—George Clooney1 While the shift from television to feature films is not unknown (Clint Eastwood’s extended apprenticeship on Rawhide, for instance), lengthy TV careers usually represent a destination rather than a staging post in career terms. The number of contemporary actors who have made such a shift is extremely few with the exception of individuals like Guy Pearce from the Australian soap Neighbours (1986–89) to Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2001) to The Time Machine (Simon Wells, 2002) and back again to TV in Mildred Pierce (Todd Haynes, 2011) on HBO. In the following survey of Clooney’s TV work, involving many failed pilots, dates in parentheses designate when he appeared in that show, not necessarily its full run. Clooney’s very first role on TV was in 1978 as an extra on the James Michener mini-series Centennial, which happened to be filming in Augusta, Kentucky, Clooney’s hometown. A guest spot on the California-based crime-fighting series Riptide (1984), a bloodless version of Miami Vice, was Clooney’s first on-screen speaking role, as one of a pair of kidnappers, eventually apprehended after a tussle and a roll down a flight of stairs.
