George Clooney

Biography

George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and game show host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney spent most of this youth in Ohio and Kentucky, and graduated from Augusta High School. He was very active in sports such as basketball and baseball, and tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, but was not offered a contract.After his cousin, Miguel Ferrer, got him a small part in a feature film, Clooney began to pursue acting. His first major role was on the sitcom E/R (1984) as "Ace", an orderly. More roles soon followed, including "George Burnett", the handsome handyman on The Facts of Life (1979); "Booker Brooks", a supervisor on Roseanne (1988); and "Detective James Falconer" on Sisters (1991). Clooney had his breakthrough when he was cast as "Dr. Doug Ross" on the award-winning drama series, ER (1994), opposite Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle, and Julianna Margulies.While filming "ER", Clooney starred in a number of high profile film roles, such as Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and One Fine Day (1996), opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1997, Clooney took on the role of "Batman" in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin (1997). The film was a moderate success in the box office, but was slammed by critics, notably for the nipple-laden Bat suit. Clooney went on to star in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999).In 1999, Clooney left "ER" (though he would return for the season finale) and appeared in a number of films, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Perfect Storm (2000), and…