GEORGE CLOONEY

Biography

George Timothy Clooney was born May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to parents Nick, a TV newscaster and talk-show host, and Nina, a former Miss Kentucky pageant runner-up.

George Clooney hails from a family that knows all about being in the spotlight, from his father Nick and his aunt, renowned singer and actress Rosemary Clooney, to cousin Miguel Ferrer, an actor. He also has an older sister, Ada, who lives a less high-profile life.

george clooney on roseanne
A young George Clooney got his start on TV at the age of 5, when he would appear on his father's talk-show, The Nick Clooney Show. Although he went off to major in Broadcast Journalism at Northern Kentucky University, he always wanted to be a professional baseball player.

George Clooney only 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.

George 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.

George 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.

george clooney in o brother where art thou

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, George Clooney became the newest heartthrob for women and the envy of men, ever since 1994. Once his star factor grew, George Clooney was cast in his first "real" film From Dusk Till Dawn in 1996. A string of roles followed, including One Fine Day, costarring Michelle Pfeiffer, and 1997's Batman & Robin, in which he donned the bat suit.

In 1997, George Clooney costarred 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. George Clooney left ER in 1999 to pursue a full-fledged film career.

George 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.

george clooney owns a production company
George 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 Ocean's Eleven (2001) (starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt), Welcome to Collinwood (2002), and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002).

george clooney in ocean's twelve
In 2004, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julie Roberts, and Matt Damon for Ocean's Twelve. He followed that up with two impressive projects in '05: the Academy Award-winning Syriana, which George Clooney produced and acted in, as well as Good Night, and Good Luck, which George Clooney received several award nods for -- an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, BAFTA Award nom for Best Direction and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director.

george clooney in michael clayton and leatherheads
George Clooney continued to dabble in both acting and directing/producing. In addition to a third installment and the release of Ocean's Thirteen, George Clooney appeared in the feature-length documentary film Darfur Now. He also produced and acted in Michael Clayton, which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor as well as a Golden Globe for the same category.

In 2008, he directed, produced and cowrote the flick Leatherheads, which he also acted in alongside Renee Zellweger and John Krasinski. The same year he also appeared in Burn After Reading and, in '09, Fantastic Mr. Fox