What female doesn’t get weak in the knees when they see reruns of the debonair and handsome George Clooney on ER? Believe it or not, Clooney wasn’t always so pleasing to the eyes. In middle school, he wore large horn-rimmed glasses and his face was partially paralyzed by Bell’s palsy. He was taunted by friends, who I am sure have lived to regret their cruelty to the popular star. But I have gotten ahead of myself, so let’s start at the beginning.
On May 06, 1961, George Timothy Clooney was born to Nina, a beauty queen, and Nick, a game show host, journalist and political hopeful, in Lexington, Kentucky. He was blessed with an older sister, who he called Ada (Adelia), and several relatives in show business. His aunt was the famous singer, Rosemary Clooney, and two of her sons, Miguel Ferrer and his brother Rafael, are actors.
Clooney had aspirations of playing professional baseball for the Cincinnati Reds, but after trying out for the team in 1977, he was turned down. That was a good turn of events for Clooney fans, because shortly after that, he turned to acting, when his cousin Miguel helped him to land a bit part in a Lexington-filmed movie, about horse racing. Clooney liked the acting scene so much that he packed up and moved to California.
Not too long after Clooney moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting, he got a small part as George Burnett on the sitcom The Facts of Life. And after two years as a carpenter on that show, he had his first (almost) regular role as Roseanne’s hard-to-handle boss, on the sitcom of the same name. He parlayed that role into the portrayal of a single construction worker, on the 1991 series Baby Talk, which he quit after only five episodes, in protest of the shabby treatment of an actress on the show. He later became a detective in the quirky drama Sisters, but, it was the top-rated hospital drama ER that catapulted Clooney to real fame, as the sexy Dr. Douglas “Doug” Ross, a role that he portrayed from 1994-1999.
In 1988, Clooney and actress Kelly Preston, now married to John Travolta, lived together with their pet pig named Max. After their break-up a year later, Max was raised by Clooney and his new wife, actress Talia Balsam. That marriage barely lasted three short years. Clooney’s current love interest is Italian model Elizabeth Canalis.
After Clooney’s five-year ER contract ended, he was free to pursue a movie career. In 2000, he starred as a fisherman in the dramatic film The Perfect Storm. He began portraying bank robbers in the musical O Brother Where Art Thou? and followed that role as the brilliant thief Danny Ocean, in the crime capers Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen.
In 2006, Clooney won an Oscar for his portrayal of Bob Barnes in the film Syriana, and was nominated again in 2008, for his role as Michael Clayton in the crime thriller of the same name.
No longer typecast as the beloved ER doctor, Clooney continues to branch out in his film roles, and will soon be seen on the big screen, along with Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, in the Iraq comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats. He also lends his voice to the animated-film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox.
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