Is George Clooney going into mid-life meltdown? Daily Mail August 2007

The Daily Mail

Is George Clooney going into mid-life meltdown?

by ALISON BOSHOFF

Last updated at 07:45 05 August 2007

George Clooney likes to make the girls scream. And there's no hiding the mischievous delight he took in throwing handfuls of fake money into an already excitable crowd at the premiere of Ocean's Thirteen in Tokyo this week.

Clooney, 46, looked extraordinary ? impossibly chiselled, with the firm jawline of a 20-year-old and not a hint of tiredness around those limpid brown eyes.

The famous Clooney charm was on full beam and the fact that this was the movie's fourth premiere did not seem to have dented his enthusiasm for flesh-pressing.

No wonder he's so cheerful: he is being hailed as the King of Hollywood thanks to the film's success and positive previews of a new movie, Leatherheads, about the early days of American football, in which he stars and directs.
He has also recently been unveiled as the new ambassador for Omega watches, amid talk of a megabucks deal worth £45million.

Yet, despite these creative and commercial triumphs, not all of the talk about Clooney is quite so positive. He is so thin these days that he has earned the nickname George Scrawny and some of the websites devoted to fervent worship of his masculine beauty entreat their hero to 'just get eating'.

Indeed, Clooney may be the current holder of People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive title (for the second time, and to his evident delight) but he has lost so much weight that his publicist has more than once been forced to deny rumours that Clooney is seriously unwell.

Since putting on three stone for his role as a CIA agent in the 2005 espionage thriller Syriana, he has embarked on a major diet Once he reached his old weight (10st 3lb), it seems he decided to keep going. He appears to be thinner than ever ? and shows no signs of stopping.

Inevitably, there is speculation that this honed new figure is down to plastic surgery rather than willpower. Pictures of him in swimming trunks with a curious line across his abdomen led to talk of a tummy tuck or liposuction.
However, the line is above his navel, and tummy tuck incisions are always much lower, below the normal line of underwear.

Liposuction does not leave such an enormous mark, either. It seems likely that this is just a crease in his skin ? and the result of his dramatic slimming down.

In the spring, he once again sparked a slew of speculation that he'd had cosmetic work when he said in an interview that he had undergone eye surgery. "I had my eyes done. Can you tell? I think it's important to look awake," he said.
Certainly, his crows' feet appeared less pronounced and the fat pockets under his eyes and drooping lids had also disappeared ? as would be the case if he had gone for a blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery). But his publicist, Stan Rosenfield, insists that the Oscar-winning actor was just kidding when he confessed ? and told the Mail this week: "George has had no surgery of any kind."

Clooney does, though, look rather less tired than he used to. So, might he have resorted to injections of the musclefreezing drug Botox?

Dr Jan Stanek, a leading British cosmetic surgeon who does not treat Clooney, said: "It is very unusual for men to go for cosmetic surgery, but there are some minimally invasive procedures which can have a rejuvenating effect on the skin's appearance.

"If you are talking about somebody like Clooney, who is in the public eye, there is a pressure to look good all the time. People will look for improvements which can be made without being noticeable. Botox works very well, as does laser treatment for skin which has been sundamaged."

Whatever the truth, it is fair to say that this matinee idol is fully aware of the ticking clock and the effect it might have on his career. He dead-panned at a press conference this week, saying: 'I'm Brad Pitt, I just look a lot older." There's only so many times I can play the leading man who gets the girl.'

A Hollywood source added: "When you are used to being the best-looking man in the room, like George is, and you have used those looks to make your career, as he has, it is terrifically difficult when you start getting older."

In Clooney's own assessment, he is very much on the downward slope to middle age. "Everybody has a year where they age a decade and this was that one for me," he observed.

He has suffered his first experience of ill-health, leaking fluid from his nose following an injury on set in Syriana and enduring excruciating headaches for which there was no ready explanation.

He also underwent a major back operation, followed by regular blood transfusions to assist his recovery. He even had to wear a neck brace for several weeks.

He was certainly left shaken by this health scare and perturbed by what he sees as his fading looks. So what has his response been? In reaction to his sex symbol status, it seems that Clooney has decided to relive his bachelor heyday.
He has a predilection for picking up strippers and waitresses, perhaps because they are unlikely to tempt him into having anything like an ordinary, committed relationship.

Looking at his romantic history, one wonders if there is something of a crisis going on. He has been single since he split from former British model Lisa Snowdon in 2005 ? and even that was a long-distance relationship, where the topic of living together, let alone getting married, was entirely off limits.

In the five years they were an item, they spent only a handful of weeks in each other's company and Clooney made no secret of the fact that this arrangement suited him. It was an intermittent, no-strings romance.

One of Snowdon's confidantes said this week: "It was actually Lisa who ended it, although it was all very amicable. It was obvious that it was never going to move to the next level, and eventually that can only mean a split. And the physical separation was just a constant pain and strain, too."

Since then he has been spotted with Jenny Aguero, a model and mother-of- two who was in the background during this year's Cannes Film Festival.

He also had a liaison with a Vegas stripper, Sarah Talley, whom he met in the lap-dancing club Spearmint Rhino. There was a further romance with a waitress in Montreal. And that's it.

Clooney claims the early experience of his brief, failed marriage to actress Talia Balsam put him off matrimonial commitment for life and it's no surprise that the internet is alive with gossip about his sexual preferences.

On the web, he is described as 'queer as a deer', with one writer exhorting: "Come out of the closet, George, and get some fresh air!"

Clooney, it has to be said, fuels this speculation for reasons that are hard to fathom. The issue of homosexuality seems to be constantly on his mind, for during endless interviews he brings up the topic.

When profiled by Entertainment Weekly recently alongside his great friend Brad Pitt, he said that they met "in the baths. On Pico Boulevard", adding: "You wouldn't have recognised me with the leather hood on."

When he, Pitt, fellow actor Matt Damon and producer Jerry Weintraub placed their hands and footprints in the concrete outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, he quipped: "If I had to be on my hands and knees with three guys ,I can't think of better guys to do it with."

During the filming of Ocean's Thirteen, he played a joke on Pitt by posting a sticker on his car which read: "I'm gay and I vote." It's all most curious.

And the whispers are not quieted by the continual presence of Waldo Sanchez, a handsome and charming hairdresser who often accompanies George on his world travels.

They met in the mid-1990s, when Clooney was just becoming famous as Dr Doug Ross on ER.
Sanchez, who was doing hair on the TV show The New Adventures Of Superman, bumped into him in the studio car park and they became close buddies.

Since then, Sanchez has been the credited hairdresser on no fewer than 15 Clooney films ? actually, he's worked on only a handful of movies that don't star Clooney. "He's one of the good guys," Sanchez told an interviewer.
It must be said that Clooney seems to put particular emphasis on the importance of a gaggle of male friends he calls the 'good-time gang'.

These are nine men, and apart from Sanchez (a relatively new addition), they include friends who have known him for two decades.

TV actor Richard Kind, his best friend and married with three children, is among them, as is B-movie star Thom Mathews, who also owns a construction company.

This group gathers most Sundays with their wives, girlfriends and children, in Clooney's mock Tudor mansion.
The house is set at the top of a steep and winding road in Los Angeles. Since buying the property (from Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks), he has put up a large glass-fronted guest house, where the 'gang' play poker long into the night. "It's like the Playboy mansion without the sex,' he told an interviewer.

The home is very much a bachelor hang-out and there isn't a whiff of a feminine touch, even though French waitress Celine Balitran (a former lover) lived there for several years.

Clooney has collections of pipes and vintage wind-up metal toys which he proudly displays. There is a vintage Louisville Slugger baseball bat, Guinness on tap, and a well-maintained basketball and tennis court.
There's also a rather magnificent barbecue where the host likes to flip burgers at the weekend.

Until his death last year, a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig called Max was to be found lounging around, squealing to be fed ("George has never needed an alarm clock," his father Nick sighed).

Now Lou, a French bulldog who Clooney says is "mentally defective", is the only pet. Once a year, the actor and eight friends go on a golfing tour which ends in Las Vegas.

"We never start in Vegas, because you literally have to wash out your liver afterwards," he says.
Life seems to be run on the principle that boys never have to grow up.

Indeed, Lisa Snowdon recalls that he used to enjoy soaking her with water bombs, balanced on door frames ? not the most romantic behaviour. His friendship with Brad Pitt is a case in point.

He calls him "Two-Time" after the number of times Pitt has been voted Sexiest Man Alive, and after Clooney wrested the honour from him, Pitt jokily took out adverts in the trade magazines showing how his pal looked 20 years ago with a full face and mullet hairstyle.

Things are changing, though. On the set of Ocean's Thirteen, it was evident that most of the cast now have children ? Matt Damon is a father and Brad has his brood with Angelina Jolie.

Pitt paints a picture of Clooney sitting confused amid the children, like an old man. Clooney joked: "What the hell are these little things?"

He seems to have settled into the status of a favourite uncle and explains that he doesn't want to be a father because of the responsibility.

Instead, his great project is his lovely home in Italy, on the shores of Lake Como.
Originally intended as a holiday house, he now spends around four months a year there and has bodyguards to protect his privacy.

He is also greatly focused on social issues and has raised millions of dollars to give relief to Darfur in the Sudan. He spoke out against the war in Iraq, even though he knew he would be branded unpatriotic for doing so and he is a fan of the Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Friends in Los Angeles say Clooney has a reputation for being wonderful company and an all-round good guy.
Last year, he stood drinks for a party of 20 at ER actress Parminder Nagra's birthday party ? a typical act of generosity.

"He always picks up the bill and he is charm personified," said an acquaintance. "That guy on screen really is him."
Clooney says he knows his career could vanish overnight and has the example of his aunt, the singer Rosemary Clooney, whose professional fortunes nosedived when tastes changed, to remind him.

"It's all so much luck and accident ? mostly accident," he says. But he doesn't fear losing his status as a movie star and adds: "I'll survive."

For now, one of his favourite activities is zooming around the Hollywood hills on an Indian motorbike, virtually unrecognised under his crash helmet.

But, one wonders, what is he running away from?

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Is George Clooney going into mid-life meltdown?

by ALISON BOSHOFF

Last updated at 07:45 05 August 2007


George Clooney likes to make the girls scream.

And there's no hiding the mischievous delight he took in throwing handfuls of fake money into an already excitable crowd at the premiere of Ocean's Thirteen in Tokyo this week.

Clooney, 46, looked extraordinary ? impossibly chiselled, with the firm jawline of a 20-year-old and not a hint of tiredness around those limpid brown eyes.

The famous Clooney charm was on full beam and the fact that this was the movie's fourth premiere did not seem to have dented his enthusiasm for flesh-pressing.

No wonder he's so cheerful: he is being hailed as the King of Hollywood thanks to the film's success and positive previews of a new movie, Leatherheads, about the early days of American football, in which he stars and directs.

He has also recently been unveiled as the new ambassador for Omega watches, amid talk of a megabucks deal worth£45million.

Yet, despite these creative and commercial triumphs, not all of the talk about Clooney is quite

So positive. He is so thin these days that he has earned the nickname George Scrawny and some of the websites devoted to fervent worship of his masculine beauty entreat their hero to 'just get eating'.

Indeed, Clooney may be the current holder of People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive title (for the second time, and to his evident delight) but he has lost so much weight that his publicist has more than once been forced to deny rumours that Clooney is seriously unwell.

Since putting on three stone for his role as a CIA agent in the 2005 espionage thriller Syriana, he has embarked on a major diet

Once he reached his old weight (10st 3lb), it seems he decided to keep going. He appears to be thinner than ever ? and shows no signs of stopping.

Inevitably, there is speculation that this honed new figure is down to plastic surgery rather than willpower. Pictures of him in swimming trunks with a curious line across his abdomen led to talk of a tummy tuck or liposuction.

However, the line is above his navel, and tummy tuck incisions are always much lower, below the normal line of underwear.

Liposuction does not leave such an enormous mark, either. It seems likely that this is just a crease in his skin ? and the result of his dramatic slimming down.

In the spring, he once again sparked a slew of speculation that he'd had cosmetic work when he said in an interview that he had undergone eye surgery. "I had my eyes done. Can you tell? I think it's important to look awake," he said.

Certainly, his crows' feet appeared less pronounced and the fat pockets under his eyes and drooping lids had also disappeared ? as would be the case if he had gone for a blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery).

But his publicist, Stan Rosenfield, insists that the Oscar-winning actor was just kidding when he confessed ? and told the Mail this week: "George has had no surgery of any kind."

Clooney does, though, look rather less tired than he used to. So, might he have resorted to injections of the musclefreezing drug Botox?

Dr Jan Stanek, a leading British cosmetic surgeon who does not treat Clooney, said: "It is very unusual for men to go for cosmetic surgery, but there are some minimally invasive procedures which can have a rejuvenating effect on the skin's appearance.

"If you are talking about somebody like Clooney, who is in the public eye, there is a pressure to look good all the time. People will look for improvements which can be made without being noticeable. Botox works very well, as does laser treatment for skin which has been sundamaged."

Whatever the truth, it is fair to say that this matinee idol is fully aware of the ticking clock and the effect it might have on his career. He dead-panned at a press conference this week, saying: 'I'm Brad Pitt, I just look a lot older." There's only so many times I can play the leading man who gets the girl.'

A Hollywood source added: "When you are used to being the best-looking man in the room, like George is, and you have used those looks to make your career, as he has, it is terrifically difficult when you start getting older."

In Clooney's own assessment, he is very much on the downward slope to middle age. "Everybody has a year where they age a decade and this was that one for me," he observed.

He has suffered his first experience of ill-health, leaking fluid from his nose following an injury on set in Syriana and enduring excruciating headaches for which there was no ready explanation.

He also underwent a major back operation, followed by regular blood transfusions to assist his recovery. He even had to wear a neck brace for several weeks.

He was certainly left shaken by this health scare and perturbed by what he sees as his fading looks. So what has his response been? In reaction to his sex symbol status, it seems that Clooney has decided to relive his bachelor heyday.

He has a predilection for picking up strippers and waitresses, perhaps because they are unlikely to tempt him into having anything like an ordinary, committed relationship.

Looking at his romantic history, one wonders if there is something of a crisis going on. He has been single since he split from former British model Lisa Snowdon in 2005 ? and even that was a long-distance relationship, where the topic of living together, let alone getting married, was entirely off limits.

In the five years they were an item, they spent only a handful of weeks in each other's company and Clooney made no secret of the fact that this arrangement suited him. It was an intermittent, no-strings romance.

One of Snowdon's confidantes said this week: "It was actually Lisa who ended it, although it was all very amicable. It was obvious that it was never going to move to the next level, and eventually that can only mean a split. And the physical separation was just a constant pain and strain, too."

Since then he has been spotted with Jenny Aguero, a model and mother-of- two who was in the background during this year's Cannes Film Festival.

He also had a liaison with a Vegas stripper, Sarah Talley, whom he met in the lap-dancing club Spearmint Rhino. There was a further romance with a waitress in Montreal. And that's it.

Clooney claims the early experience of his brief, failed marriage to actress Talia Balsam put him off matrimonial commitment for life and it's no surprise that the internet is alive with gossip about his sexual preferences.

On the web, he is described as 'queer as a deer', with one writer exhorting: "Come out of the closet, George, and get some fresh air!"

Clooney, it has to be said, fuels this speculation for reasons that are hard to fathom. The issue of homosexuality seems to be constantly on his mind, for during endless interviews he brings up the topic.

When profiled by Entertainment Weekly recently alongside his great friend Brad Pitt, he said that they met "in the baths. On Pico Boulevard", adding: "You wouldn't have recognised me with the leather hood on."

When he, Pitt, fellow actor Matt Damon and producer Jerry Weintraub placed their hands and footprints in the concrete outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, he quipped: "If I had to be on my hands and knees with three guys ,I can't think of better guys to do it with."

During the filming of Ocean's Thirteen, he played a joke on Pitt by posting a sticker on his car which read: "I'm gay and I vote." It's all most curious.

And the whispers are not quieted by the continual presence of Waldo Sanchez, a handsome and charming hairdresser who often accompanies George on his world travels.

They met in the mid-1990s, when Clooney was just becoming famous as Dr Doug Ross on ER.

Sanchez, who was doing hair on the TV show The New Adventures Of Superman, bumped into him in the studio car park and they became close buddies.

Since then, Sanchez has been the credited hairdresser on no fewer than 15 Clooney films ? actually, he's worked on only a handful of movies that don't star Clooney. "He's one of the good guys," Sanchez told an interviewer.

It must be said that Clooney seems to put particular emphasis on the importance of a gaggle of male friends he calls the 'good-time gang'.

These are nine men, and apart from Sanchez (a relatively new addition), they include friends who have known him for two decades.

TV actor Richard Kind, his best friend and married with three children, is among them, as is B-movie star Thom Mathews, who also owns a construction company.

This group gathers most Sundays with their wives, girlfriends and children, in Clooney's mock Tudor mansion.

The house is set at the top of a steep and winding road in Los Angeles. Since buying the property (from Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks), he has put up a large glass-fronted guest house, where the 'gang' play poker long into the night. "It's like the Playboy mansion without the sex,' he told an interviewer.

The home is very much a bachelor hang-out and there isn't a whiff of a feminine touch, even though French waitress Celine Balitran (a former lover) lived there for several years.

Clooney has collections of pipes and vintage wind-up metal toys which he proudly displays. There is a vintage Louisville Slugger baseball bat, Guinness on tap, and a well-maintained basketball and tennis court.

There's also a rather magnificent barbecue where the host likes to flip burgers at the weekend.

Until his death last year, a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig called Max was to be found lounging around, squealing to be fed ("George has never needed an alarm clock," his father Nick sighed).

Now Lou, a French bulldog who Clooney says is "mentally defective", is the only pet. Once a year, the actor and eight friends go on a golfing tour which ends in Las Vegas.

"We never start in Vegas, because you literally have to wash out your liver afterwards," he says.

Life seems to be run on the principle that boys never have to grow up.

Indeed, Lisa Snowdon recalls that he used to enjoy soaking her with water bombs, balanced on door frames ? not the most romantic behaviour. His friendship with Brad Pitt is a case in point.

He calls him "Two-Time" after the number of times Pitt has been voted Sexiest Man Alive, and after Clooney wrested the honour from him, Pitt jokily took out adverts in the trade magazines showing how his pal looked 20 years ago with a full face and mullet hairstyle.

Things are changing, though. On the set of Ocean's Thirteen, it was evident that most of the cast now have children ? Matt Damon is a father and Brad has his brood with Angelina Jolie.

Pitt paints a picture of Clooney sitting confused amid the children, like an old man. Clooney joked: "What the hell are these little things?"

He seems to have settled into the status of a favourite uncle and explains that he doesn't want to be a father because of the responsibility.

Instead, his great project is his lovely home in Italy, on the shores of Lake Como.

Originally intended as a holiday house, he now spends around four months a year there and has bodyguards to protect his privacy.

He is also greatly focused on social issues and has raised millions of dollars to give relief to Darfur in the Sudan. He spoke out against the war in Iraq, even though he knew he would be branded unpatriotic for doing so and he is a fan of the Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Friends in Los Angeles say Clooney has a reputation for being wonderful company and an all-round good guy.

Last year, he stood drinks for a party of 20 at ER actress Parminder Nagra's birthday party ? a typical act of generosity.

"He always picks up the bill and he is charm personified," said an acquaintance. "That guy on screen really is him."

Clooney says he knows his career could vanish overnight and has the example of his aunt, the singer Rosemary Clooney, whose professional fortunes nosedived when tastes changed, to remind him.

"It's all so much luck and accident ? mostly accident," he says. But he doesn't fear losing his status as a movie star and adds: "I'll survive."

For now, one of his favourite activities is zooming around the Hollywood hills on an Indian motorbike, virtually unrecognised under his crash helmet.

But, one wonders, what is he running away from?

OofOof wrote:What happened to Lou the French Bulldog?