Born George Timothy Clooney is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards; one for his acting and the other as a producer. He has been honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2015, the Honorary César in 2017, AFI Life Achievement Award in 2018, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2022.
Early Life
Clooney’s background is anything but humble as he has always had the means to be in the limelight since birth. 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 great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Ann Sparrow, was the half-sister of Nancy Lincoln, mother of President Abraham Lincoln, making Clooney and 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, insurance door to door, stocking shelves, working in construction, and cutting tobacco.
Career
After moving to Los Angeles, he lived in his car for a time. Although it should be noted that the car was parked in the driveway of a Beverly Hills mansion owned by his famous aunt, singer Rosemary Clooney. He soon won minor roles in television shows such as “The Facts of Life”, “Roseanne”, and “The Golden Girls”.
His first major role was on the sitcom “E/R” in 1984—not to be confused with his star-making role on the NBC drama “ER”, which began in 1994 when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross. He received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He expanded to leading roles in films, with his breakthrough role in From Dusk till Dawn (1996). followed by superhero film Batman & Robin (1997), Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (1998), David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). Greater stardom came from his starring role in Soderbergh’s Ocean’s film series from 2001 to 2007.
Clooney made his directorial debut with the spy drama Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), and has since directed the historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), the political drama The Ides of March (2011), the war film The Monuments Men (2014), and the science fiction film The Midnight Sky (2020). Clooney won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the thriller Syriana (2005), and earned Best Actor nominations for the legal thriller Michael Clayton (2007), and the comedy-dramas Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011). He received the Academy Award for Best Picture for co-producing the political thriller Argo (2012). He has also starred in Burn After Reading (2008), The American (2010), Gravity (2013), Hail, Caesar! (2016), and Ticket to Paradise (2022).
As of 2022, Clooney is one of three people to have been nominated for Academy Awards in six different categories, a position shared with Walt Disney. 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. Outside of acting, Clooney is known for co-founding Casamigos tequila, which was one of the best-selling spirits of 2022.
Personal Life
When it comes to romantic relationships, Clooney knows he has the good looks to get into any with whomever and he doesn’t shy from it. Clooney dated actress Kelly Preston (1987–1989). During this relationship, he purchased a Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig named Max as a gift for Preston, but when their relationship ended, Clooney kept the pig for an additional 18 years until Max died in 2006. He has jokingly referred to Max as the longest relationship he had ever had.
Clooney was married to actress Talia Balsam from 1989 to 1993. He also had a relationship with actress Ginger Lynn Allen. In 1995, Clooney dated Cameron Diaz and Frances Fisher. Clooney dated French reality TV personality Céline Balitran (1996–1999). In 2000 he was linked to Charlize Theron and Lucy Liu. After meeting British model Lisa Snowdon in 2000, he had a five-year on-again, off-again relationship with her. Clooney dated Renée Zellweger (2001), Jennifer Siebel Newsom (2002), Krista Allen (2002–2008), and Linda Thompson (2006). In June 2007, he started dating reality personality Sarah Larson, but the couple broke up in May 2008. In July 2009, Clooney was in a relationship with Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis until they split in June 2011.In July 2011, Clooney started dating former WWE personnel Stacy Keibler, and they ended their relationship in July 2013.
Clooney became engaged to British-Lebanese human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin on April 28, 2014. He subsequently said they forged a strong bond because of their interest in campaigning work.
In July 2014, Clooney publicly mocked the British tabloid newspaper Daily Mail after it claimed his fiancée’s mother opposes their marriage on religious grounds. When the tabloid apologized for its false story, Clooney refused to accept the apology. He called the paper “the worst kind of tabloid. One that makes up its facts to the detriment of its readers.” On August 7, 2014, Clooney and Alamuddin obtained marriage licenses at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea of the United Kingdom.
On September 27, 2014, Alamuddin bagged Clooney as a life partner officially at Ca’ Farsetti. They were married by Clooney’s friend Walter Veltroni, the former mayor of Rome.
In 2015, Clooney and Alamuddin adopted a rescue dog, a Bassett Hound named Millie, from the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society.
On February 9, 2017, it was reported by the CBS talk show, The Talk, that Amal was pregnant, and that they were expecting twins. On June 6, 2017, Amal gave birth to a daughter, Ella, and a son, Alexander.
Growing up around Cincinnati, Clooney is a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals and Cincinnati Reds. He tried out to be a Red in 1977. Clooney is also an association football fan and supports EFL League One club Derby County F.C.
In November 2021, Clooney wrote an op-ed to British tabloid The Daily Mail, petitioning them to stop publishing photos of his children, highlighting that his wife is an international lawyer who works “confronting and putting on trial terrorist groups” and that the tabloid was endangering their lives. In 2014, Clooney had rejected an apology from the Daily Mail for printing a false story, calling the Mail, the “worst kind of tabloid.”
Net Worth
George Clooney; Actor, Screenwriter, Director, Entrepreneur and activist, has a net worth of $500 million.
George Clooney is one of the most sought-after A-List actors in the entertainment industry. He regularly earns at least $20 million for a single film role. George is the co-founder of Casamigos Tequila. In 2017 George and his two partners sold Casamigos to Diageo for $1 billion.
Clooney has property in Los Angeles. He purchased the 7,354-square-foot (683.2 m2) house in 1995 through his George Guilfoyle Trust. His home in Italy is in the village of Laglio, on Lake Como, near the former residence of Italian author Ada Negri. Clooney also owns a home in Los Cabos, Mexico, that is next door to the home of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber. In 2014, Clooney and his new British wife Amal Alamuddin bought the Grade II listed Mill House on an island in the River Thames at Sonning Eye in Oxfordshire, England at a cost of around £10 million. In May 2021, The Economic Times reported Clooney plans to buy a vineyard near the village of Brignoles, in France, which includes an 18th-century manor with its own swimming pool and a tennis court
