Daily Express interview: My dad taught me to look for the best in people, says George Clooney

My dad taught me to look for the best in people, says George Clooney

HERE is, says George Clooney, a beauty in old age.

By Garth Pearce
PUBLISHED:  09:39, Sat, May 23, 2015   | UPDATED: 11:26, Sat, May 23, 2015  


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Down-to-earth film star George Clooney and his new wife Amal will move into an English property
He is aware that he has a higher regard for old-fashioned values with each passing year.

And his view is all down to his father Nick Clooney, 81, a former TV journalist.

“He taught me the meaning of life,” says George. “He was the one who told me that manners matter and to always be respectful of others and their point of view.

“He would actually have open arguments with people in restaurants if he heard any bigoted views or they had been rude to waiters. He was my hero and I’m delighted to report he and my mum Nina are still alive and keeping an eye on me as ever.”

George, 54, has established himself as Hollywood’s biggest star but he always seems to step away from the instant and lightweight.

He prefers letter writing to texting or emailing, ignores Twitter and Facebook, admires good manners, embraces history and insists he is always respectful of older people.

“I admire brains and experience more than anything else,” he says. “What we do in movies is to entertain but others live far more interesting and responsible lives.

“Older people have so much more to offer and it is a foolish person who does not listen and learn.

“When I meet people for the first time they always want to talk about films but I’m genuinely more interested in listening to what they have to say and think.

“Most of us actors are self-obsessed and I admit to some of that myself. I can remember before I even started in this business listening to a TV actor complaining about the ‘pressure’ of fame. I thought to myself, ‘If I am ever lucky enough to make it I won’t say a word of complaint.’ What is there to complain about? We have incredible lives.”

George’s appreciation extends to England and the English way of life. He moves into a renovated Georgian home on the River Thames near Sonning-on-Thames, Berkshire, just in time to celebrate his first wedding anniversary in September with British barrister wife Amal, 37.

He will swap Hollywood for life in the hamlet of Sonning Eye on the Berkshire-Oxfordshire border and is already enjoying sampling what is on offer.

There is an old pub The Bull, where steak pie is a speciality with pints of Fuller’s beer. Upmarket restaurant The French Horn serves dinners at more than £100 a couple.

And there is even a small theatre The Mill at Sonning, which offers dinner and a play from £40 a head.

“I’ve been made very welcome in the pub and love a pint,” he says. “I have not been to the theatre yet but it’s nice to know that it is handy should I need to work. I’m putting down roots in the area simply because the timing is right for both of us.

“I have married a woman who has taught me all the advantages of being in Britain... not that I needed much persuading. I can sense we are going to have a great time living there.”

Well-known neighbours include Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Home Secretary Theresa May but it is clear that George is looking forward to  getting to know the less famous.

“My dad taught me the value of listening and learning,” he says. “He gave me optimism, the pleasure of looking for the best in people and the importance of accuracy in news reporting and journalism.

“The most important lesson was never to put people down. I remember at one point he was covering a riot and bad behaviour by a group of  people. They seemed to fill every TV screen. But he said that had you gone up to the highest building in the city and looked down you’d have seen thousands living decent lives and not causing trouble.

“It was important to balance the bad with the good so it has made me an optimistic person on the whole. Even during the lean times when I had no work I would always hope and think things would get better.”

George Clooney had collected handsome bets in the region of £7,500 each from star actresses Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman that he would be married at 40, before meeting Amal

They seem to have improved enormously. After predicting he would never again marry – he had a short-lived marriage to American actress Talia Balsam at the age of 28 – he broke his own prophecy after meeting Amal.

By that time he had already collected handsome bets in the region of £7,500 each from star actresses Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman that he would be married at 40.

He then doubled the bet that he would not marry by 50 and collected again.

WHAT changed his mind? “I realised I had finally met someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with,” he says simply. “I only hoped she felt the same way.”

They met in September 2013 at a charity event. Amal is a human rights lawyer, born in Lebanon but brought up in the Buckinghamshire countryside from the age of two. She is now based in London.

Within months he was proposing marriage in an old-fashioned way. “It was a very conventional proposal,” he says. “On one knee too. I had no idea whether or not she would say, ‘Yes.’”

The wedding in Venice was quite a contrast from his first at the tacky chapel of White Lace And Promises, Las Vegas. “I was born in Kentucky so I appreciated any kind of white-trash thing,” he joked at the time about that first wedding venue.

The marriage was soon permanently in the trash can. In the wake of its failure Clooney walked out of his umpteenth failed television show Baby Talk under threat of a lawsuit from producers.

He then binged and put on 25lbs. His career finally took off at 33 thanks to television show ER. He has since hit the jackpot with the trilogy of Ocean’s films and a succession of high-quality dramas such as Good Night And Good Luck, Up In The Air and The Ides Of March.

He has picked up two Oscars and three Golden Globes along the way. For those who never go to the cinema he is probably best known for sending himself up in a series of coffee ads on television.

To give an indication of just how much money he has accrued his £10million Berkshire home is in addition to properties in Los Angeles, Mexico and Italy.

But he still points towards an early lesson from his father Nick in how uncertain life and careers can be after his nightly TV show was axed in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Clooney attended five schools in eight years as his father moved around looking for work. After living in grand houses the fall was spectacular: their home at one point became a trailer park.

He also suffered intense stress in his early teens probably as the result of uncertainty. A constant tingling in his face was diagnosed as Bell’s palsy – paralysis of the face – which lasted a few months shortly after his 14th birthday.

He did not go to college, working instead for his father’s former television station.

At 20 he was given a walk-on part in a film called And They’re Off but it was not released.

SO INSTEAD he supplemented his Hollywood acting struggles by working as an insurance salesman or selling men’s suits and women’s shoes.

When he arrived in Los Angeles looking for acting work he slept in a friend’s walk-in wardrobe.

“Right from the start I have had a pretty realistic view of how much luck is needed,” he reflects. “I had a plodding TV career and know that even now Hollywood is very unforgiving about failure in films.”

There looks little chance of that as his latest Tomorrowland is a big Disney sure-fire hit and his next, Money Monster with Julia Roberts, is a drama directed by Jodie Foster.

“My dad warned me never to believe people who say you’re the best in the business – or those that say you are the worst,” he says. “I still listen to him now.”

Lovely piece.  I'm not going to gush over all the wonderful things George said and learned from his Dad.
It just reaffirms my opinion of this man.