Actor Clooney Finds `Evidence’ of Success

Most of us deserve, in our next lives, to be George Clooney. Here is a guy who is handsome and quick-witted. He has a famous family; he also has one of the largest pet pigs in Hollywood.

In a town filled with the semi-employed, he’s even kept working. “The truth is,” Clooney says, “I’m already more successful than I ever thought I would be.”

By his own account, Clooney has done about a dozen pilot films. They range from the glory of “Roseanne” to the agony of the original “Baby Talk.”

Many have been young-hunk roles, but even that has changed. “The last few have gotten away from that teen thing.”

The latest is CBS’ “Bodies of Evidence,” which premieres at 9 tonight on WBBM-Channel 2. Lee Horsley plays the standard cop, honest and lonely. Al Fann plays a rumpled doughnut muncher and Kate McNeil plays a new detective.

Thrown into this is Clooney, with the well-pressed suits. “I have a psychology degree,” he says of the character, “and I’m more sympathetic to criminals.” This is a stretch from his real life, in which academics fizzled.
Clooney had grown up in northern Kentucky, but his family’s fame was on the other side of the river. “In the
microcosm of Cincinnati, I was always Nick Clooney’s son.”

Both his parents had TV talk shows, so he was used to being on camera. Then his dad became a prominant news anchorman.

George Clooney majored in broadcasting at Northern Kentucky University, but his schoolwork was weak. Life changed when his cousin (Miguel Ferrer) and his uncle (Jose Ferrer) were acting in a movie nearby. Clooney took a small role . . . and changed his life.

“I loved it,” he recalls. “I just packed all my belongings and moved out to Hollywood, with $300 in my pocket.”

His aunt, singer Rosemary Clooney, gave him a room for the next year. His parents were angry at him for quitting school, but not at her. “In my family, things always manage to work out.”

Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service
360 words
18 June 1992
Chicago Sun-Times

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