George Clooney (2 page)

Stars clearly constitute points of identification in a movie, as either a reflection of our own concerns or an escapist fantasy that allows us to forget them. Stars are often at pains in interviews to stress just how normal and down-to-earth they are, while living in homes the size and value of which we can only dream about. They are a focus of wish fulfillment, as better versions of ourselves: wealthier, healthier, better-looking, and more successful. The link might be quite minor, for example with fans copying a particular stylistic look or fashion statement (like Jennifer Aniston's hair in the mid-1990s), or more substantial, for example as a full-time occupation as a look-alike. If the process of identification is too complete, we have an obsessive devotion to the object of adoration, we continually follow the life of the individual, and we imagine that there is a real emotional bond between star and fan, now dubbed a stalker.

Historically, male stars have been associated with particular genres, like Jimmy Cagney (gangster movie), John Wayne (western or war film), or Harrison Ford (action adventure), and act as a mirror for those qualities, which a culture and an era find attractive (put simply, boys want to be them; girls want to be with them). Such cultural values clearly change over time (Clark Gable might be seen as cool for smoking but Clooney would not today). Names are a key part of the fantasy world of stardom as distinct from everyday life. Clooney has chosen to keep his name, which was already connected to a certain level of stardom. His
father, Nick Clooney, was a regional news anchor in Cincinnati and his aunt, Rosemary, was a major singing star in the 1950s. Clooney seems to have learned from such family connections about the fickle nature of fame and that it pays to take chances with projects that may not be possible once one's star power has waned.

Stars both reflect and generate shifting cultural values, and when stars cease to echo these, their resonance with an audience fades. Tom Cruise's Scientology and his eccentric behavior in interviews, and Mel Gibson's alleged problems with alcohol, domestic violence, and accusations of racism, threaten the pact that they have with viewers. If the excesses of a star's lifestyle (usually related to drink, drugs, or sex) appear to cross the bounds of what any given society deems to be acceptable, then offers of work start to dry up and products/studios start to distance themselves from a star. Ironically, if they were a rock star, such behavior might seem almost obligatory, but in the world of movies, the status of role model carries higher expectations about personal behavior.

Modern stardom is a branding exercise. Like Bob (Bill Murray) in
Lost in Translation
(Sofia Coppola, 2003), a movie star today might spend as much of his or her time endorsing products, like clothing lines, perfumes, or toys, as creating new films, so that names themselves literally become brands, like J-Lo or Beyoncé. Clooney, who abandoned plans for his own personal fragrance in 2010, appears in a series of Nespresso commercials (2006–present), discussed in chapter 9.

Part of the role of a star is to supply extrafilmic material for the circulation of comment about them. This includes not only interviews and photo shoots but also premieres and festivals, the latter of which are a particularly contrived affair. Cannes might well be a financial marketplace as film producers try to strike deals with distributors, but a large part of the media coverage is devoted to the appearance of stars. Like Tom Cruise's established act at charming the crowd at premieres, talking on cell phones borrowed from the crowd and happy to have his photo taken, so Clooney is also a regular at festivals, in Venice in particular.

In an age of media agents, PR consultants, and complex and sophisticated media campaigns, leaked stories, and off-the-record comments, the stories that swirl around stars are part of a carefully managed 24-hour media discourse. Negative publicity surrounding the conduct of the star can damage that brand, even at the level of unsubstantiated rumor or extremely loose connection, such as Clooney's appearance in a long list
of potential witnesses in the trial of former Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Friendly chats with David Letterman or Jay Leno are part of a media campaign, sometimes subtle, sometimes not, to promote a specific product. Questions are agreed to beforehand, avoiding no-go areas, which are often related to personal matters. Occasional mismatches occur and stars walk out of live interviews, but then this becomes the story itself, generating the magic substance being sought in the first place: publicity.

Stars also feed some of these perceptions. Clooney's activism for causes such as raising awareness over the situation in Darfur or natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, and their humanitarian consequences, illustrates his dilemma. If the media show an interest in him, he may as well use it as constructively as he can, but at the same time if he wants people to listen to what he says on serious extrafilmic issues, he must also accept that this will happen only as a result of publicity generated elsewhere.

In terms of sexuality, there used to be so-called “lavender” weddings, supported by studios, to cover up homosexuality, deemed by some to be immoral. Clooney's cultivation of a screen image akin to a modern-day Cary Grant also links him (in terms of era) with figures like Rock Hudson, who felt forced to construct such a veneer of heterosexuality to conceal his real sexual identity; and as a man, almost universally feted for his good looks, currently unmarried, Clooney is not an unnatural object of attention for gay viewers.

Clooney has clearly been angered at particular points in his career by actions of the paparazzi and popular press (both print and online). However, this is a difficult and reciprocal relationship as the media need stories to feed their insatiable desire for words and pictures, the more scandalous the better, and stars need publicity, preferably positive, but also privacy. One cannot live without the other. When the photographers held their cameras aloft in protest at the premiere for
The Peacemaker
in 1997 and refused to take Clooney's picture in response to his boycott of
Entertainment Tonight
and
Hard Copy
, after they had published unauthorized photos, it underlined his precarious position. As much as he may be right about media responsibility and integrity, there are always other stars to photograph. He might make a great movie, but if audiences do not hear about it or experience a barrage of negative publicity and choose not to see it, then his status as a star and an artist is diminished.

From a studio point of view, there is a financial incentive to maintain the role of stars as long as they act as a hook to draw audiences in. It
remains difficult to secure a distribution deal without the presence of stars. At the moment, Clooney has secured funding for more personal projects like
Leatherheads
(2008) only if he stars in them. Danny Boyle's
Slumdog Millionaire
(2009), although sweeping the board at the 2010 Oscars, found only a last-minute distribution deal through Fox Searchlight, after potentially failing to find a backer, partly due to its lack of recognizable stars. However, there seem to be fewer films conceived as overt star vehicles, in part because there seems to be a decreasing pool of male actors who can open a film. There also seem to be few guarantees about finding a successful formula, except repeating one you have already found.

I've done a lot of very bad television and I've been very bad in a lot of bad television.

—George Clooney
¹

While the shift from television to feature films is not unknown (Clint Eastwood's extended apprenticeship on
Rawhide
, for instance), lengthy TV careers usually represent a destination rather than a staging post in career terms. The number of contemporary actors who have made such a shift is extremely few with the exception of individuals like Guy Pearce from the Australian soap
Neighbours
(1986–89) to
Memento
(Christopher Nolan, 2001) to
The Time Machine
(Simon Wells, 2002) and back again to TV in
Mildred Pierce
(Todd Haynes, 2011) on HBO. In the following survey of Clooney's TV work, involving many failed pilots, dates in parentheses designate when he appeared in that show, not necessarily its full run.

Clooney's very first role on TV was in 1978 as an extra on the James Michener mini-series
Centennial
, which happened to be filming in Augusta, Kentucky, Clooney's hometown. A guest spot on the California-based crime-fighting series
Riptide
(1984), a bloodless version of
Miami Vice
, was Clooney's first on-screen speaking role, as one of a pair of kidnappers, eventually apprehended after a tussle and a roll down a flight of stairs.

E/R
(CBS, 1984–85) was canceled after only a single season but gave Clooney a taste of regular employment on a serial sitcom. As Mark “Ace” Kolmar, his character worked as an orderly with paramedics in all 22 episodes, alongside his on-screen aunt, Nurse Joan Thor (Conchata
Ferrell, better known now as Berta in CBS's
Two and a Half Men
), and with Elliott Gould, with whom he would team up again 15 years later in the
Ocean's
franchise. Who could have guessed the direction Clooney's career would take a decade later in another drama based in a Chicago hospital?

Clooney appeared in single episodes of fledgling series, which ran for only a short time.
Street Hawk
(ABC, 1985) lasted only 12 episodes, featuring a superbike ridden by Jesse Mach (Rex Smith), a police public relations officer by day and a crime fighter by night, constituting a motorcycle version of
Knight Rider
. Clooney appears in episode 2, “A Second Self,” as Kevin Stark, brother of a car thief killed in a pursuit, who tries to lure Jesse into a trap to exact revenge. Clooney's character dies (a rare early example), as dictated by the imperatives of the genre, in crossfire.

He had experience in single episodes of more established dramatic vehicles too. In an episode of
Murder, She Wrote
, entitled “No Laughing Matter” (1987), Clooney plays Kip, son of Mack Howard, one-half of a long-running comedy double act with Murray Gruen, now estranged due to a long-running feud. Kip seeks to marry Corrie (Beth Windsor), daughter of Murray in a
Romeo and Juliet
-style tale of family hostility. Clooney played Detective Bobby Hopkins in a 1987 episode of
The Golden Girls
(“To Catch a Neighbor”). He is one of a pair of cops who use the girls' house to watch their new neighbors, the McDowells, suspected of being jewel thieves. Clooney would probably be the first to admit that his acting here as “Bob Dishy” is hardly his best, accenting almost every word and trying to inject some drama into an episode whose writing falls below the standard of most others.

Clooney began to build experience in consecutive episodes (albeit in minor roles) in mainstream comedies.
Baby Talk
(ABC, 1991–92) was a direct TV spin-off from
Look Who's Talking
(Amy Heckerling, 1989). In the first season only, Clooney plays Joe, a construction worker and potential suitor of single-mother Maggie Campbell (Julia Duffy), whose advances are commented on by baby Mickey (via a Tony Danza voice-over). As carpenter George Burnett, in
The Facts of Life
, he was a regular cast member in season 7, starring in 17 episodes (NBC, 1985–86, recurring 1986–87) but did not even merit his own name. Originally a spin-off from
Diff'rent Strokes
, by the time Clooney joined the show it had evolved to include major changes of cast, and its focus had moved away from the privileged Eastland School with Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae) as matriarchal headmistress to a gift shop called “Over Our Heads,” built with Burnett's help after a fire at her previous shop.

Clooney's role in
Roseanne
(1988–91) is a little more significant in terms of the length of his appearance (11 episodes) and the enduring quality of the show. As the overbearing boss at a plastics factory, Booker Brooks, he also has a slightly more rounded character than in
The Facts of Life
or
E/R
. As Brooks he gets to date Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), don a moose costume, and work with John Goodman, who was also plotting a move into film. His presence is primarily visual and as a reverse-gender target of sexual harassment, so that we see him bending down to pick up a pen, provoking catcalls and getting his butt slapped by Jackie as she passes. The speed with which his character was dropped from the show, as it turned back toward the domestic and away from a work setting, reflects the brutality of network TV but also Clooney's own dispensable status at this time. It was during his time on
Roseanne
that he watched Metcalf go off for occasional film parts, an example of a gradual shift into film rather than a sudden risky jump, which could result in very public failure.

On
Sisters
(NBC, 1994–95) as Detective James Falconer, he gained the experience of a slightly broader drama show and was paired opposite Teddy (Sela Ward), who his character meets at an AA meeting at the beginning of season 4, marries by the end of it, only to be killed off by a car bomb in season 5. The show's dialogue rarely extended beyond the formulaic, but there were flashes of innovation, like a scene in which Falconer cannot give up his dangerous job. We also see a younger Teddy (Jill Novick) unable to commit to Mitch (Ed Marinaro), played out nonnaturalistically on the same set at the same time, even with one line (“Why can't you do this for me?”) spoken simultaneously by both male characters.

Bodies of Evidence
(CBS, 1992–93) did not have a long run, but as Detective Ryan Walker in 16 episodes opposite Lee Horsley (better known as TV's Matt Houston), Clooney gained some experience of a formulaic cop show. He played a profiler helping Horsley's character, Ben Carroll, as part of an elite homicide unit. Though hardly
CSI
, it does show the shift of detective narratives toward more forensic-based story lines.