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George Clooney
Clooney at the Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, 7 December 2001
Birth name	George Timothy Clooney
Born	May 6, 1961 (age 45) Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Spouse(s)	Talia Balsam (1989-1993)
Notable roles	Dr. Doug Ross in ER Daniel Ocean in Ocean's Eleven / Twelve / Thirteen Bob Barnes in Syriana Fred Friendly in Good Night, and Good Luck
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actor 2005 Syriana
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou? Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture 2005 Syriana

George Timothy 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.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 Initial success 2.2 Movie star 2.3 Other ventures 3 Personal life 3.1 Medical history 4 Politics 4.1 Environmentalism 4.2 Comment on Charlton Heston 5 Filmography 6 Footnotes 7 External links

Clooney an Irish American,^[1] was born in Lexington, Kentucky. His mother, Nina Warren, was a former pageant queen while his father, Nick Clooney, is 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 son Miguel 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. Rosemary Clooney encouraged him to become a comedian.

Clooney spent his earlier years in Columbus, Ohio, living in St. Michael's elementary school. ^[2] Later, he attended Kentucky's Augusta High School, which he graduated in 1979, but 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 1979-81, but did not graduate, earning no more than freshman-level credits.^[3] He also very briefly attended the University of Cincinnati, but again did not graduate.^[4] His college time was spent mainly on girls and partying.^[5]

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 stared 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.

Prior to his success on ER, he befriended another actor named Grant Heslov, a close friend and frequent collaborator with whom Clooney later co-wrote Good Night, and Good Luck. Heslov was also the president of Section 8 Entertainment, Clooney's and director Steven Soderbergh's production company. On 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."

In 1995, Clooney received a tape version of The Spirit of Christmas, the video greeting card which would inspire South Park. He thought it was so funny that he made copies and sent it around the Los Angeles area. Matt Stone and Trey Parker were so thankful for his help that they invited him to play a role in the show, he ended up voicing 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 shows 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.^[6]

Clooney continued to star in movies while appearing in ER, his first major hollywood role coming with From Dusk Till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez. He followed its success with One fine day with Michelle Pfeiffer and The Peacemaker, the first movie 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 times Clooney would collaborate 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, as a stipulation in his new contract, Clooney would return for occasional guest spots, which, to date, he has only done once.

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 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 and Ocean's Thirteen. In 2001, Clooney founded the production studio Section Eight Productions with Steven Soderbergh.

He made his debut as a director in the 2002 with 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, 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.

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 October 2006). 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 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's father, Nick Clooney, a politician, is noted for saying the following about himself,

“

I spent the first part of my life being referred to as Rosemary Clooney’s brother, and now I am spending the last part of my life being referred to as George Clooney’s dad.

”

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.^[7][8][9] 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). ^[10][11]

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 check. He returned the money, betting double or nothing that he won't have kids by age 50.^{[citation needed]}

Clooney suffered from Bell's palsy for a time while he was in high school.^[12]

Clooney injured himself on Syriana's set, during the torture scene, on 2004. He had some excruciating headaches and suffered short term memory lose. It took a few weeks to his doctors to find the reasons of his health problems. During The Good German's promotion (two years after), he revealed that he still had to wear a back brace due to this injury. ^[13]

Clooney is a self-described political liberal. Speaking about the Iraq war: "You can't beat your enemy anymore through wars; instead you create an entire generation of people seeking revenge. These days it only matters who's in charge. Right now that's us — for a while at least. Our opponents are going to resort to car bombs and suicide attacks because they have no other way to win.... I believe (Rumsfeld) thinks this is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore. We can't beat anyone anymore."

Clooney is noted for his public criticisms of Jack Abramoff and other Republicans. On January 16, 2006, during his acceptance speech for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Syriana, Clooney paused to sarcastically thank the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff before adding, “Who would name their kid Jack with the word ‘off’ at the end of your last name? No wonder that guy is screwed up!”^[14]

Clooney is active in advocating a resolution of the Darfur conflict.^[15] His efforts include an episode of Oprah and speaking at the Save Darfur rally in Washington, D.C. on April 30, 2005.

There has been some movement to try to convince Clooney to run for political office in his home state of Kentucky, including talk of a Clooney candidacy for US Senate against incoming Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2008.^[16] Clooney's remark on the possibility of his entering politics, however, has been: "Run for office? No. I've slept with too many women, I've done too many drugs, and I've been to too many parties".^[17]

Clooney supports Barack Obama for a 2008 presidential run.^[18]

George Clooney owns the first Electric Tango Spied to be sold.^[19]

Clooney has paid a deposit on a Tesla Roadster from Tesla Motors. It is a battery electric sportscar with a 250 mile range. He will be among the first hundred owners.^[20]

Michelle Solomon wrote in her article Celebrity Chatter: Up-Close With George Clooney, published in Staff Writer (2/3/03) "On the same day we spoke, headlines had just broke that Clooney was at a film awards dinner and made what some people perceived as an inappropriate remark about Charlton Heston. As first reported by syndicated columnist Liz Smith, Clooney was speaking at a National Board of Review event and said: "Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's." (...) "It was a joke," Clooney said. "They got the quote wrong. What I said was 'The head of the NRA announced today...' (Filmmaker) Michael Moore had just gotten an award. Anyway, Charlton Heston shows up with guns over his head after a school shooting and then says in the documentary it's because of ethnic diversity that we have problems with violence in America. I think he's going to have to take whatever hits he gets. It was just a joke. That was someone else trying to make a bigger story." " ^[21]

When asked if he went too far with his comment, he said, "I don't care. Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle Association. He deserves whatever anyone says about him".^[22]

Asked in an October 2003 CNN interview whether it was "in poor taste in retrospect?", Clooney replied: "Yes, oh, yes. It was in poor taste. It was a funny joke.... I have a lot of good friends who — in fact, I have a very good friend who is dying of Alzheimer's. And it was just a funny joke".^[23]

Charlton Heston's response, after noting the "class" of the actor's late aunt, singer-actress Rosemary Clooney: "It just goes to show that sometimes class does skip a generation".^[24]

Then aged 79, the veteran movie star said further: "I don't know the man — never met him, never even spoken to him, but I feel sorry for George Clooney — one day he may get Alzheimer's disease. I served my country in World War II. I survived that — I guess I can survive some bad words from this fellow".^[25]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	Streethawk
1985 - 1986	The Facts of Life	George Burnett
1987	Return to Horror High	Oliver
	Grizzly II: The Predator		Uncredited
	Combat Academy	Maj. Biff Woods
	Murder, She Wrote	Kip Howard	Episode: No Laughing Murder
	The Golden Girls	Detective Bobby Hopkins	Episode: To Catch a Neighbor
1988	Return of the Killer Tomatoes	Matt Stevens
1988 - 1991	Roseanne	Booker Brooks	11 Episodes
1990	Red Surf	Remar
1992	Unbecoming Age	Mac
1993	The Harvest	Lip Syncing Transvestite
1993 - 1994	Sisters	Detective James Falconer
1994 - 1995	ER	Dr Doug Ross	106 Episodes
1995	Friends	Dr. Michael Mitchell	Episode: The One with Two Parts, Part Two
1996	From Dusk Till Dawn	Seth Gecko
	One Fine Day	Jack Taylor
	Curdled	Seth Gecko	Uncredited; only photo shown
1997	Full-Tilt Boogie	Himself	Documentary
	The Peacemaker	Thomas Devoe
	Batman & Robin	Batman/ Bruce Wayne
	South Park	Sparky the Dog (voice)	Episode: Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride
1998	The Thin Red Line	Captain Bosche
	Out of Sight	Jack Foley
	Waiting for Woody	Himself	Comedic Short
1999	Three Kings	Major Archie Gates
	The Book That Wrote Itself	Himself
	South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut	Voice of Doctor Gouache
	The Limey	TV Interviewee
2000	The Perfect Storm	Billy 'Skip' Tyne
	Fail Safe	Col. Jack Grady
	O Brother, Where Art Thou?	Ulysses Everett McGill
2001	Ocean's Eleven	Danny Ocean
	Spy Kids	Devlin
2002	Confessions of a Dangerous Mind	CIA Agent Jim Byrd	also Director
	Solaris	Chris Kelvin
	Welcome to Collinwood	Jerzy	Producer
	Starbuck Holger Meins		Documentary
2003	Intolerable Cruelty	Miles Massey
	Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over	Devlin
2004	Ocean's Twelve	Danny Ocean	also Executive Producer
2005	Good Night, and Good Luck.	Fred Friendly	also Director, Screenwriter
	Syriana	Bob Barnes	also Producer; 2005 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
2006	The Good German	Jake Geismar
2007	Michael Clayton	Michael Clayton	also Producer
	Ocean's Thirteen	Danny Ocean
	Leatherheads	Jimmy 'Dodge' Connelly	also Director, Producer, and co-writer
2008	Burn After Reading		(TBA) [26]
	36		(Announced)

Director Credits

Year	Title
2002	Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
2005	Good Night, and Good Luck
	Unscripted
2007	Leatherheads

Producer Credits

Credit	Movie
Executive Producer	Ocean's Thirteen

Preceded by Val Kilmer	Actors to portray Batman 1997-2001	Succeeded by Christian Bale
Awards
Preceded by Morgan Freeman for Million Dollar Baby	Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor 2005 for Syriana	Succeeded by Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine

Films directed by George Clooney
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind • Good Night, and Good Luck.

• George Clooney at the Internet Movie Database
• George Clooney at the Notable Names Database
• Clooney Studio
• George Clooney on Moviefone
• NPR interview 10/2005
• Text, Audio, and Video of Speech to the United Nations Security Council on Darfur
• Text, Audio, Video of Clooney's Oscar Award Acceptance Address for Best Supporting Actor

Cinema of the United States Actors • A-Z of films • Directors
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Persondata
NAME	Clooney, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Clooney, George Timothy
SHORT DESCRIPTION	actor, director, producer, screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH	May 6, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH	Lexington, Kentucky, USA
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH