Curious George Populare ‘Er” Actor Makes His Debut On The Big Screen

The doctor is in. George Clooney is in the lunchroom of the Chicago Firefighter’s Academy, wolfing down a sandwich.

Actually, Clooney isn’t a doctor. He just plays one on TV. Today he is taking a break from filming scenes at the academy.

Just as he is about to operate on some tuna fish, a young fire cadet approaches with a serious question.

“I’ve had this nagging cough that just won’t go away,” the guy begins - and he is only half kidding.

Clooney looks up. Like his TV character Dr. Doug Ross, he raises one eyebrow and looks seriously concerned.

“Listen,” Clooney says to the anxious and now hacking cadet. “The first year on the show, I was supposed to operate on someone and picked up a tongue depresser instead of a scalpel by mistake. Are you sure you want me to give you medical advice?”

This is not the first time Clooney has been asked to make a medical diagnosis. Ever since his popular series “ER” hit the airwaves, viewers have been stopping him on the streets to tell him about their ailments.

“People come up to me all the time thinking that I am a real doctor,” he says. “Even my friends will say, ‘You know, I’ve got this growth on my arm.’

” Of course, sometimes fans stop Clooney, a 34-year-old bachelor, just to tell him how sexy he is and to offer their phone numbers.

His role as a handsome young pediatrician has definitely caused some pulses to quicken. Even his costar Sherry Stringfield can’t ignore Clooney’s goofy but infectious charm.

“He’s a little bit Spencer Tracy - natural and really guyish,” Stringfield says during a telephone interview.

Not that Stringfield doesn’t get ticked off at Clooney at times - especially when he acts like a really annoying junior high school kid. Once, when the two were about to film an operation scene, Clooney launched into a series of graphic gynecologist jokes.

“Just what every woman wants: a doctor with a sense of humor!” Stringfield told him in disgust.

Clooney takes it all in stride. He has waited too long for his big break to let anything bother him.

After smaller parts on series such as “Roseanne” (in which he played Jackie’s boyfriend, Booker) and “Sisters” (in which he played Teddy’s doomed lover, Detective Falconer), Clooney has finally arrived. He is Hollywood’s hot doc - with movie offers galore.

First up is a role as Quentin Tarantino’s vampire brother in “From Dusk Till Dawn,” which opened nationwide Friday.

“I only kill people who deserve to be killed,” Clooney says of his character.

OK, but he’s still a vampire. Why did he choose such an unusual role for his first big-screen work since his “ER” fame kicked in?

“When they said ‘Quentin Tarantino’ I started thinking ‘Pulp Fiction,”’ Clooney explains. “This guy won an Oscar. It sounded like a good deal.”

In many ways, it wasn’t. Last year Clooney had to shoot “ER” by day and “Dusk” at dusk.

“I would finish with the movie at 3 a.m. and be back in my surgical scrubs by 7,” he says. “It was really exhausting.”

But that didn’t stop him from agreeing to make several more films while still appearing each week on the small screen.

“I’m not leaving ‘ER’ for films,” he says. “This show has been the opportunity of a lifetime and I won’t let anyone down.”

After years of toiling in TV-series hell, with about 13 pilots that never sold, Clooney knows a good thing when he sees it.

He plans to work on films in his “spare time.” Clooney will reportedly shoot a romance with Michelle Pfeiffer and a post-Cold War drama, “The Peacemaker,” for Steven Spielberg. One role he decided to turn down was a lead in “The Green Hornet.”

“I’ve got so much on my plate,” he says.

Given all of the above, one would think Clooney would have something known in the business as “major attitude.” Yet it seems that the good doctor has been inoculated against that side effect.

“He is definitely one of the nicest guys you’ll ever have as a friend,” says Clooney’s “ER” pal Noah Wyle. “He’s a hunk in the Tyrone Powers school of hunkdom, but it’s like he’s the only guy who doesn’t know it.”

A short while later Clooney enters his trailer, which is packed with his usual essentials: apple-flavored instant oatmeal, Taco Bell snacks and a copy of a book signed by his aunt, singer Rosemary Clooney.

He seems to be in a serious mood as he talks about how his career has taken off.

“The success of this show has been amazing to me,” he says of “ER.”

He was working on the NBC melodrama “Sisters” when he heard about the medical drama.

“I called and begged to audition,” he says.

And he landed the role of Doug Ross.

“He’s a sad character,” Clooney says. “Doug is really not at all like me. I’ve had such a great life.”

His life began in a small town in Kentucky, where his father, Nick Clooney, was the host of a local TV series. As a kid George dressed up like a pumpkin and a bunny to appear on the show.

“I was such a little ham,” he says. “I’d do anything to get on camera.”

But his childhood wasn’t always fun and games.

“Your father being on TV is like an invitation for kids to mess with you,” he says. “I took a lot of beatings.”

An accomplished athlete, Clooney decided early on to become a professional baseball player.

When that didn’t work out, he enrolled at Northern Kentucky University, intending to study broadcasting. But after a while he began to worry about competing with his father and decided that maybe broadcasting wasn’t a good idea.

While he was searching for a new direction, he paid a visit to his cousin, actor Miguel Ferrer, on the set of a movie he was making. The director took one look at handsome Clooney and gave him a bit part.

Clooney was immediately hooked. He raised enough money to move to Hollywood, despite the advice of his father, who told him that an acting career was only for the very lucky few.

Money was tight for a while, so Clooney stayed with friends and with his famous Aunt Rosemary.

Slowly, he began to find bit work on television. One of his earliest roles was on “The Facts of Life.” Years later he landed a part on the ill-fated Elliott Gould sitcom “E/R.”

It wasn’t until his role as Booker on “Roseanne” that audiences really began to notice Clooney. Then came the series “Sisters.”

“I know a lot of people were bummed when I died (on “Sisters”),” Clooney says, “but it was a cool death. I came back as a ghost for a couple of episodes and reunited with my dead son.

“Excuse me while I get some Kleenex.” He fakes a sob.

After his car-explosion finale on “Sisters,” Clooney was immediately wheeled into “ER.”

“Too bad. I should have been wheeled into the ER as Falconer. I could have saved my own life,” he says.

Or maybe not. Clooney freely admits he is a medical clod.

“It’s not that medical stuff grosses me out. I think it’s neat,” he says, adding that he spends some of his free time watching a cable-TV channel that features surgeries.

“I love it. You see someone getting their knee cut off. It’s carpentry. It’s art.”

The rest of his free time is spent “playing basketball with the guys, golf, tennis and hanging out with friends.

“I love travel. I went to Europe with some of the ‘ER’ cast before we started filming the show. It was great.”