What Is It About...George Clooney?

The world belongs to George Clooney. We just live in it.

By David Smith
Published: Dec 13, 2007
Photography by ©Globe Photos

How can anyone not love a guy whose career began with bits on The Facts of Life, Murder, She Wrote and The Golden Girls, waded through the wasteland of B-movie sequels Return to Horror High and Return of the Killer Tomatoes, until snagging the plum role on what would become NBC’s second longest-running drama; parlaying a couple of Emmy nominations into one of the most successful 5-year acting runs in the history of Hollywood. This amazing run culminated in a show-biz first at the 78th Academy Awards, where George Clooney became the first person in Oscar history to be nominated for directing (Good Night, And Good Luck) and acting (Syriana) in different films in the same year.

Today, he sits in a director’s chair atop A-List Hollywood, handpicking pet projects (and female leads) while earning production creds and backend points on everything he does. If that isn’t enough, how about the fact that he lives in an Italian Villa on Lake Como – one of the most beautiful places on the planet – possesses unimaginable wealth, fucks whomever he wants whenever he wants, and while being courted to make a Senate run in his home state of Kentucky, reasonably shot back with: "Run for office? No. I've slept with too many women, I've done too many drugs, and I've been to too many parties" (insert Clinton - Bush punchline here).

Yet Clooney could be the only candidate for whom indiscretions in the pharmaceutical theater and fornication realm would gladly be overlooked by an entire gender; perhaps the only nominee who might garner a larger portion of the female vote than Hillary. Why? What is it that George Clooney possesses that so captivates the Dames of the world that in a survey of ten happily coupled adult women eight said they wouldn’t hesitate to cheat on their spouses or partners with him. Why is Clooney the only man on Earth other than Brad Pitt that makes Oprah’s studio audience sound like Cheap Trick at Budokan? I mean, aside from that quick draw-double smile-head tilt and dark smoky voice - shilling for the King of Beers on a plasma near you - what’s he got that I haven't got? Besides, well, everything.

Is it the money-and-fame fairy tale? Certainly he’s got them in spades, plus Clooney’s celebrity seems largely of his own design, appearing decidedly different and much more palpable than the tabloid gluttony of a Cruise or a Pitt. He has an element of privacy unto himself that is uniquely George. And I presume that's where women long to be - in that unique private space with him in his uniquely private Italian palace of Caligula-like tantric sex that, God-willing, will finally end Sting’s reign once and for all. It's an escape from reality into fairy tale... the Prince that young girls grow up dreaming of. Escapism, how pure.

What about the whole taming the eligible bachelor and making an honest man out of him thing? For you non-US Magazine readers, Clooney’s well-publicized vows against re-marriage and fathering a brood culminated in $10,000 wagers against Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman that neither would happen before he turned 40. He outlasted them both and when they paid their penance he returned the cash, doubling down that he wouldn’t have kids by age 50 -- the gauntlet put forth again. But the fact that Clooney maintains his bachelorhood gives hope to the Dames of the world that someday maybe they will be the one that slays the single dragon known as George Clooney. It’s a Sisyphean task, absolutely, but not an impossible one as long as he remains single.

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