Clooney stays hot as `Bodies’ grows cold

His “Bodies of Evidence” series will not be on the CBS fall schedule and hopes for its future range from dim to  zilch. But viewers have yet to see the last of George Clooney, son of former KNBC (Channel 4) newscaster Nick Clooney and nephew of singer Rosemary Clooney.

They will, at least, get two looks at him this week, first at 9 p.m. Wednesday when he appears in the NBC movie “Without Warning: Terror in the Towers,” and again at 10 p.m. Friday when “Bodies” presents its final first-run episode with several reruns scheduled to follow. Meanwhile, another series could be on his horizon, this one courtesy of David Letterman, who has taken time out from his leap from NBC to CBS to produce a comedy pilot.

“It’s called `The Building,’ ” Clooney says. “I did it with Bonnie Hunt – from `Grand’ and `Davis Rules’ – and it’s mostly Second City action, very loosely written. If it sells it looks like my character will be a re-occurring one. I’m this kind of strange guy who dumps Bonnie for another woman.”

He is a lot more heroic in “Without Warning,” a quickly assembled movie executive producer Madelon Rosenfeld has based on the Feb. 26 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. Work on it was completed in mid-April. “We figured, why wait until the last minute?” Clooney says.

“When I first heard about this I said, `Oh, please!’ But this film is different. It’s not about terrorism. It’s about heroics, people doing things you wouldn’t expect them to do. The director is Alan Levi. He’s worked on `Bodies of Evidence’ and he’s a calm director in situations where there’s no reason to be calm.”

Clooney portrays Kevin Shea, a fireman who was injured at the bombing site. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to him before we did the show, but I did meet him later,” he says. “And no, we’re not alike at all. He looks like a fireman. Compared to him, I look like a chorus boy.”

But filming “Without Warning” was anything but chorus boy stuff, especially during its last three days. “The set was blowing up and I had bricks being thrown at me,” Clooney says. “It was – well, it was eventful.”

“Bodies” has been a lot more peaceful even though it involved his playing a fast-lane bachelor in a police
homicide division. “I’m very sedate and cerebral there,” Clooney says. “There have been no car chases and I
think I’ve fired my gun only twice.”

Clooney says the real problem he had with his character “is that he’s smarter than I am although he’s certainly done some dumb things.”

He was also demoted along the way. In its original form the show was called “Homicide,” a title that eventually went to a short-lived NBC program, and Clooney was a chief detective. That concept didn’t work and the producers wound up bringing in Lee Horsley for the top role while changing the entire cast except for Clooney and Al Fann.

Clooney says he was satisfied with the move and he was especially pleased that “Bodies” gave him his first
“adult” role in a series. “I’m 31 now, so I guess that’s about time.”

Nobody was ever sure how old he was supposed to be in the ill-fated “Baby Talk,” a series Clooney claims he
didn’t enjoy very much. “The writing never did flow.” He was happier as Booker, the factory foreman on
“Roseanne,” but felt he had to leave. “That was nobody’s fault,” he says. “The stuff in the factory just didn’t work.

Besides, I was hired to cover a demographic – 17-25 – that wasn’t needed for that series.”

Bob Sokolsky
The Press-Enterprise
748 words
24 May 1993

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