George Clooney

Lizzy would have liked Clooney in his new movie, The American. It is easy to watch his face, with his minor resemblance to Cary Grant both in masculine handsomeness and appeal to both men and women, for two hours.  He doesn't say much.  He doesn't overact.  He holds our attention because we sense he is thinking when he is silent of something meaningful and important.

Elizabeth loved his ability to play a rogue hero, beginning with his part in the television series, ER.  The doctor who had an uncanny ability to save children in peril had a special place in her heart.  When she was eleven, she spent a night in the Children's ICU at St. Vincent's Hospital with a bit of plastic from her mechanical pencil lodged in her lung.  The doctors and nurses there took great care of her, and she developed a deep respect for medicine and thought about becoming a doctor.

She loved Clooney's ability to perform in comic parts like Oh Brother Where Art Thou.  She liked the way he wore his tuxedo while commandeering the other handsome actors in the Ocean series.

Clooney and Brad Pitt

 
In The American, he plays a mysterious spy employed to make customized weapons.  He is extremely good at evading the enemy,  and has an eye for a pretty girl.  Pretty girls have eyes for him also. 

As Clooney ages, and goes beyond just being a leading man, he has developed a less kinetic, more still presence on screen.  His hair is now gray.  He is almost fifty, and his good looks are taking on some seasoning.    He reminds me of Paul Newman in The Sting, when everyone stood up and took notice at how his acting became more natural as he aged, and his prettiness hardened into something more like beauty.  When a handsome man is young, he is often taken for granted as just a pretty face.   

Consoling as it is that Elizabeth died at the peak of her beauty, watching someone like Clooney, who she loved, get better and better as he gets older, makes me wish that Elizabeth could have had that chance too. 

George Clooney