both wrong, and each sent him a cheque. He returned the money, betting double or nothing that he won't have kids by age 50.
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