PBS series praises Clooney

PBS’ three-night Warner Bros. salute ends today with a tribute to George Clooney, one of the studios’ most enduring and versatile stars.

His “Ocean’s” trilogy, Oscar-winning “Syriana,” “Michael Clayton” and other films give Warner Bros. what narrator Clint Eastwood calls “the George Clooney franchise.”

But his transition from “ER” star - produced at Warner Bros. for NBC - to the big screen as a fisherman facing a life-threatening “The Perfect Storm” made studio executives very nervous in 2000.

“The weekend that film opened, we were biting our nails,” Barry Meyer, Warner Bros. chairman and CEO tells “American Masters: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story.”

The film earned $41.7 million the first week, giving the Kentucky native clout to make both commercially successful films and movies about subjects close to his heart.

Among his pet projects are “Leatherheads” (released on DVD this week) and “Good Night and Good Luck,” about newsman Edward R. Murrow exposing anti-communist Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1954.

Clooney tells PBS that part of his impetus for making the Murrow bio in 2005 was from being called a “traitor” for opposing the Iraq war.

“I was put on the cover of a magazine with the word ‘Traitor’ across my chest. And I got really angry at the idea that dissent should be confused with disloyalty. They said at the time of war you can’t question your country. And it seemed to me, it was one of the great times to question your country,” says Clooney, who attended schools in Fort Mitchell, Mason and Augusta.

“Good Night and Good Luck,” “Three Kings” and “Michael Clayton” share a common thread that strikes a chord with moviegoers, Eastwood says. “Americans doing the right thing, as opposed to the expedient thing - that’s Clooney’s constant theme.”

Clooney also earns high praise in a four-page spread in the companion book, “You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story” by Richard Schickel and George Perry ($50; Running Press).

“George Clooney is one of the few stars to have translated his popularity on television into a prestigious movie career. Clooney’s versatile track record shows him to be one of the most successful and durable modern star/directors.”

• What: “American Masters: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story”
• When: 9 p.m. today,
• Channels 48, 54; 10 p.m. Channel 16
• Book: “You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story,” by Richard Schickel and George Perry

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