Mitch Dates George Clooney and a Former Teen Idol

Rosemary Clooney's nephew George rubs me the wrong way.  I like his liberal politics and the fact that he's a gay ally.  But he has a marginally attractive face, nondescript physique, and no basket, yet he keeps being voted "Sexiest Man Alive" and "Most Handsome Man Alive."

And that annoying smug smile: "Hi, I'm George Clooney! You may worship me." 

His movies are unwatchable.  I've actually only managed to sit through From Dusk to Dawn (1996), Batman and Robin (1997),  and The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), which, I didn't realize, was about genocide.  The others are stupid caper movies, with that smug smile intact.






I could only find one photo of a young Clooney with his shirt off.  The resolution is too low to tell whether he still had a smug smile back then.

Apparently he's had his share of gay rumors, although I can't imagine how he would find the time after bedding every lady in Hollywood.  However, I don't recall hearing a single George Clooney hookup story when I lived in West Hollywood.  He wasn't really famous until the late 1990s, so maybe no one who hooked up with him thought to mention it.  Or maybe I just zoned out.

But I got one in my handy email box yesterday.  I've modified some of the details and added dialogue.

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Hollywood, March 1991

You can call me Mitch.  In the 1980s, when I was still in my 20s, I was a make-up artist in Hollywood.  I worked on all of the great teen idols of the era, Mark-Paul Goesselaer, David Faustino, Scott Wolfe (yes, I've seen him in his underwear) -- but I'm most proud of my work on horror and sci fi.

In the summer of 1990 I got a job on ABC's Baby Talk, a sitcom based on the movie Look Who's Talking (1989).   Julia Duffy played Maggie Campbell, a single mom with a talking baby, and Clooney played Joe, incongruously a construction-worker boyfriend.  Tony Danza provided the baby's voice.  With canny placement between Who's the Boss and Roseanne, it was a modest success.  However, the network suits felt that Duffy and Clooney weren't clicking in the role, so after 11 episodes they were replaced with Mary Page Keller and Scott Baio.

Clooney was not a big star: he was 29 years old, still struggling with walk-on jobs, recurring roles on The Facts of Life and Roseanne, and studying at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.  Nor did we think of him as particularly hunky.  He had big 80s hair, no physique, and no basket.  He played what we called a "goofball," a quirky, nerdy type.

I knew he was a newlywed: his wife Talia was also making the rounds of guest-spots and recurring roles.  But he was definitely a man's man, always hanging out with Tony Danza, going out for drinks with the guys in the crew.  Everyone thought that was further proof of his heterosexuality, but it made my gaydar go off.  Tony Danza had a lot of gay rumors at the time, too, as you recall.  Could they be boyfriends?

The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.