Everybody knows that George Clooney broke out on The Facts of Life in the mid-'80s. But in the quarter-century before the once and possibly future Oscar-winner and all-around Hollywood royal's media profile encompassed morning-show house tours and magazine covers from Esquire to Vanity Fair, where was the 25-year-old Clooney developing his public persona? Where else? Tiger Beat!
Just in time for this week's Oscar build-up, the indispensable film-culture resource Looker points us to the heartthrob repository and its revelatory Clooney feature from February 1986. Parts of it sound uncannily familiar — the Descendants star's self-effacing charm ("I ran outside in my rabbit suit shouting, 'What's happening?' and I was known as Chicken Little for a long time!"), bachelor swagger ("I'm really bad at a lasting relationship — you can tell because I've never had one!") and bracing humility ("I don't think I dislike anything about this business except for the fact tat there are so many actors out of work!") all come through loud and clear.
But other parts of it of it are like, "Say whaaaa?" To wit: George Clooney has (or had, anyway) a temper! And a very large car:
"The problem is that, especially in this business, you're always on the edge, everything is so temporary. Sometimes, if I'm driving my car and the guy in front of me wants to turn left when he wasn't signaling for a turn, I just want to ram into him! I go nuts, crazy! I have this big Oldsmobile that could drive over everything and that's what I feel like doing. [...] I have this bumper sticker on my car because I broke the dashboard with my fist: 'Don't worry about things you don't have control over.'"
Priceless. And this bit about "time for myself": "I love my new apartment and being there just listening to music or studying my script." Your move, Brad Pitt.
[Looker]