biography of George Clooney

George Timothy Clooney

 (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, filmmaker, and philanthropist. Known for his leading man roles on screen in both blockbuster and independent films, Clooney has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award and four Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award. His honors include the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2015, the Honorary César in 2017, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2018, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2022. 

Clooney's breakthrough role came as Dr. Doug Ross on the NBC medical drama ER (1994–1999), for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He established himself as a film star with roles in From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Out of Sight (1998), Three Kings (1999), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), and the Ocean's film series (2001–2007).^[4][5] He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing a CIA officer in Syriana (2005). He received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his roles in Michael Clayton (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011). He has also starred in Burn After Reading (2008), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Gravity (2013), and Hail, Caesar! (2016).

Clooney has directed nine feature films including the spy film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), the historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), the political drama The Ides of March (2011), and the war film The Monuments Men (2014). He received the Academy Award for Best Picture for co-producing the political thriller Argo (2012). He made his Broadway debut portrayed Edward R. Murrow in the play adaptation of his 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck (2025), for which he earned a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.

Clooney was included on Time's annual Time 100 list, which identifies the most influential people in the world, every year from 2006 to 2009.  He is also noted for his political and economic activism, and has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since 2008. Clooney is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Divorced from actress Talia Balsam, he has been married to human rights lawyer Amal Clooney since 2014, with whom he has two children.

George Timothy Clooney  was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky.  His mother, Nina Bruce (née Warren)  was a beauty queen and city councilwoman. His father, Nick Clooney, is a former anchorman and television host, including five years on the AMC network.  Clooney is of Irish, German, and English ancestry.  His maternal fourth great-grandmother, Mary Ann Sparrow, was the half-sister of Nancy Lincoln, mother of President Abraham Lincoln, making Clooney and President Lincoln half-first cousins five times removed. Clooney has an older sister named Adelia (known as Ada). Cabaret singer and actress Rosemary Clooney was an aunt. Through Rosemary, his cousins include actors Miguel Ferrer, Rafael Ferrer, and Gabriel Ferrer, who is married to singer Debby Boone. 

Clooney was raised a strict Roman Catholic but said in 1998 that he did not know if he believed "in Heaven or even God." He has said, "Yes, we were Catholic, big-time, whole family, whole group."  He began his education at the Blessed Sacrament School in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. He attended St. Michael's School in Worthington, Ohio; then Western Row Elementary School (a public school) in Mason, Ohio, from 1968 to 1974; and St. Susanna School in Mason, where he served as an altar boy. The Clooneys moved back to Kentucky when George was midway through the seventh grade. In middle school, Clooney developed Bell's palsy, a medical condition that partially paralyzes the face. The malady went away within a year. In an interview with Larry King, he stated that "yes, it goes away. It takes about nine months to go away. It was the first year of high school, which was a bad time for having half your face paralyzed."  He also described one positive outcome of the condition: "It's probably a great thing that it happened to me because it forced me to engage in a series of making fun of myself. And I think that's an important part of being famous. The practical jokes have to be aimed at you." 

After his parents moved to Augusta, Kentucky, Clooney attended Augusta High School. He has stated that he earned all As and a B in school,  and played baseball and basketball. He tried out to play professional baseball with the Cincinnati Reds in 1977, but he did not pass the first round of player cuts and was not offered a contract. He attended Northern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1981, majoring in broadcast journalism, and very briefly attended the University of Cincinnati, but did not graduate from either.  He earned money selling women's shoes, selling insurance door to door, stocking shelves, working in construction, and cutting tobacco. 

Clooney's first role was as an extra in the television miniseries Centennial in 1978, which was based on the novel of the same name by James A. Michener and was partly filmed in Clooney's hometown of Augusta, Kentucky. Clooney's first major role came in 1984 in the short-lived CBS sitcom E/R (not to be confused with ER, the long-running medical drama). He played a handyman on the series The Facts of Life and appeared as Bobby Hopkins, a detective, on an episode of The Golden Girls. In 1986, Clooney made his theater debut in the play Vicious about Sex Pistols musician Sid Vicious. 

Clooney's first prominent role was a semi-regular supporting role in the sitcom Roseanne, playing Roseanne Barr's supervisor Booker Brooks, followed by the role of a construction worker on Baby Talk, a co-starring role on the CBS drama Bodies of Evidence as Detective Ryan Walker, and then a year-long turn as Det. James Falconer on Sisters. In 1988, Clooney played one of the lead roles in the comedy-horror film Return of the Killer Tomatoes.  In 1990, he starred in the short-lived ABC police drama Sunset Beat.  During this period, Clooney was a student at the Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school for five years. 

Clooney rose to fame when he played Dr. Doug Ross, alongside Anthony Edwards, Julianna Margulies, and Noah Wyle, on the hit NBC medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999. After leaving the series in 1999, he made a cameo appearance in the 6th season and returned for a guest spot in the show's final season. For his work on the series, Clooney received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1995 and 1996. He also earned three Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor – Television Series Drama in 1995, 1996, and 1997 (losing to co-star Anthony Edwards). 

Clooney began appearing in films while working on ER. His first major Hollywood role was in the horror comedy-crime thriller From Dusk till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez and co-starring Harvey Keitel. He followed its success with the romantic comedy One Fine Day with Michelle Pfeiffer, and the action-thriller The Peacemaker with Nicole Kidman. Clooney was then cast as Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, which was a modest box office performer, but a critical failure (with Clooney himself calling the film "a waste of money").  In 1998, he co-starred in the crime-comedy Out of Sight opposite Jennifer Lopez, marking the first of his many collaborations with director Steven Soderbergh.  He also starred in Three Kings during the last weeks of his contract with ER. 

While ER was a hit, he expanded to form two production companies. The first production company he founded was Mirador Entertainment in February 1996, with former ABC vice president Deborah Leoni later serving as partner in July 1996, of which the company signed a two-year deal with NBC via the NBC Studios production company.  The second he founded was Maysville Pictures (formerly Left Bank Productions, which was renamed due to a conflict with the music management firm),  named for his home town, with partner Robert Lawrence, and signed a three-year deal with Warner Bros. Pictures in November 1996.  In 1998, the NBC deal was replaced by a new TV deal for Maysville Pictures with Warner Bros. Television and CBS, shortly before leaving ER, and rendered Mirador Entertainment defunct.  In order to expand Maysville into the television business, the company hired Ben Cosgrove, Pam Williams (who runs the TV side) and Kevin Field to run the company.  In September 1999, Clooney split from producer Robert Lawrence in the Maysville partnership.

MINI BIO :

George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney spent most of his youth in Ohio and Kentucky, and graduated from Augusta High School. He was very active in sports such as basketball and baseball, and tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, but was not offered a contract.

After his cousin, Miguel Ferrer, got him a small role in a feature film, Clooney began to pursue acting. His first major role was on the sitcom E/R (1984) as Ace. More roles soon followed, including George Burnett, the handsome handyman on The Facts of Life (1979); Booker Brooks, a supervisor on Roseanne (1988); and Detective James Falconer on Sisters (1991). Clooney had his breakthrough when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross on the award-winning drama series ER (1994), opposite Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle and Julianna Margulies.

While filming "ER" (1994), Clooney starred in a number of high profile film roles, such as Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and One Fine Day (1996), opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1997, Clooney took on the role of Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin (1997). The film was a moderate success in the box office, but was slammed by critics, notably for the nipple-laden Batsuit. Clooney went on to star in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999).

In 1999, Clooney left "ER" (1994) (though he would return for the season finale) and appeared in a number of films, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Perfect Storm (2000) and Ocean's Eleven (2001). Collaborating once again with Steven Soderbergh, Ocean's Eleven (2001) received critical acclaim, earned more than $450 million at the box office, and spawned two sequels: Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).

In 2002, Clooney made his directorial debut with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), an adaptation of TV producer Chuck Barris' autobiography. This was the first film under the banner of Section Eight Productions, a production company he founded with Steven Soderbergh. The company also produced many acclaimed films, including Far from Heaven (2002), Syriana (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005). Clooney won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana (2005), and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).

In 2006, Section Eight Productions was shut down so that Soderbergh could concentrate on directing, and Clooney founded a new production company, Smokehouse Productions, with his friend and longtime business partner, Grant Heslov.

Clooney went on to produce and star in Michael Clayton (2007) (which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor), directed and starred in Leatherheads (2008), and took leading roles in Burn After Reading (2008), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009). Clooney received critical acclaim for his performance in Up in the Air (2009) and was nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award. He didn't win that year, but took home both Best Actor awards (as well as countless nominations) for his role as a father who finds out his wife was unfaithful as she lays in a coma in Alexander Payne's The Descendants (2011). Through his career, Clooney has been heralded for his political activism and humanitarian work. He has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since 2008, has been an advocate for the Darfur conflict, and organized the Hope for Haiti telethon, to raise money for the victims of the 2010 earthquake. In March 2012, Clooney was arrested for civil disobedience while protesting at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C.

Clooney was married to actress Talia Balsam, from 1989 until 1993. After their divorce, he swore he would never marry again. Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman bet him $10,000 that he would have children by the age of 40, and sent him a check shortly after his birthday. Clooney returned the funds and bet double or nothing he wouldn't have children by the age of 50. Although he has remained a consummate bachelor, Clooney has had many highly publicized relationships, including with former WWE wrestler Stacy Keibler. In 2014, he married lawyer and activist Amal Clooney, with whom he has two children, twins.

During his career, Clooney has won two Academy Awards, one for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Syriana  and one for Best Picture as one of the producers for Argo, as well as a BAFTA and a Golden Globe. As of 2023, he is one of four people to have been nominated for Academy Awards in six different categories. For his role in The Descendants, he won a Golden Globe Award^[206] and was nominated for an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Satellite Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Lead Actor and Best Cast.^[207] In 2015, Clooney was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2025, he was honored with a Theatre World Award for his performance in Good Night, and Good Luck on Broadway.

TRIVIA : 

• Has been friends with Sandra Bullock for around 25 years. They appear in a movie together for the first time in Gravity (2013).
• During the 1990s, Clooney often publicly asserted that he would never get remarried or 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 wouldn't have kids by age 50. At age 53, he broke his vows to never marry again when he wed human rights lawyer Amal Clooney (née Alamuddin) in 2014. In early 2017, news broke that the couple were pregnant with twins.
• Suffers from a form of malaria that surfaces from time to time; he has to live with this for the rest of his life.
• Reportedly got into a fistfight with Three Kings (1999) director David O. Russell on the set. Russell had shouted and derided a few extras out of frustration and Clooney didn't appreciate this. Russell has since said, "I wouldn't make another George Clooney movie if they paid me $20 million.".
• Committed to O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) before even reading a script, because of his wish to work with the Coen brothers. He even accepted a significantly lower salary than usual.
• During the 2012 Newsweek Magazine Oscar roundtable, Clooney told a story about working for the women's shoe department of a Cincinnati, Ohio, department store in 1979. He said that it was fashionable at that time for some women to have their fourth toe surgically removed so that they could more easily fit into tight pumps and heels. He came to know which women had had this procedure done, and he always tried to pass those customers of onto his co-workers, since he found the sight of the deliberately missing toe so disturbing.
• A renowned practical joker, of whom Brad Pitt is often a target, George Clooney revealed on The Graham Norton Show, that he had replaced the license plate frame on Brad Pitt's car with one that said, "Fuck Cops". Of course, Pitt was pulled over by the LAPD.
• He is known for his self-mocking sense of humor. The creators of South Park (1997) spoofed his Oscar acceptance speech in a South Park episode, and his political views in Team America: World Police (2004). Clooney commented that he would have been really disappointed, had he not been spoofed in the latter.
• His famous "Roman haircut" was actually an accident. While filming From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), he wanted to make his character Seth Gecko look really crazy with a chopped off hairstyle. But the haircut became popular and turned into a positive.
• Tried out for a position on the Cincinnati Reds baseball team.
• Auditioned five times for Ridley Scott for the role of J.D. in Thelma & Louise (1991), a role that ultimately went to future friend Brad Pitt and catapulted Pitt to super-stardom.
• In December 2006, he traveled to China and Egypt to make a personal plea to Chinese and Egyptian officials to use their ties with the Sudanese government to help stop the violence in the Darfur region.
• Resided in a friend's closet while struggling as an actor in Los Angeles, early in his career.
• Suffered from Bell's palsy for a time while he was in high school.
• His production company, Section Eight Productions, is named after Jamie Farr's M*A*S*H (1972) character Maxwell Q. Klinger (Klinger tried to get out of the army via a section 8).
• He and his father, Nick Clooney, were arrested, on March 16, 2012, for participating in a staged protest outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C.
• In October 2005, after an accident on the set of his movie Syriana (2005), he suffered from back pain, bad headaches, and memory loss. After several spine surgeries, he fully recovered.
• Is very closely related to the noted Republican president Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's aunt is George Clooney's great-great-great-great grandmother. Which also makes him a distant cousin of Tom Hanks, via Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks.
• He auditioned for the role of Mr. Blonde/Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs (1992), but was turned down. The role instead went to Michael Madsen.
• He loves the sitcom South Park (1997). He got a hold of Trey Parker, the creator of the series, and asked for a role in an episode. He was given the role of "Sparky", the gay dog, which involved little more than panting and yelping. However, when it was time for South Park to go to the big screen, Clooney got a full speaking role, as an ER surgeon.
• He got his start in a movie starring his cousin, Miguel Ferrer. Later, after Clooney had established himself on ER (1994), Ferrer made a guest appearance on the very first show. George's aunt, Rosemary Clooney, made guest appearances on two shows the first month ER (1994) aired.
• Was originally to star in Jack Frost (1998) but chose to do Batman & Robin (1997) instead. His role went to Michael Keaton, who had previously starred as Batman in Batman (1989) and in Batman Returns (1992).
• Was the second man, after Richard Gere, to make an appearance on the cover of Vogue magazine.
• Clooney grew up working in tobacco fields. In his late teens, he took up smoking and continued to do so through his late 20's. A decision he regrets and has discussed in numerous interviews. He finally decided to quit when his favorite Uncle died after a long battle with lung cancer. Clooney's parents were non-smokers, although many of his Aunts and Uncles smoked.
• Shared an L.A. home with Kelly Preston when both were struggling actors.
• George and Amal Clooney welcomed two babies on June 6, 2017, daughter Ella Clooney and son Alexander Clooney.
• His voice was dubbed for the singing moments in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000).
• In August 2006, he and his producing partner Steven Soderbergh decided to close down their Section Eight production company after a six-year working partnership. Soon after, he and Grant Heslov founded their production company, Smokehouse Pictures.
• He loves beer. He does voiceovers for Budweiser TV commercials and allegedly had a beer keg installed in his dressing room during filming of Ocean's Eleven (2001).
• Helped celebrate a plan to rebuild a hospital in hurricane-devastated Louisiana alongside former President George Bush. The pair appeared outside the courthouse in Cameron Parish, the only surviving building in the town following Hurricane Rita. Bush presented local officials with a check for $2 million from the Bush-Clinton Katrina fund. The money will help run South Cameron Memorial Hospital once it has been rebuilt. Former ER (1994) star Clooney quipped, "There is good news in all of this, which is that when the hospital gets up and running, I will not be doing any of the medical procedures" (20 December 2006).
• Frequently involves himself in projects involving the "Golden Age" of television. For example, he produced and starred in Fail Safe (2000), a throwback to the live television plays of the 1950s and 1960s; he directed and appeared in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), a movie about Chuck Barris' career in early game shows; and he directed, wrote, and appeared in Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), a movie about Edward R. Murrow's battle with Senator Joseph McCarthy.
• Owned a pet pig named Max, given to him by Kelly Preston, for eighteen years. Max died on December 1, 2006.
• Attended Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Kentucky.
• On the DVD commentary for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), George Clooney says that shortly after he met Grant Heslov in 1982, Heslov loaned Clooney $200.00 to buy his first set of headshots, and they have been friends ever since (and later writing and producing partners).
• In 2006, his The Peacemaker (1997) co-star Nicole Kidman presented him his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
• With his partners sold their tequila brand Casamigos to Diageo Plc, a British multinational alcoholic beverages company for $1 Billion.
• In April 2008, he quit the WGA after the union turned down his wish to be credited as a co-writer for Leatherheads (2008). He felt that he was let down by the union.

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