George Clooney is from a family who has been in the limelight always in some way or the other. Firstly for his father Nick who was a TV newscaster and talk-show host, then for his mother who was a former Miss Kentucky pageant runner-up and then for his aunt Rosemary CLooney who is a renowned singer and actress.
Nick always wanted to be a baseball player yet he went off to major in Broadcast Journalism at Northern Kentucky University. He got his first break on tv when he appeared on his father talk show at the tender age of five. He turned to acting after he was rejected from a Cincinnati Reds tryout. He got his start in commercials and in a horseracing film his cousin Ferrer was making. He finally got a break when he was cast in a medical comedy in 1984, incidentally named ER. He became known as an actor whose face was recognized, as he was in every TV show, but whose name remained unknown.
Clooney became most famous for his roles as the carpenter George on The Facts of Life from 1985 to 1987, and Roseanne's womanizing boss Booker, in Roseanne, from 1988 to 1989. He made appearances on The Golden Girls and Sisters, but was cast in a string of failed shows such as Combat High, Sunset Beat, Baby Talk, and Bodies of Evidence.
Clooney was also appearing on the big screen, in campy films such as Return to Horror High and Grizzly II: The Predator in 1987, and Return of the Killer Tomatoes! in 1988.
Everything was to change for the relatively unknown actor, when he was cast in Michael Crichton's NBC medical drama, ER. As pediatrician Dr. Douglas Ross, Clooney became the newest heartthrob for women and the envy of men, ever since 1994. Once his star factor grew, Clooney was cast in his first "real" film, From Dusk Till Dawn in 1996. A string of roles followed, including One Fine Day, co-starring Michelle Pfeiffer, and 1997's Batman & Robin, in which he donned the bat suit.
In 1997, Clooney co-starred with Nicole Kidman in Dreamworks' first film, The Peacemaker, and appeared as himself in Full Tilt Boogie. He received critical praise for his role in Out of Sight, opposite Jennifer Lopez, and in 1999's Three Kings, as a Desert Storm Sergeant searching for gold in Kuwait. Clooney left ER in 1999 to pursue a full-fledged film career.
Clooney made a small appearance in The Thin Red Line, had a cameo in Waiting for Woody, and lent his voice to South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut (as well as in the TV series, as Big Gay Al's dog, Sparky).
2000 was a busy year for the actor, who starred in the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a role for which he signed before reading the script and won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Role in a Comedy or Musical (he and the world discovered he could sing, after a lot of practice and magic of recording studios).
He also starred in the summer blockbuster The Perfect Storm in 2000, and starred in the made-for-TV movie Fail Safe, which he also produced.
Clooney's production company, Maysville Productions, already has a list of films to its credit and in the making, such as Kilroy, Rock Star (starring buddy Mark Wahlberg), and the upcoming Ocean's Eleven (starring Clooney, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt), Welcome to Collinwood, Insomnia, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
In addition to his reputation as a good actor, Clooney is also widely known as the womanizer who will forever remain a bachelor. He was married to actress Talia Balsam from 1989 to 1992, and has dated Kelly Preston, Denise Crosby, Dedee Pfeiffer (Michelle's younger sister), actress/model Kimberly Russell, French model Celine Balitran, actress Brooke Langton, and is now on and off with British host and model Lisa Snowdon.
A tabloid favorite, Clooney boycotted tabloid shows Entertainment Tonight and Hard Copy for having filmed him without his consent. He even abdicated his "Sexiest Man Alive" honor by People magazine in 1997, although the magazine didn't change its offer and still outed him on the cover.
Not only has he been named one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People on several occasions, he has also appeared on practically every Best Dressed List.
In 1999, following his much-talked-about departure from E.R. he continued to work on a number of high-profile projects, first lending his voice to the animated South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut and then starring alongside Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube as an American soldier reclaiming Kuwaiti treasure from Saddam Hussein in David O. Russell's Three Kings. George Clooney was awarded a 2000 Golden Globe for his portrayal of a pomade-obsessed escaped convict in the Coen brothers' throwback comedy O Brother Where Art Thou? It was around this time that Clooney, now an established actor equally as comfortable on the big screen as the small, began to branch out as the Executive Producer of such made-for-TV efforts as Killroy (1999) and Fail Safe (2000). Soon producing such features as Rock Star (2001) and Insomnia (2002), Clooney next re-teamed with Out of Sight director Steven Soderbergh for a modern take on a classic Rat Pack comedy with Ocean's Eleven (2001). After the dynamic film duo stuck together for yet another remake, the deep-space psychological science-fiction drama Solaris (2002), busy Clooney would both produce and appear in Welcome to Collinwood and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind later the same year, also making his directorial debut on the latter
While these awards may pad his ego, Clooney is more preoccupied with the awards he has received for his acting skills, such as the SAG Awards he shared with his ER cast for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Drama Series for four years, an MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance in 1996 for From Dusk Till Dawn, and his Golden Globe for O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
|
|
|
