Women's Real - December 1999

"I won't be lonely this Christmas"

He's single again after the break up of another relationship. But, George Clooney tells Gabrielle Donnelly, he has someone else to keep him warm...

A funny thing has been happening to George Clooney since he left the hit television show ER. Normally mild-mannered women have taken to attacking him verbally on the street.

'It's like they're ticked off with ME because Doug Ross isn't around to be a good father to his kids!' he laughs, shaking his head in bemusement. At 38, he's every bit as handsome off screen as he looks on
it, and - Irish by blood and fiercely proud of it - positively dripping with charm. He settles in his chair, sips at his designer water (he's on duty right now, but makes it plain that, later on in the day, he will
be enthusiastically consuming a stronger liquid), and settles in to do one of the things he does best: tell a funny story.

'Now, you've got to remember that I'm just an actor. I signed on to act in ER for five years, I honoured that contract, but I've left the series. I know Doug's girlfriend, Nurse Hathaway, had twins. (In the
next series still to be shown in Britain). But, apart from that, I really don't watch the show regularly, so I'm more or less in the dark.

'Every so often, I'm walking down the street, living my life, thinking about the ball game or whatever, and a furious stranger will come up to me saying: "You go back for that girl and those children this minute!" I'm saying : "What? What are you talking about? Why are you hitting me? What have I done to you?"

'It seems that because my character can't come home for the children it's easy for them to make me out to be a real slimeball. Julianna (Margulies, who plays Nurse Hathaway) stands up for me. She calls me up and says: 'They wanted to have the story go that Doug just doesn't care enough to come home. I went in to them and told them I am not going to let Doug be the bad guy here!"


The real George Clooney, of course, has been in showbusiness for pretty much all of his life. The son of......." ...................and then it goes on about George's TV and film career ".......he has never yet hit
the jackpot. But he points out that this does not mean that he never will.

'I think I'm doing great,' he says. 'Listen, it took me a long time to make it in television. I did some good stuff, I did some bad stuff - believe me, I did some really, truly BAD stuff! - and I signed on for some roles that were 'sure shots' that turned out not to be hits at all. But I was always working, and eventually, I got to involved in something really classy, which was ER. I think my film career is going along the same lines - a slow slow, long career that will make it in the end. Meanwhile.....' He grins: he has been serious for long enough.

'.....the airplane companies love me - that's where most of my films so far are seen!'

His latest film, Three Kings, is an action movie set just after the Gulf War. Whether this proves to be his breakthrough film or not, it's one he's proud to have made, and had a lot of fun making.

'It's not one of those war films where you go in and kill people and that's that. Get the enemy, - they're The Bad Guys. This is more like All Quiet On the Western Front, where we are at war, but the enemy has a face, to. It recognises that we are all human beings, and - since I'm a liberal - that's important to me.'

George says that shooting with co-stars Mark Wahlberg and rap star Ice Cube was a total riot.

'It was a boys' club,' he beams. 'We made the film in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, all staying at the Holiday Inn together for almost four-and-a-half months. Cube, Mark and I got to be really good friends.

'They'd take us out into the middle of the desert, where they'd hidden a box which we had to find. They'd give us guns and blank bullets and dress other guys up like Republican Guard to stop us finding the box. That was our training - it was fun!

'Apart from that and the acting, we hung out. Played basketball during the day and at night they had a private karaoke bar in the back of the hotel. We must have sung: Don't Worry, Be Happy, about five thousand times.'

It wasn't all fun, though. It was during the shoot that George's girlfriend of several years, Celine Balitran, decided that pressure of work and fame - and George's lack of interest n marriage and children - were too much to take.

'She's gone,' he says for once not able to make a joke. What happened? 'Alot of things - it just didn't work out. I'm sad, to tell you the truth. She's one of the great girls I've known in my life. But I still talk to her and see her. She's doing great. She's got a new boyfriend, who seems really nice...I don't know. I guess I just don't seem to very good at relationships.'

Then he perks up. Life is not so bad - he still has his family, career and friends, with whom he'll be spending a riotous Christmas and New Year's Eve in a location they've been arguing about for months. 'And I've still got Max, you know.'
Max? 'The pig?'
Yes - his Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, who's been with him since dating Kelly Preston before she married John Travolta. 'At least I always get to keep the pig,' he says. He is now back into full joke mode.
'Celine would have taken him, actually - she really liked that pig. But he's mine. He sleeps at the foot of the bed. He used to sleep in the bed, but I had to stop that.

'You get a lot of grief from people when you sleep with a pig.'