George Clooney

George Clooney (1961) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer with more than thirty film awards and nominations to his name. Clooney gained wide recognition in his role as Dr. Doug Ross on the medical TV drama ER (1994-1999). In the cinema, he had his breakthrough roles in From Dusk till Dawn (1996), and the crime comedy Out of Sight (1998), in which he first worked with director Steven Soderbergh. In 2001 followed their biggest commercial success with the blockbuster Ocean's Eleven, the first of what became a trilogy. He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Syriana (2005). He also won an Oscar for Best Picture for the thriller Argo (Ben Affleck, 2012) as a producer. He also received Oscar nominations for his roles in the conspiracy thriller Michael Clayton (2007) and The Descendants (2011), and a European Film Award for Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), which he also wrote and directed.


British postcard by Heroes Publishing LTD., London, no. SFC 3039. Photo: George Clooney in the TV Series ER (1994-1999).


British postcard by Editions Limited, no. PRT-010.

Return of the Killer Tomatoes!

George Timothy Clooney was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1961. Clooney is the son of television personality Nicholas Joseph "Nick" Clooney and Nina Bruce Warren. He has an older sister, Ada Zeidler. His father is the brother of singer-actress Rosemary Clooney, who was married to film star José Ferrer, and George is the cousin of their son, actor Miguel Ferrer.

At a young age, Clooney learned how to handle the camera. His father Nick often took his family to public appearances and at the age of five George held the text boards for his father, then a television presenter in Illinois, on a quiz show. It looked like Clooney would follow in his father's footsteps, but that changed when his uncle José Ferrer came to Kentucky to make a film about horse racing with his sons Miguel and Rafael. In it, Clooney also got a role.

The film And They're Off was never released, but Clooney had found his calling. At Augusta High School, Clooney was a gifted baseball player, but during a tryout with the Cincinnati Reds, he proved not good enough to turn pro. Clooney attended Northern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1981, where he studied radio journalism. After he broke off his studies, he held a few random jobs. His father, knowing how difficult it is to succeed as an actor, tried in vain to change his mind.

In the summer of 1982, the determined Clooney spent harvesting tobacco in order to earn enough money to go to Hollywood. In California, he was allowed to live with his aunt Rosemary, although the latter did not wholeheartedly support his aspirations either. For several months, he was her chauffeur on her tour with singers like Martha Raye. After this, Clooney tried to get a job as an actor, but he was constantly rejected, which greatly affected his mood. Eventually, Rosemary felt compelled to ask her cousin to leave.

Clooney moved in with a friend, rookie actor Tom Matthews. He did odd jobs on the sets of commercials and took acting classes at The Beverly Hills Playhouse. Under the guidance of Milton Katselas, he mastered the craft and, as a result of a school project, found an impresario. In the following years, he played several bigger and smaller roles, mostly in moderately received series, never-released films and B-movies like Return of the Killer Tomatoes! (John De Bello, 1988). He was not dissatisfied; he was doing what he loved most: acting and developing himself. Clooney's only longer-lasting role during this period was in the first season of the sitcom Roseanne (1989). In it, he played Booker Brooks, Roseanne's supervisor and temporary boyfriend of her sister.


Vintage postcard, no. PP 137. Photo: George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino in From Dusk Till Dawn (Robert Rodriguez, 1996).


Vintage postcard, no. 134.

From Dusk Till Dawn

George Clooney's breakthrough came in 1994, through his role as Dr Douglas Ross in the hospital series ER (Emergency Room, 1994-1999). His popularity in this television series gave his film career a major boost. The series, which depicted everyday life in a Chicago teaching hospital in a realistic and dramatic manner and ran from 1994 to 1999, became a major international television success.

Clooney rose to become one of the most famous television actors and was especially popular with female viewers. He portrayed the role in 109 episodes from 1994 to 1999 and made a guest appearance in the series in 2009. The Clooneys' sense of family was also expressed in guest appearances by Rosemary Clooney and his cousin Miguel Ferrer.

Now film producers in Hollywood could no longer pass him over. From 1996, the actor established himself as a film star; he appeared in a wide variety of roles. He had great success with the leading role in the Robert Rodriguez-directed film From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), which soon achieved cult status. He also starred alongside Michelle Pfeiffer in the romantic comedy One Fine Day (Michael Hoffmann, 1996).

His final breakthrough came in the role of Batman in the superhero film Batman & Robin (Joel Schumacher, 1997) with Chris O'Donnell. In the same year, he was voted "Sexiest Man Alive" by People Magazine. Clooney demonstrated a preference for whimsical roles such as in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) by the Coen Brothers.

However, he also took leading roles in commercially oriented films such as The Peacemaker (Mimi Leder, 1997) with Nicole Kidman, which featured him as an action hero. The thriller comedy Out of Sight (Steven Soderbergh, 1998) with Jennifer Lopez and the war films The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998) and Three Kings (David O. Russell, 1999) with Mark Wahlberg, all received excellent reviews and did well at the box-office.


Dutch postcard by Boomerang in the Cult Cards series, no. P25-00. Photo: Universal Studios, 2000. George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro in O Brother, Where Art Thou (Joel Cohn, Ethan Cohn, 2000).


British postcard by Pyramid, Leicester, no. PC 2063.

Gravity

George Clooney received $20,000,000 for the blockbuster Ocean's Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001), a remake of the heist comedy Ocean's 11 (Lewis Milestone, 1960), which also starred Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Julia Roberts. Later, he also went on to work as a producer, screenwriter and director. His directorial debut was the spy drama Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney, 2002). He also directed the multi-award-winning historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney, 2005), for which he also was a co-screenwriter and one of the actors.

Ocean's Eleven drew two sequels, Ocean’s Twelve (Steven Soderbergh, 2004) and Ocean’s Thirteen (Steven Soderbergh, 2007), in which Clooney also starred. Important in this context was his friendship with director Steven Soderbergh, with whom he founded the company Section Eight. In 2006, it was announced that the company was wound up. Soon after, Clooney founded the production company Smoke House, with close friend Grant Heslov.

Clooney appeared in several Coen Brothers films, including Burn After Reading (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, 2008) with Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt, and Hail, Caesar! (Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, 2016). He earned Oscar nominations for Best Actor for the legal thriller Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007), the comedy-dramas Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2009) and The Descendants (Alexander Payne, 2011). A huge box office hit was the Science Fiction thriller Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013) in which he co-starred with Sandra Bullock and which he also co-wrote.

Clooney's directed the political drama The Ides of March (George Clooney, 2011), in which he also contributed to the screenplay and took on one of the leading roles. The film adaptation of Beau Willimon's play 'Farragut North' focuses on a young idealistic press secretary (played by Ryan Gosling) who, as an employee of a presidential candidate (Clooney), is confronted with fraud and corruption in the Ohio primaries. His other productions as a director include the war film The Monuments Men (George Clooney, 2014), the crime drama Suburbicon (George Clooney, 2017), two episodes of the series Catch-22 (2019) and the Science-Fiction film The Midnight Sky (George Clooney, 2020).

In 1989, George Clooney married actress Talia Balsam, from whom he divorced again in 1993. Clooney had several relationships in the past including with Lisa Snowdon (2000-2005), Sarah Larson (2007-2008), Elisabetta Canalis (2009-2011) and Stacy Keibler (2011-2013). Clooney vowed that he would never marry again. However, in 2014, Clooney married British-Lebanese human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin; they married in law two days later. They became parents to twins, a daughter and a son, in 2017. This year George Clooney reunited with Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise (Ol Parker, 2022), for which they both also served as executive producers.


British postcard by Box Office, London, no. BO583.


Russian postcard. George Clooney and Amal Clooney.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English), and IMDb.