Birth name George Timothy Clooney Nickname Gorgeous George Height 5' 11" (1.80 m) Born May 6, 1961 Birth place Lexington, Kentucky, US Occupation Actor, film director, screenwriter, film producer   George is an Academy Award-winning American actor, director, producer and screenwriter, known for his role in the first five seasons of the long-running television drama ER (1994–1999) and his rise as an "A-List" movie star in contemporary American cinema.

Clooney has notably been able to balance his cinematic performances in big-budget blockbusters with more modestly-budgeted films on serious topics and more commercially-risky projects, while expanding his prominence as a producer.

Born in Lexington, Kentucky and raised in Augusta, Kentucky, Clooney is the son of Nina Bruce Warren and Cincinnati news anchor and TV host Nick Clooney. His paternal aunt is actress and singer Rosemary Clooney, and he is the cousin of actor Miguel Ferrer; another cousin, Gabriel Ferrer (married to Debby Boone), is an Episcopal priest. He is of mostly Irish American heritage, although he also has some distant German ancestry. Between 1989 and 1993 he was married to actress Talia Balsam, the daughter of actor Martin Balsam. He currently has a villa on Lake Como in Italy.

Clooney, a young college graduate from Kentucky who spent most of his "struggling actor" years riding to auditions on a bicycle, got his start in Los Angeles. His first major role was in the short lived television medical comedy/drama, E/R (not to be confused with the much later "ER" of the mid '90s). Additionally, he played a handyman on the series The Facts of Life. His first significant break was a semi-regular supporting role in the sitcom Roseanne, playing Roseanne Barr's overbearing boss Booker Brooks. Another early appearance was in 1988's Return of the Killer Tomatoes. In 1987 he was also in the film Combat Academy. Clooney would achieve stardom when he was selected to play Dr. Doug Ross on the NBC hit drama ER.

Prior to his success on ER, he befriended another actor named Grant Heslov, a close friend and frequent collaborator with whom Clooney later co-wrote Good Night, and Good Luck. Heslov is also the president of Section 8 Entertainment, Clooney's and director Steven Soderbergh's production company. Clooney said in an interview that he was driving an RV through the country with Heslov, (who was getting over a broken engagement), when he got a phone call from his agent telling him that NBC just picked up ER for a full season. Clooney said, "I think I just got my career."

Clooney has since starred in movies such as From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), One Fine Day (1996), Batman & Robin (1997), Out of Sight (1998), 3 Kings (1999), The Perfect Storm (2000), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Ocean's Eleven (2001), Welcome to Collinwood (2002), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), and Ocean's Twelve (2004), along with guest appearances on sitcoms such as Roseanne and Friends. He made his debut as a film director in the 2002 feature Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, an adaptation of the autobiography of TV producer Chuck Barris.

On July 8, 2005, news reports said that George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon would be working with Cindy Crawford's husband Rande Gerber to design and build a new casino hotel in Las Vegas. On August 29, 2005, Clooney officially announced his involvement with the Las Ramblas Resort project. The project never came to fruition, however, and the property on which the resort was to be built was sold in June 2006.

After serving as pitchman outside the U.S. for products like Fiat and Martini vermouth, Clooney lent his voice to a series of Budweiser ads beginning in 2005. Clooney had been criticized by actor Russell Crowe for such extracurricular pursuits. Clooney responded by criticizing Crowe's frequent endorsements of his rock and roll band.

Clooney is a self-described political liberal and blogs for the Huffington Post.

Clooney's father, Nick, ran as a Democrat in the 2004 election for a seat in the House of Representatives representing Kentucky's 4th Congressional district. He challenged Republican Geoff Davis for the open seat. Many observers, citing the star power and funding that Clooney's famous son would be able to draw, rated the race as highly competitive, and it quickly gained a high profile as one of few seriously contested House races. Clooney lost the election, gaining 44% of the vote to Davis's 54%. The conservative demographics of the northern Kentucky Fourth District, which were at odds with Clooney's mostly liberal leanings, have been cited as a major reason for Nick Clooney's loss.

Clooney suffered from Bell's palsy for a time while he was in high school.

In 2005, during the filming of a scene for the movie Syriana in which Clooney's character is tied to a chair and tortured, the chair was accidentally kicked over and Clooney hit his head on the concrete floor, tearing his dura mater. His doctors dismissed his complaints until he began leaking spinal fluid from the nose; he has since undergone surgery to bolster his spine with metal bolts. Clooney had to cancel some promotional appearances and, finding it impossible to obtain insurance coverage to make a film, had to put up his house for collateral. He has dismissed media reports that he contemplated suicide following surgery, insisting that he was simply talking about the idea of having to live in severe pain for the rest of his life.