Talia Balsam - wife 1989 - 1992

No wonder George Clooney has become a confirmed bachelor -- his only marriage didn't last as long as the divorce wrangling!

Clooney wed actor Martin Balsam's daughter Talia on Dec. 15, 1989, and they separated 20 months later. But it took 25 months before the divorce decree became final in September 1993.

The couple fought long and hard in court over their community property -- including George's prize possession, a potbellied pig named Max.

"George wound up getting Max although Talia had become very fond of him," Talia's uncle, actor Dick Van Patten, told The ENQUIRER. "They fought over that -- it was like a child custody battle!

"George didn't treat Talia badly during the marriage. I remember he took her to Vegas for their honeymoon. But after they were wed he just decided, 'I guess I shouldn't have gotten married. I didn't know what this marriage business was like.'

"It was too confining for him."

At the time of the marriage, George, now 40, was a struggling actor who was "pursuing stardom with a vengeance, but Talia wanted a more traditional marriage so she was not at all that supportive," a close friend revealed.

"Over the course of their marriage, they continued to grow apart because they could not find a compromise. Eventually, George started getting better and better roles and people started to really notice him -- especially women.

"George and Talia began arguing more often because he wasn't home a lot, so they finally decided it would be best for both of them if they divorced.

"That's when things got really ugly. George was furious when Talia -- whose family had money -- insisted she get all the furniture and other household goods because as a struggling actor, it took him a long time to acquire those things."

In the end, Clooney got a baby grand piano, a 1959 Corvette, a 1983 Harley, a l988 Saab and a 1991 motor home, plus the money in four bank accounts, interests in partnerships, stocks and a Studio City house.

Talia got $95,000 in cash from George, her jewelry, some bank accounts and a 1988 Dodge.

Each was allowed to keep whatever "furniture, furnishings, artwork, antiques, fixtures, personal mementos, household equipment and appliances, crystal, china, flatware and linens currently in (their) possession," according to court papers.

Said the friend: "That whole experience didn't turn George off women, but it did turn him off to getting married again."

Even while he was married, George always acted very much like a single guy, say sources.

"I had no idea there was a Mrs. Clooney," said a waitress at Du-Par's restaurant, where Clooney was a fixture. "Nobody did.

"He was in here all the time with a group of buddies. He was the quintessential single guy."

And a former neighbor in Studio City disclosed: "We all remember the pig, but most people had no idea George was married.

"Some days he kept the pig in the yard outside. Some neighbors complained it smelled. It never bothered me. It just snorted at night sometimes.

"But as for his wife -- I never saw her. Then she was gone and he lived there with a few buddies."

Talia married actor John Slattery in 1998, and they live happily in New York City.

Said a New York pal: "Talia's husband is gorgeous, he makes her laugh. They're really connected. So I'd say she's done pretty well since George. I don't think she's crying over him at all."

Clooney wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

*coughs*

THE ONE AND ONLY MRS CLOONEY
Saturday June 25,2011
By Peter Sheridan in Los Angeles AS George Clooney finishes with his latest girlfriend we tell the story behind the woman who did become the wife of the world’s most fanciable man.

You can’t say she wasn’t warned. George Clooney has always been very clear on the subject: he doesn’t want to get married.

But Elisabetta Canalis thought she would be the one to change his mind and Clooney isn’t exactly hard on the eyes with his Cary Grant charm, Rat Pack swagger and elegant insouciance.

After two years of jet-setting across the globe, watching sunrises from his villa in Lake Como and sipping sunset cocktails at his Los Angeles hilltop estate the stunning 32-year-old Italian TV presenter must have thought she had hooked the Oscarwinning star of such films as Batman & Robin, Ocean’s Eleven, Syriana and Up In The Air.

“In the future I will be married,” she said only recently, “but for the time being I am happy as I am.”

No longer. Canalis and Clooney split this week, issuing a joint statement confirming her worst nightmare: “We are not together any more. It’s very difficult and very personal.”

Canalis joins the long list of broken hearts that Clooney, who turned 50 last month, has left in his wake.

But for the actor the break-up highlights a private anguish that has haunted him for half his life: the breakdown of his first and only marriage – a failure he vowed would be his last.

Behind that shattered marriage lay a secret fear that friends believe played a part in his split with Canalis: Clooney’s determination never to become a father, terrified that he might fail his children.

“I don’t want to be the guy who comes in and does it half-assed, the way I’ve done many things in my life,” he says of parenthood.

“The minute something is tremendously difficult I lose some sort of interest. And I don’t ever want to have the responsibility of messing somebody up like that.”

The key to understanding George Clooney and his latest break-up lies with the only woman to have snared the world’s most lusted after man: actress Talia Balsam.

Balsam, 52, is a fine-boned ravenhaired beauty now married to Jon Slattery, who stars in TV hit Mad Men in which she also appears as his ex‑wife Monica Sterling.

But at 24 she met an unknown actor two years her junior as they co-starred in a small theatre production in Los Angeles.

Both were launching their careers and from performing dynasties. Clooney’s aunt was famed crooner Rosemary Clooney and his father Nick was a TV chat show host.

Talia’s father was respected stage actor Martin Balsam and her mother was veteran TV actress Joyce Van Patten.

The pair fell in love but when Balsam broke it off after nine months 22-year-old Clooney was devastated.

“It broke his heart,” says Clooney’s close friend, actor Richard Kind. Clooney sought solace in work and found modest success playing a redneck chauffeur on top sitcom Roseanne.

He also met actress Kelly Preston, fresh from co-starring as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love interest in Twins, and plunged into a whirlwind romance.

On their first date he asked her to move in with him.

The together. “I was always Mr Full On Spontan eous,” he refl ects. “I was like, ‘Let’s go! Whatever you want to do, let’s do it.’ Then as you get older you start to go, ‘You know what? Maybe we should go out a little bit fi rst.’ I’m much more cautious than I ever was before.”

BUT when Preston dumped him and quickly became engaged to Charlie Sheen, Clooney was once again heartbroken – until Balsam unexpectedly came back into his life. Five months later he proposed.

“I’d gotten out of one relationship that wasn’t going very well and married the one girl that I truly loved and had loved for years,” says Clooney.

Yet his partying days were far from over and he was not about to settle down and have the family Balsam craved.

He fondly recalls their wedding in 1989 as a day of partying with his Rat Pack gang of pals. “I went to Vegas with all my friends and got married in a chapel by an Elvis impersonator,” he re calls.

“I took a Winnebago (motor home) there. When you come from Kentucky any kind of white-trash thing like that really impresses you.”

After tying the knot he hit the gambling tables, “drinking and playing craps. I had already done the big gamble. I figured how much more could I lose”?

A lot, apparently. The marriage foundered after only a couple of years and they divorced in 1993.

“It didn’t work out but there was one good night,” he says. “I probably, defi nitely, wasn’t someone who should have been married at that point. I just don’t feel like I gave Talia a fair shot.”

Though he has sworn never to marry again Clooney insists: “She didn’t do anything to me. We had a relationship that didn’t work out, most of it is my own fault… I was the one in the relationship who wasn’t willing to fix things.

“For me it was about children. Everybody keeps telling me I have to have children. They think that I hate kids but I adore them.”

Then he explains: “I wish it was a part of me. I wish I had those kind of drives. I’ve never been great in relationships. I don’t have any children. My legacy is my work.”

For the star who found fame in the hit television series ER his independence is paramount. “In marriage you’re bound by what’s expected of you,” says Richard Kind.

“He doesn’t want to be expected to do anything.”

But freedom has its price, says longtime friend, actor Tom Hinkley: “If you hang out with George for even 10 minutes you would sense a sadness in him. He believes you have a choice, you either have a career or you have love.”

Another old acquaintance Thom Mathews adds: “He can’t commit. He doesn’t want to break anyone’s heart.”

Without wanting children he feels no compulsion to marry. “I don’t see any reason to do it,” says Clooney, who has hung his retired wedding ring on a dragon sculpture in his living room.

“The only reason to get married is to have kids and that I believe is the ultimate responsibility. You can’t do it halfway. You can’t be a fairly good father and that’s not part of me. If it’s selfish it’s selfish.”

Former co-stars Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfeiffer bet Clooney $10,000 each that he would be married with a child by 40. Clooney won the $20,000.

Talia Balsam’s career continued without Clooney, with a steady stream of film and TV roles.

Earlier this year she played Natalie Portman’s mother in romantic comedy No Strings Attached. She married Jon Slattery in Hawaii in 1998 and she now has the one thing Clooney could not – or would not – give her: a son, Harry.

AS CLOONEY yet again faces the world of bachelor parties, nightclubs and dating the world’s most beautiful women he may be wondering how much longer he can keep this up.

And he may be reminded of some wise words he offered on his playboy lifestyle at the tender age of 36.

“As you get older that image isn’t cute any more, not like when you’re 18 and going out with a bunch of girls. When you’re 40 and you do it, it’s kind of sad.”

So what does that make George at 50?

The couple fought long and hard in court over their community property -- including George's prize possession, a potbellied pig named Max.

was a struggling actor who was "pursuing stardom with a vengeance, but Talia wanted a more traditional marriage so she was not at all that supportive," a close friend revealed.

ManhattanMaven wrote:I'm sorry but he was NOT a pretty picture during this period! HEINOUS neckware and horrendous long hair....ROFL! GOD...cutting his hair was the best thing he EVER did! [/quote

Katiedot wrote:Didn't he hire her for one of the TV shows he did? I've forgotten what it was called but it was supposed to be some sort of semi-reality show about an actor trying to make it in Hollywood?