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TVInews
107 The World and Career of George Clooney, from Kentucky to
Hollywood "Good Night, and Good Luck" -
MORE

GEORGE
CLOONEY BIOGRAPHY
39th Week of 2005 /
As we have already
expressed in our tvinews reports, Kentucky has come up with
some ot the great actors, singers, inventors, politicians,
whiskey, fried chicken and news anchors -- whose combined
talents have become household words around the world.
Of course, one of the best actors to come out of Kentucky
was George Clooney, and
in all probability, Clooney is one of the best ideal
marketing men the promotional business. There's no doubt
about it, he commences his promotional activities, while his
latest movie or movies are still in the work in progress
stage.
When a film finished,
but still in the pre-distribution stage, -- in very unique
way, he always promoting a sideline project, that might help
you gain an interest in understanding the plot, like buying
a home in Italy, or a hotel in Las Vegas.
This time he's
promoting his, "Good
Night, and Good Luck". Clooney not only co-wrote, produced,
and directed the film, but he plays the role of (Fred
Friendly) -- the producer of the top rated CBS news show
of the 50s, "See It Now". The film is about Edward R.
Murrow's on-air confrontations with Sen. Joseph McCarthy
about his tactics in getting guilty pleas.
Section 8, a company created by Steven Soderbergh and
Clooney, in 1999, was the primary producer and the Todd
Wagner and Mark Cuban's 2929 Entertainment organization, was
contracted to provide the cost for
production and
distribution.
And like always,
"Good Night, and Good
Luck" has some great
stories the came from the shoot, both in pre and post
production phases. You can find find the quotes
02
In the past, Clooney had
constantly booby-trapped his co-stars' rooms, often soaking
Pitt with well-placed buckets of water (Remember Thelma And
Louise? Well, take THAT you brilliant GIT!).
Then there was the
gambling, and his most recent venture into Las Vegas, and
the talk about buying a billion dollar hotel complex. As we
said before, Clooney is a terrible gambler, horribly
unlucky, but, on location in Las Vegas, he began playing
blackjack, accompanied by Damon. Having lost 25 hands on the
trot, he ran out of money and had to borrow $600 from his
co-star, money that he lost near-instantly. The next
morning, Damon found an envelope shoved under his hotel-room
door. It was a cheque for $600 - prompt payment, very
Clooney. But, looking closer, he saw that George had filled
in the section on the cheque where you can say what the
payment is for. If he tried to bank the cheque, the cashier
would think he'd been lap-dancing for George. $600-worth!
Again, very Clooney.
Of course, Clooney is well known for his way with the
ladies, and he's had many high-profile relationships. After
Talia Balsam, there were a couple of years, up until 1999,
with Celine Balitran, a French model studying the law.
Then came Charlize
Theron and Kimberly Russell, from whom George split when
marriage and kids were mentioned ("He told me flat out it
was never going to happen again"). And there was British
model and TV presenter Lisa Snowdon, with whom George had an
on-off thing, continuing through 2005.
In one of the Off
periods, he saw Renee Zellweger. That he did not stay with
her was proof positive of his inability to commit. There was
also actress Krista Allen. Oh, and there WASN'T Julia
Roberts, despite reports that Clooney had ruined her
relationship with Benjamin
Bratt.
After Ocean's Eleven (and a cameo in Spy Kids, directed by
his old From Dusk Till Dawn buddy Robert Rodriguez) would
come Welcome To Collinwood, a lower budget heist movie
produced by Section 8, a company formed by Clooney and
Steven Soderbergh, which was named after the military clause
dealing with discharge on the grounds of insanity.
Here Luis Guzman would
lead a shambolic gang in an attempt to bust into a pawn
shop, Clooney playing a wheelchair-bound former safecracker
who, for a small fee, teaches them how to pull off the job.
It was a chaotic comedy and, quite literally, worlds away
from his next project.
This was Solaris, a
remake of Tarkovsky's haunting 1972 sci-fi classic. Once
more directed by Soderbergh, this saw George as a
psychiatrist who's called to a space-station circling the
planet of the title when the astronauts begin sending back
wholly disturbed messages. Solaris, it seems, in order to
keep hold of any visitors, recreates people they loved and
have lost.
Thus Clooney's dead
wife, a suicide, turns up in bed beside him, alive once
again. But now he must cope with the fact that she is a
construct built from his memories of her. Is this real, is
it right, is it what he wants? Delving deep into the nature
of human relationships, the movie was contemplative, sad and
very intelligent, drawing a subdued but genuinely moving
performance from its star..
In George Clooney's, "Good Night, and Good Luck," -- Clooney
not only co-wrote, produced, and directed the film, but he
plays the role of (Fred Friendly) -- the producer of
the top rated CBS news show of the 50s, "See It Now". The
film is about Edward R. Murrow's on-air confrontations with
Sen. Joseph McCarthy about his tactics in getting guilty
pleas.
Section 8, a company created by Steven Soderbergh and
Clooney, in 1999, was the primary producer and the Todd
Wagner and Mark Cuban's 2929 Entertainment organization, was
contracted to provide the cost for
production and
distribution.
Click
To See More "Good Night, and Good Luck,"
Story
2.
Lessons from home
3.
Parlaying Movies - for
$$$$$
4.
Clooney / Tidbits
2.
Lessons from home
"My father has lived 68 years in
Kentucky and has very little to do with Hollywood," Clooney
said. "And suddenly he's a Hollywood hippie."
When Clooney talks about his father,
it's clear he feels the long shadow of the ex-anchorman. His
father's ideals set the standard for his own. "There were
plenty of times he'd say, 'Don't come back and look me in
the eye unless you did this ...' " Clooney said. Even now,
"He's the dominant one in the room. He's funny and smart. If
he were here, he would be telling stories and we'd be
sitting there
listening."
"Good Night, and Good Luck" is
"ultimately a love letter to my old man," Clooney said.
"It's me saying, 'Thanks for setting the bar that high, for
believing so strongly in the responsibility of information,'
and taking it to the level where it cost him a lot of things
over the years. There were jobs he left because he wasn't
willing to
compromise."
As a senior in high school and early
days in college, Clooney wanted to follow in his father's
footsteps, studying journalism for a bit and working briefly
on a cable access channel. "I realized quickly I wasn't good
enough to be able to play the game. I didn't finish college.
I wasn't well-read. I spent a great many years trying to
make up for my lack of curiosity in my early 20s," he said.
"I had very little interest in anything. I was sort of
floating by."
By his mid-20s, he had started to
focus, partly as a result of watching his father grow
frustrated and discouraged by the shift toward entertainment
in television news. "They sent him to consultants for what
color of suit to wear, how to part his hair. 'Don't write
the news. Read the news.' All the things that were killing
him...."
"I'd be watching some crappy news
show and my dad would go, 'They're not talking about this or
this. They didn't ask these questions.' It was a good
education."
As for his own political agenda, he
seems to have absorbed his father's liberal politics -- on
issues including civil rights, gun control and equality for
women. Earlier this year, he helped raise campaign funds for
his father, who ultimately lost a Kentucky congressional
race to GOP business consultant Geoff
Davis.
But over time, he said, they grew
apart politically, as his father drew closer to his Catholic
faith. "Some of that wide angle of liberalism narrowed, and
actually formed some friction between the two of us.
Both father and son knew the
Hollywood connection could be a liability in the campaign.
An inveterate letter writer who still uses an electric
typewriter because he likes to feel the imprint of the keys
on paper, George fired off a letter to the editor of the
local paper complaining that Davis had unfairly linked his
father with him. "I said my father had earned the right to
be judged on his own merits, not mine.... If you have
questions about where he stands, ask him. He'll tell you.
But don't use me as a weapon against him."
Click
For More About Nick Clooney Runs For
Congress
Recaping Clooney's
statement,
"in
all things considered, it's been the
worst year of my life." Besides his health problems, his
grandmother and brother-in-law died, and his dog was killed
by a rattlesnake, though Clooney tried to beat the snake off
with a baseball bat. "The last thing the dog remembers is me
hitting the dog," he told the LATimes. "It was really
traumatic."
Without any commercial films, such as
"Ocean's Twelve," he also lost more money than he had in a
long time. That hasn't stopped him from forging ahead with a
$3-billion Las Vegas casino development project with joint
venture partners. In any case, if he needs quick cash, he
said he can make a commercial or two abroad. In Italy, ads
like the ones he's made for sunglasses, cars and Martini
& Rossi, can bring upward of $500,000 each, he
said.
Still, he and Soderbergh will close
their company, Section 8 within a year, he said. "That was
something we decided a long time ago. Steven and I looked at
it as a great, fun experiment that will go sour at some
point, and rather than let it go sour, we're going to let it
have a good run.
03.
Parlaying Movies - for $$$$$
In a way, Clooney has
been able to carry on that independent spirit developed by
those in the film industry, that is creating updated ways to
produce socially and politically relevant films -- that have
faded since the '60s and '70s.
As the story goes, a
tan, talkative and friendly Clooney, while sitting inside
his dimly lighted cottage on the Warner Bros. studio lot, in
Burbank, explained the parlaying movie process this way to
film and finance the 1954, Murrow vs McCarthy event.
"I'm in the enviable
position of being able to force studios to make films that
they wouldn't ordinarily make," he said. Besides citing
"Good Night, and Good Luck," he mentioned his movie
production, "Syriana," a political thriller set in the
Persian Gulf, which he used to help persuaded Warner Bros.
to co-produce, by agreeing to take no upfront dollars as the
principal actor in the movie.
Clooney plays a career
CIA operative, based on real-life agent Robert Baer, who
uncovers a disturbing truth about his life's work. The
Warner Bros. / Section 8 co-production, will have a Nov. 23
limited release. The general release date is set for Dec.
9.
While sitting behind the
oversized wood and leather desk he shares with Soderbergh,
Clooney with both feet on the desk, he continued the story
on how he got the "Good Luck"
deal.
"I had to go to Warner
Bros. and say; . . . here's the deal! . . . say someone
would pay me $20 million to be in the film . . . if someone
were to pay me that (much), -- which I've certainly been
offered, that would basically mean -- I'm a $20-million
investor in this film; . . . it makes me gambling with them.
I'm saying . . . I'm taking no money upfront . . . (because)
-- I am already investing in this film! Now do you want to
come on board? . . . or do I raise the money somewhere else,
which I probably can."
It was in 1999, that Clooney formed a joint venture with
partner Steven Soderbergh, called "Section 8". The Section 8
partnership enabled us, as producers of our own movies, to
use profits from one commercial film, such as the "Ocean's
Eleven" franchise -- to finance another less-commercial
fare.
The Clooney/Soderbergh
team parlayed their directing talents to produce the
intriguing CIA / Chuck Barris TVhost based spy thriller,
"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," and "Good Luck". Clooney
was the director on both films. Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban's
2929 Entertainment and Jeff Skoll's Participant Productions,
were outside partners . "I got a dollar for writing the
script," he said. "I had to endorse my check for directing
and turn in my acting salary. Grant [co-writer, actor
and producer Heslov] and I each made a buck for doing
it."
The Luck of
Kentucky
But Clooney said he wants to leverage
his fame and power as a box office commodity while he still
can. "I want to say I did it when it wasn't very easy. If it
costs you a career, credibility and all those things, that
means you did it on your own volition and you have to live
with that. I'm okay with that. I'd rather be able to point
back and say, 'At this exact moment in history when it was
kind of tricky to do this, these are the stories I
told.'"
And while it may be unrealistic to
think a film might inspire young journalists to become
Murrows or Friendlys, Clooney said, "The only thing you can
do is raise that discussion again. What's been fun is to sit
back and say, 'Tell me, what's so wrong about asking tough
questions of all the
government?'"
In "Good
Night, and Good Luck",
the external enemy is communism,
exploited by U.S. Senator, Joseph McCarthy, who is portrayed
through archival film clips. In the 50s climate of fear, it
was not unusual for journalists, actors, politicians, and
producers to be caught into the stickey web created by
McCarthy sympathizers, working in government.
In today's climate of terror and fear
of stiff taxes, judicial activism, hurricanes and inflation;
-- Journalists and Celebrity actor/producers, like Clooney,
are caught between trade unions, studios, banks and
government regulators. The fear of being accused or accusing
each other of being traitors to their sponsors and/or to the
higher-ups in their companies or political party, who demand
them to back off controversy. "Murrow talks about 'a
built-in allergy to stories that offend us,'" Clooney said.
"The problem hasn't changed, really."
But it seems that after all is said
and done in making so many films at Warner Bros., George
plans to keep working with Soderbergh. "We're really good
friends. We just were afraid of becoming administrators. All
of a sudden we were businessmen. Not only are we not
tremendously good at it, we really don't enjoy it. It's not
fun."
"We feel like we're trying to pick
the right spot to pull the plug and walk
away."
And yet, the projects keep coming:
"The Good German," a film directed by Soderbergh, stars
Clooney as an American journalist who, while seeking his
mistress in postwar Berlin, becomes entangled in a murder
mystery; and "Michael Clayton," starring Clooney as a
high-profile New York attorney in the last and worst days of
his career. Both are scheduled for release next
year.
MORE ABOUT THE
MOVIE
"No one else could have gotten this
film made," said Andy Friendly, Fred Friendly's son and a
longtime television producer, executive and consultant. "He
could easily sit at home and collect his $25-million
paychecks for making big commercial movies, enjoy his home
in Italy and hang
out."
Many writers and students still ask
for transcripts of Murrow's famous 1958 speech before the
news directors' group, in which he observed television's
power to teach, illuminate and inspire but added that "it
can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to
use it to those ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and
lights in a box."
The conflict between reporters' drive
to cover important events without compromise and
management's need to please shareholders and board members
was spotlighted last year when CNN President Jonathan Klein
asked anchors to show more personality. It came alive again
this month when Moonves was described in a New York Times
Magazine article as hoping to raise the entertainment
quotient of his nightly news shows. He later qualified his
remarks, saying he aims only for
"change."
Movie studios too are under pressure
to produce blockbuster crowd-pleasers, and in this climate,
only someone with Clooney's clout and passion would be
likely to make a politically engaged movie that aspires to
also be entertaining, as "Good Night, and Good Luck"
does.
03.
Parlaying Movies - for $$$$$
In a way, Clooney has
been able to carry on that independent spirit developed by
those in the film industry, that is creating updated ways to
produce socially and politically relevant films -- that have
faded since the '60s and '70s.
As the story goes, a
tan, talkative and friendly Clooney, while sitting inside
his dimly lighted cottage on the Warner Bros. studio lot in
Burbank, explained the parlaying movie process this way to
film and finance the 1954, Murrow vs McCarthy event.
"I'm in the enviable
position of being able to force studios to make films that
they wouldn't ordinarily make," he said. Besides citing
"Good Night, and Good Luck," he mentioned his movie
production, "Syriana," a political thriller set in the
Persian Gulf, which he used to help persuade Warner Bros. to
co-produce, by agreeing to take no upfront dollars as the
principal actor in the movie.
Clooney plays a career
CIA operative, based on real-life agent Robert Baer, who
uncovers a disturbing truth about his life's work. The
Warner Bros. / Section 8 co-production, will have a Nov. 23
limited release. The general release date is set for Dec.
9.
While sitting behind the
oversized wood and leather desk he shares with Soderbergh,
Clooney with both feet on the desk, continued the story on
how he got the "Good Luck"
deal.
"I had to go to Warner
Bros. and say; . . . here's the deal! . . . say someone
would pay me $20 million to be in the film . . . if someone
were to pay me that (much), -- which I've certainly been
offered, that would basically mean -- I'm a $20-million
investor in this film; . . . it makes me gambling with them.
I'm saying . . . I'm taking no money upfront . . . (because)
-- I am already investing in this film! Now do you want to
come on board? . . . or do I raise the money somewhere else,
which I probably can."
It was in 1999, that Clooney formed a joint venture with
partner Steven Soderbergh, called "Section 8". The Section 8
partnership enabled us, as producers of our own movies, to
use profits from one commercial film, such as the "Ocean's
Eleven" franchise -- to finance another less-commercial
fare.
The Clooney/Soderbergh
team parlayed their directing talents to produce the
intriguing CIA / Chuck Barris TVhost based spy thriller,
"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," and "Good Luck". Clooney
was the director on both films. Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban's
2929 Entertainment and Jeff Skoll's Participant Productions,
were outside partners. "I got a dollar for writing the
script," he said. "I had to endorse my check for directing
and turn in my acting salary. Grant [co-writer, actor
and producer Heslov] and I each made a buck for doing
it."
The Luck of
Kentucky
But Clooney said he wants to leverage
his fame and power as a box office commodity while he still
can. "I want to say I did it when it wasn't very easy. If it
costs you a career, credibility and all those things, that
means you did it on your own volition and you have to live
with that. I'm okay with that. I'd rather be able to point
back and say, 'At this exact moment in history when it was
kind of tricky to do this, these are the stories I told.'
"
And while it may be unrealistic to
think a film might inspire young journalists to become
Murrows or Friendlys, Clooney said, "The only thing you can
do is raise that discussion again. What's been fun is to sit
back and say, 'Tell me, what's so wrong about asking tough
questions of all the government?'"
MORE ABOUT THE
MOVIE
"No one else could have gotten this
film made," said Andy Friendly, Fred Friendly's son and a
longtime television producer, executive and consultant. "He
could easily sit at home and collect his $25-million
paychecks for making big commercial movies, enjoy his home
in Italy and hang
out."
Many writers and students still ask
for transcripts of Murrow's famous 1958 speech before the
news directors' group, in which he observed television's
power to teach, illuminate and inspire but added that "it
can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to
use it to those ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and
lights in a box."
The conflict between reporters' drive
to cover important events without compromise and
management's need to please shareholders and board members
was spotlighted last year when CNN President Jonathan Klein
asked anchors to show more personality. It came alive again
this month when Moonves was described in a New York Times
Magazine article as hoping to raise the entertainment
quotient of his nightly news shows. He later qualified his
remarks, saying he aims only for
"change."
Movie studios too are under pressure
to produce blockbuster crowd-pleasers, and in this climate,
only someone with Clooney's clout and passion would be
likely to make a politically engaged movie that aspires to
be entertaining, as "Good Night, and Good Luck"
does.
_________
4.
ByLines:
Tidbits
"Good Night, and Good Luck" started
shooting after Clooney, who had gained 35 pounds for the
role, was injured during some fight scenes. Mysterious and
excruciating headaches turned out to have been the result of
a spinal leak, which requires in-hospital treatment every
two weeks.
"We'd already written the script,
hired all the people. I knew there was no way I could not do
it. It's one of those things that forces you to go," he
said. "It's actually good for you. People think you should
stay in bed and get well. Had I not had all this work to do,
I would have sat around and felt sorry for
myself."
At first, Clooney hoped to play
Murrow. But after watching the old clips, he realized that
Murrow had the look of someone who was carrying the weight
of the world and hardly anyone would buy the easygoing
Clooney in the role. He hired Strathairn instead. Frank
Langella plays CBS boss William Paley; Robert Downey Jr.
plays reporter Joe Wershba, with Patricia Clarkson as his
wife, Shirley.
Clooney did not want to hire an actor
to play McCarthy. "I wanted to deal with the movie the same
way Murrow dealt with McCarthy, in his own words," he said.
To blend the old black-and-white footage with new shots, the
film was shot in color, which is less expensive, and
transferred to black-and-white
stock.
Clooney said he researched opposing
points of view for "Good Night, and Good Luck," and ended up
incorporating the opinions of people who thought Murrow was
inappropriately using his news show to editorialize.
In one scene, Paley asks Murrow why
he didn't correct McCarthy when he said Alger Hiss was a
traitor, the implication being that Murrow didn't want to
risk appearing to be defending Hiss. "Obviously Paley didn't
say that," Clooney said. "I got that from one of the
opposition. I wanted the arguments to be brought
up."
One scene, taken from real life, has
the editorial team meeting in a room, each one in turn
revealing any potential past involvement with communism that
could hurt the show later. "They knew they were risking
everything to do this program.
They were young guys in their late
20s and 30s, with new homes, families, mortgages. They knew
the future of the country was at stake, and they knew they
were targets. The government tried to intimidate them. Even
Eisenhower, a courageous general, pretty much stayed silent
on this topic of
McCarthy."
But in lionizing Murrow, it's easy,
of course, to forget what ultimately happened to him:
Ironically, despite the overwhelmingly positive response
from critics and the public, the McCarthy programs
eventually led to the demise of "See it Now" and, for a
time, squelched the airing of controversial documentaries on
CBS, Friendly said. In the end, the constant static from
advertisers and affiliates gave Paley, in his words in the
film, "a constant stomachache." "See It Now" was moved from
its weekly slot to Sunday afternoons, and two years later,
it was off the
air.
"Murrow left 10 years later,
frustrated and depressed. My father left after that, after
being president of CBS News," Friendly said. "He resigned in
protest after CBS refused to run Senate hearings on Vietnam
in favor of the third rerun of 'I Love Lucy,' " he
said.
The feature was shot
in color, but was intentionally converted to black-and-white
to keep the 50s TV documentary style, created by Edward R.
Murrow.
More
About Exposing Journalists Ethics and the Movie
In the 1950s, the external enemy was
communism and fear of being overtaken by Russia. The two
subjects were exploited not only by Sen. McCarthy, but also
Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. The sound
of music in a good movie, like, "White Christmas", helped
overcome the fear of war.
Clooney
said recently about the $8-million cost to film "Good Night,
and Good Luck", that the film has hit possibilities at a
moment because its main point is about, "what is true, and
what isn't, and how are you going to say it." "Journalists,
he says, need couragement to combat both government
officials who try to intimidate them, and corporate bosses
who want them to entertain viewers -- by sparking themselves
into real life." Broadcasters have been praised for holding
government officials' feet to the fire after Hurricane
Katrina.
"There are very few guys who are
out-and-out heroes to writers," Clooney said. "In broadcast,
the two most famous were Murrow taking on McCarthy and
Cronkite taking on Vietnam. They had a direct and immediate
impact on our country. I believe it's the responsibility of
journalism to ask questions, and especially broadcast
journalists since 90% of our news now comes from
them."
In the
film, the external enemy is communism, exploited by
McCarthy, who is portrayed through archival film clips. In a
climate of fear, journalists and producers are caught
between McCarthy sympathizers in government, who can accuse
them of being traitors, and their sponsors and higher-ups in
their companies, who want them to back off controversy.
"Murrow talks about 'a built-in allergy to stories that
offend us,' " Clooney said. "The problem hasn't changed,
really."
Mike Clooney's personal views through
his
columns:
The environment: "All those conservationists
and environmentalists and tree huggers were right. The
regulations they have called for and nagged about for a
couple of generations are working. Our countryside is coming
back to life." -- Jan. 9, 1995.
Click
for More About Nick Clooney Runs For
Congress
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