Who is George Timothy Clooney?

Who is George Timothy Clooney? Clooney is an Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. Clooney has balanced his glamorous performances in big-budget blockbusters with work as a producer and director behind commercially riskier projects, as well as social and liberal political activism. On January 31, 2008, the United Nations named Clooney a "Messenger of peace".[1][2][3]

Clooney was born May 6, 1961 in Lexington, Kentucky. His mother, Nina Apostolia Bruce (née Warren), is a former pageant queen,[4] while his father, Nick, is a journalist, anchorman, game show and American Movie Classics host, and an aspiring politician from the state of Kentucky.[5] Clooney is of Irish and German descent.[6][7] He has an older sister, Adelia (aka Ada) and his cousins include actors Miguel and

Rafael Ferrer, who are the sons of his aunt,

singer Rosemary Clooney,

and actor José Ferrer.

He is also related to another singer,

Debby Boone, who married José and Rosemary's son,

Gabriel 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 began his education at the Blessed Sacrament School in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Spending part of his childhood in Ohio, he attended St. Michael's School in Columbus, St. Susanna School in Mason, Ohio, and Sir Thomas Rich's Grammar School for Boys, Gloucester, in the United Kingdom. There he developed an interest in theater. His parents eventually moved to Augusta, Kentucky. He went to Augusta High School where he was the lead in several plays. Clooney has stated that he earned all A's and a B in school,[8] and was an enthusiastic baseball and basketball player.

He had considered a career in Law at this time, but later retracted. He tried out with the Cincinnati Reds in 1977 to play professional baseball, but was not offered a contract. He did not pass the first round of player cuts.[9] He attended Northern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1981 and, very briefly, the University of Cincinnati, but did not graduate from either.[9][10]

Prior to his success on ER, he met Grant Heslov, a later close friend with whom he co-wrote Good Night, and Good Luck. Heslov was also the president of television at Section Eight Productions, Clooney and director Steven Soderbergh's production company. In August 2006, Clooney and Heslov started a new company: Smokehouse Pictures. 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."

Clooney starred in movies while appearing in ER, his first major Hollywood role being 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[12] (succeeding Val Kilmer, who in turn, had succeeded Michael Keaton) in Batman & Robin, however the film was critically panned for its campy style. 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, George Clooney left the cast of ER to pursue his film career full-time. He mentioned a few times that he would like to do a few cameos; to date, he has only done one. It was confirmed in January 2009 that Clooney would return as Dr. Doug Ross in one episode during ER's fifteenth and final season alongside Julianna Margulies.[13]

After leaving ER, George Clooney starred in major Hollywood successes, such as 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 of the same name. To this day, it remains Clooney's most commercially successful movie, earning approximately US$444,200,000 worldwide. The film spawned two sequels starring Clooney, Ocean's Twelve in 2004 and Ocean's Thirteen in 2007. In 2001, Clooney founded the production studio Section Eight with Steven Soderbergh. Clooney is generally considered Chief Actor.

He made his directorial debut 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 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 Joseph McCarthy. Both films received critical acclaim and decent box-office returns despite being in limited release. At the 2006 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. More recently, he appeared in The Good German, a film-noir directed by 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.[14] Clooney also received the American Cinematheque Award in October 2006, an award that honors an artist in the entertainment industry who has made "a significant contribution to the art of motion pictures".[15] On January 22, 2008, Clooney was nominated for Best Actor for his role in Michael Clayton, but lost to Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood.
Clooney is self-deprecating in interviews, telling STV in April 2008 that Leatherheads, one of his lightest movies, is a "cry for peace." In the same interview, when asked about reconciling George Clooney the actor and George Clooney the director, he said "there's a lot of ego there... so I just take it out on the actors."[16]
Clooney is represented by Bryan Lourd, Co-Chairman of Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

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. On August 29, the same year, Clooney officially announced his involvement with the Las Ramblas Resort project.[17] 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 US 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 September 2007).[citation needed] In September 2007, Clooney defended his work when asked by an Italian journalist how he reconciled working in a Nestle advertisement for Nespresso with his criticism of multinational companies.[18]
After the success of Good Night, and Good Luck, Clooney said, he plans to devote more of his energy to directing. He has said that the directing industry is "a great industry to grow old in." Clooney directed the film Leatherheads, in which he also stars.
Clooney is creating and producing a television series for Showtime titled The Fall of Bob. The Fall of Bob is a half-hour, single-camera black comedy-drama about a man who is committing suicide while a lengthy flashback occurs of what happened before his death.
Clooney is currently working on his next project The Men Who Stare At Goats which is being directed by his best pal Grant Heslov and is set for release in 2010. Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey have also signed on to star. Another project Clooney has signed on for is Up in the Air which is set for a 2009 release. It is being directed by Juno director Jason Reitman.
In July 2008, George Clooney was declared the worst Batman portrayed onscreen. "Batman should be obsessed and blindered […] but Clooney is all cool, ironic detachment and self-awareness." No comment has been heard from the actor.[19]

Clooney has 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 each bet him $10,000 that he would be a father before he turned 40. When he reached that age a bachelor, they each sent him a check; he returned them, betting double or nothing that he would remain childless until 50.

Clooney also had a famous on/off five year relationship with English model and TV presenter Lisa Snowdon. The pair met while shooting an advert for Martini. However, on May 28, 2008, it was reported that they had allegedly split .

Clooney's father, Nick Clooney, a journalist, is noted for saying 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.
”

In middle school, Clooney developed Bell's palsy, a debilitating condition that partially paralyzes the face. While suffering from the malady—it went away within a year—his left eye closed and he was unable to eat or drink properly, earning the nickname Frankenstein. "That was the worst time of my life," he told the Mirror in 2003. "You know how cruel kids can be. I was mocked and taunted, but the experience made me stronger." In 2004, Clooney injured himself on Syriana's set during a torture scene. He had some excruciating headaches and suffered short term memory loss. It took a few weeks for his doctors to find the reasons for his health problems. During The Good German's promotion (two years afterwards), he revealed that he still had to wear a back brace due to this injury.[20]

On September 21, 2007, Clooney and a girlfriend were injured in a motorcycle accident in Weehawken, New Jersey. Clooney's motorcycle was hit by a car. The driver of the car reported that Clooney attempted to pass on the right,[21] while Clooney stated that the driver signaled left and then decided to make an abrupt right turn and clipped the motorcycle. Clooney suffered a broken rib and road rash; he was treated and released from the Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, New Jersey.[22] On October 9, 2007, more than two dozen hospital staff members were suspended without pay for looking at Clooney's medical records in violation of federal law.[23] Clooney himself quickly issued a statement on the hospital records matter, saying no one should be punished. He said "This is the first I've heard of it. And while I very much believe in a patient's right to privacy, I would hope that this could be settled without suspending medical workers."[24]
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."[28]

Clooney supported Barack Obama for the United States 2008 presidential election.[32]

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