WHEN George Clooney, a mere TV star, was first hired to play Michelle Pfeiffer's love interest in the new romantic comedy One Fine Day, everyone at the studio was nervous. They had wanted Kevin Costner or Tom Cruise for the role of the silver tongued newspaper reporter who causes his daughter and Pfeiffer's son to miss a school outing, wreaking havoc on the two single parents' busy schedules. But now, two years later, it's evident the executives needn't have worried. With the role of Dr Doug Ross in er earning him legions of admirers, Clooney has since become one of Hollywood's hottest properties.
He recently sweated it out in the dreaded rubber suit in Batman And Robin, and he's just finished starring opposite Nicole Kidman in DreamWorks's first big budget project, The Peacemaker (both films are scheduled for 1997 release).
There is no longer any doubt of Clooney's star power. Fine Day director Michael Hoffman recalls: "When filming in New York we needed more security for George than we did for Michelle. Everybody on the street in Manhattan recognised him. We went to a basketball game and they wouldn't leave him alone. He's the biggest TV star in the world today."
Those who've watched Clooney's meteoric rise think he's got what it takes to make the transition from TV star to big screen box office draw.
"We saw the electricity right from the outset, "says Fine Day producer Lynda Obst. "Women love to take care of boys and be rescued by men. That's George.
He's a regular guy. Guys like him, girls like him.
"It's always a game of chance when you take someone unknown on the big screen but, frankly, we couldn't afford him now," Obst adds.
With all that's been happening to him, it's hard not to expect a big star temperament when Clooney bounces back into a suite at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Wearing a black T shirt under a dark silk jacket, his crew cut barely tinseled with grey, the actor looks more slight in person than he does on screen. But it turns out the only person not taking Clooney's career deadly seriously is the actor himself.
"I'm not that deep as an actor," he insists from the outset. And the rumours of his success, he seems to think, may well have been exaggerated. "When things go well for you everyone compliments you, everyone tells you you're great. And when things aren't going so well, it's your fault and you're an idiot," he explains. "As long as you don't listen to the latter and don't buy the former, you'll be fine."
Clooney's "overnight success" - which, he's quick to point out, has been 13 years in the making - is not going to cause him to slam that emergency room door shut and hang up Dr Ross's stethoscope anytime soon, despite rumours to the contrary: "It's not in any way false modesty when I say that whoever played these roles on the show would have been successful. The show is that big I benefitted from it all and worked hard to try and capitalise on it, but the star of the show is the show."
But Clooney's drawing power is such that his er producers have been extraordinarily cooperative when it comes to giving him time off to take advantage of all the good movie offers landing on his doorstep.
For that, Clooney credits former NYPD Blue star David Caruso, who fled the show that made him a star for fame in the movies (which has yet to materialise).
"It may not have been the greatest thing for his career, but what he did for us as actors ended up being good because studios and networks are so afraid of us leaving shows now that they say, `Aw, give him a couple of episodes off if he wants to do a movie'," Clooney says.
Which explains why, between keeping his emergency room patients happy and taking advantage of his windows of opportunity for film making, Clooney has been working seven days a week, year round.
"I'm going to grab it while it's there," he explains. "I've been doing this for a long time. I've done a lot of bad projects ... so when the opportunity comes to do some good projects, you try to do as many as you can, because it doesn't last."
Right now, though, life is good. "I wake up, pinch myself and say, `Good God, I'm doing Batman and Peacemaker. I'm doing a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer'."
Some of Clooney's down to earth perspective comes from watching the up and down careers of members of his own famous family - especially those of his aunt, singer Rosemary Clooney.
"Rosemary was a very successful singer, but by 1955, when rock'n'roll came in and pop music went away, she was suddenly not successful," he says. "And she didn't become less of a singer. In fact, along the way she got to be a better singer."
"You learn it's got nothing to do with you. It's very important to remember you don't stay in the public eye very long. People get sick and tired of you. So you learn to do what you can and do it as best you can.
Ia One Fine Day, Clooney plays a hard boiled muckraking journalist of the old school, a part he says he understood because his father, Nick Clooney, was in the business and still writes a column for a Cincinanti paper.
His feelings about the profession, he confesses, led him to lead his now famous boycott in Hollywood of tabloid entertainment shows that use footage from freelance paparazzi.
"It bothers me when things start to blur, when the National Enquirer breaks stories and they're used as a news source," Clooney explains.
"I'm willing to take my hits if I do something stupid. I'm a public figure and I deserve it.
But I want people to be responsible for what they say, he adds.
Clooney and his girlfriend, French beauty Celine Balitran, who met him when she waited on him in a Paris cafe, have had their share of tabloid coverage.
The actor is refreshingly uncoy when it comes to discuss ing his romance.
"We see each other every day," he says, "but it's not like we have a wild social life."
IN One Fine Day, Clooney's weekend father is a loving, if sometimes irresponsible parent to his young daughter. He falls hard for Pfeiffer and her cute, mischievous son. And on er, of course, his Dr Ross character is a natural with kids. But Clooney, at 35, is not getting married any time soon, he insists - adding that the world's most famous TV paediatrician does not want children of his own.
Clooney's Fine Day and Peacemaker leading ladies, however, aren't buying it. In fact, Pfeiffer and Kidman are so convinced he will change his tune, they've each bet him $10,000 that he'll be a father before he's 40.