“The Curse of George Clooney”, December 2011

The
of George
Clooney
A life with Hollywood’s
hottest bachelor promises riches,
fame and excitement beyond any
woman’s wildest dreams.
Until you’re dumped.
BY ANNIE KARNI
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ELIS ABETTA
C AN ALIS
OPENING
PIZ ZA
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DON
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JOEL RYAN/AP. THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: S. GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE;
MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERS; TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES.
A
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slender, tanned brunette
dressed in a short black
cocktail dress by designer
Karolina Zmarlak smiles coyly as she
weaves her way around the VIP tables at
Midtown’s Lavo, where she will spend
the evening uncorking bottle after bottle
of Champagne. As she walks by, a few of
her patrons show a flicker of recognition.
They think they know her, but they can’t
place her. Was she a college classmate?
Maybe a girl from the gym?
It’s rare that a stranger correctly
identifies her as Sarah Larson, 32, whose
face was plastered across countless glossy
magazines in 2008 after she locked up
George Clooney’s heart.
A one-time Fear Factor contestant, Larson was working as a cocktail waitress at
Whiskey at the Green Valley Ranch resort
in Las Vegas when she met the Oscarwinning actor. She eventually quit her job
and moved to Los Angeles to start a new
life with her leading man.
She accompanied Clooney to the
Oscars in 2008—the first time he brought
a date—and people took notice. Larson
was quickly scooped up by Nous Model
Management’s celebrity roster, which
George Clooney’s latest babe is former
WWE wrestler Stacy Keibler (left), who
he parades on red carpets, appearing
blissfully in love—for the moment.
S A RA H L A
RSO
SERVING N
COCKTAIL
S!
also represents Paris Hilton. That year
she walked the L.A. Fashion Week runway
in swimsuits for designer Ashley Paige.
Harper’s Bazaar crowned her the new It
Girl, and she landed on People’s 100 Most
Beautiful list.
But that was two girlfriends ago.
Today Larson lives anonymously in
New York City, back on the cocktail beat,
working the night shift. Colleagues say she
hates being associated with Lavo, wants
out of the business altogether and aspires
to teach yoga full-time. Her modeling
agency has dropped her.
“Her not being in L.A. meant us not being able to do a lot for her,” says an agent at
Nous. “She put her interests into the yoga.
We still consider her a friend and there are
no hard feelings.”
For Larson, the one-time excitement of
being associated with Clooney has hardened into annoyance. “Sometimes people
recognize her, and everyone who works
there knows who she is, but she hates
that,” says a Lavo source. Larson declined
to be interviewed for this story.
Her tale epitomizes the typical twonypost.com/pagesixmag 45
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Ladies
e
and thp
Cham
1989-92
JUDIE
ARONSON
DEDEE
PFEIFFER
1987-89
KELLY
P R E ST O N
year life cycle (give or take) of a Clooney
girlfriend: a no-name model-actressbartender briefly turns celebrity-byassociation while dating the Hollywood
star, only to fade back into obscurity once
he moves on to his next affair.
“The hardest thing to deal with was
the perception that I was going out with
George to further my career,” long-time
Clooney gal pal Lisa Snowdon, a British
model and TV presenter, told the Daily
Mail in 2008. “In fact, it did me no favors
at all. Work almost totally dried up.”
Today, Snowdon is a radio host in London.
Hollywood’s ultimate bachelor, willfully committed to never committing,
has left a long line of unknown women
in his celebrated wake. His most recent
ex, Italian television personality Elisabetta Canalis, was cast aside in June, two
months before Clooney unveiled yet another new model, former WWE wrestler
Stacy Keibler.
At first it seemed Canalis had managed to capitalize on her relationship with
Clooney. In July Page Six reported that
she had made $10 million from sponsorship and TV deals in Italy. She was cast
as a contestant on this season’s Dancing
with the Stars. But it didn’t take long for
her stock to drop. Canalis’ wooden moves
and stiff personality left audiences cold,
and she was voted off the show after just
two weeks. Today she headlines events
like the grand opening of a pizza parlor in
Miami and has no major prospects in the
pipeline.
“Elisabetta had an opportunity on
Dancing with the Stars, but she didn’t resonate with an American audience,” says one
powerful Hollywood publicist who works
in celebrity branding. “If she had, she
might have a career in the States now, but I
TALIA
BALSAM
Early ’90s
DENISE
CROSBY
don’t think that happened.”
Over the past 30 years Clooney has
bagged at least 21 girlfriends, almost all
of them unknowns whose sudden notoriety quickly fizzles after the inevitable
parting of ways.
For women who hope to gain fame
from a high-profile relationship, dating
George Clooney is a catch-22. “While
you’re with George Clooney,” celebrity
blogger Perez Hilton explains, “your job is
to be with George Clooney.” But when the
relationship is over, the Clooney afterglow
is as brief as a Kardashian marriage.
“George Clooney has had so many
Hollywood’s
ultimate
bachelor has left
a long line of
unknown women
in his celebrated
wake.
girlfriends that the connection loses
meaning,” says a communications strategist who represents several major media
figures. “It’s hard to keep track of all of
the women, and being George Clooney’s
girlfriend certainly loses significance.”
T
he roll call of Clooney’s
confirmed exes includes
seven obscure or unknown
actresses, two current or
former bartenders or cocktail waitresses,
six reality-television stars, two Pilates
and yoga instructors, one hardcore Scientologist and two women who appear
in Google searches only in connection to
their love affairs with the star.
1994
KIMBERLY
RU S S E L L
1995
KAREN
DUFFY
1996-99
CELINE
BALITRAN
While it took the Kentucky-born,
Ohio-raised Clooney nearly a decade as
a struggling actor to land the role that
would make him world famous—the part
of Dr. Doug Ross on the hospital TV drama
ER—he hit the ground running with the
ladies. Judie Aronson, a busty brunette who
met Clooney in an acting class early in his
career, was one of his first girlfriends in L.A.
Today Aronson, 47, runs two Pilates studios
and still considers Clooney a close friend.
Although Clooney never dated Michelle Pfeiffer, his costar from the
romantic comedy One Fine Day, he did
woo her little sister, DeDee, followed by
Kelly Preston, who he shacked up with
in 1988. (Preston is currently married to
John Travolta and is still more famous for
her spouse than for her work.)
A few months after he split with Preston, the bachelor met the one and only
woman who has called herself his wife:
actress Talia Balsam. The pair married in a
quickie Vegas ceremony in 1989 and lasted
until 1992, but the failed relationship left
Clooney with no taste for tying the knot
again, he has said.
“I wasn’t someone who should have
been married at that point,” Clooney has
said of the relationship. (Balsam is now
married to her Mad Men costar John Slattery; the couple of 13 years have one child.)
In the ’90s, as his career was hitting
its stride, Clooney dated actress Denise
Crosby, best known for her work as Tasha
Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He
followed her up with actress Kimberly
Russell, who he dated for 10 months before jumping into the open arms of former
MTV veejay Karen Duffy in 1995. Russell
has gone on to do voiceovers for the animated series Spongebob Squarepants, while
Duffy landed on People magazine’s Worst
FROM LEFT: TAMMIE ARROYO/AP; VINNIE ZUFFANTE/GETTY IMAGES; RALPH DOMINGUEZ/GLOBE PHOTOS/ZUMA PRESS (2); MANNY HERNANDEZ/PICTURE GROUP/AP;
JIM SMEAL/WIREIMAGE; FITZROY BARRETT/GLOBE PHOTOS/ZUMA PRESS; FRED PROUSER/REUTERS.
Early ’80s
Late ’80s
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1999
1999
FROM LEFT: ANDREAS BRANCH/PATRICK MCMULLAN; KELSEY MCNEAL/USA NETWORK/NBCU/AP; IAN GAVAN/GETTY IMAGES; VINCE BUCCI/GETTY IMAGES; MICHAEL WILLIAMS/
STARTRAKS PHOTO; FREDERIC M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES; KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES; PHOTOMASI/STARTRAKS PHOTO; REX FEATURES/AP
BROOKE
LANGTON
TRAYLO R
HOWARD
2000-05
LISA
SNOWDON
2002
MARIA
BERTRAND
Dressed list in 2002.
While filming The Peacemaker in Paris
in 1996, Clooney fell for Celine Balitran, a
blonde French waitress who quit her job
and moved to L.A. with the movie star just
two weeks after they met.
“I know this must seem a bit innocent
for today, but George represented for me
everything a woman could desire,” Balitran told the French magazine Paris Match
in 1999. “Charming, funny, intelligent, extremely handsome...Two and a half weeks
[after meeting him] I left for Los Angeles.”
They made it until 1999, when, Clooney
told Esquire magazine, “She lasted as long
as I think she was going to last.” After dating
Clooney, Balitran appeared on the French
reality television show La Ferme Celebrité.
Today, she is divorced from director David
Rosenthal and has fallen off the map.
Clooney rebounded with Melrose Place
actress Brooke Langton, who had a bit part
on Friday Night Lights, and then briefly
dated Traylor Howard, who most recently
appeared on the TV show Monk.
By 2000 Clooney’s playboy lifestyle
was becoming a running joke. Actress
pals Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfeiffer
famously bet the actor $10,000 each that
he would be a father by the time he was
40. When Kidman sent him a check on his
birthday in 2001, he reportedly returned
it and told her it was double or nothing by
the time he turned 50. Today Clooney is 50
and without an heir. In interviews, he often
talks about how he loves being an uncle
and that’s good enough for him.
“The argument for marriage is that
everyone gets lonely and everyone wants
companionship,” says Kimberly Potts,
author of George Clooney: The Last Great
Movie Star. “He doesn’t have to get married to have that. He has a close group of
Early ’00s
JENNIFER
SIEBEL
2002-08
KRISTA
ALLEN
2007-08
SARAH
LARSON
friends that he can fly wherever and he
can afford for the girlfriend to travel with
him. I think he’s happy with the way his
life rolls along.”
Clooney’s type is “successful women he
can control,” Perez Hilton says. “None of
these women succeed in changing him, nor
do I think they try…They’re all just happy
to be George Clooney’s girlfriend, and they
know that has an expiration date.”
In 2002 Clooney had a fling with Canadian bartender and aspiring actress Maria
Bertrand, who he honored with a small
role in his thriller Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He then courted actress Jennifer
Siebel before she went on to marry former
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom.
But they were just blips on the romantic radar compared with his two major
on-off relationships of the early Aughts:
busty British TV personality Lisa Snowdon, who he dated from 2000 until 2005,
and Baywatch babe Krista Allen, another
actress he cast in Confessions, who spanned
the years 2002 to 2008.
Why would Clooney choose a Krista
Allen over a Scarlett Johansson? “So
many of the A-level female stars are so
wrapped up, and he doesn’t need the
competition,” the publicist explains.
“These women he dates are entering his
life—he’s not entering theirs.”
“He likes to be the A-list person in the
relationship,” Potts adds. “In terms of
“A-list female stars
[are] competition.
These women he
dates are entering
his life—he’s not
entering theirs.”
2009-11
ELISABETTA
CANALIS
2011-?
STACY
KEIBLER
dating, it’s about what’s convenient for
him. He’s very committed to his career. He
has romantic relationships on his terms
exactly.”
In the meantime, Keibler is currently
making hay while the spotlight shines.
After she became Clooney’s paramour,
her appearance fees for club openings and
magazine parties jumped from $10,000 to
$25,000, according to Page Six.
But can she make it last after Clooney
moves on?
“I don’t think she’s going to break the
cycle, for the same reason that no one else
has,” says the communications strategist.
“She’s not like Harvey Weinstein’s wife,
Georgina, who actually had legitimate
talent to make an independent name
for herself. Were we talking about Stacy
Keibler before? No. Why would we talk
about her after?”
But even if Keibler doesn’t manage to
spin her own celebrity post-Clooney, she
can feel confident the Descendents star
will treat her well after the affair. Many
of the actor’s exes still think the world of
him once he’s left their lives. When Duffy,
who was linked to Clooney in the ’90s
and later married John Lambros, gave
birth to a baby boy in 2003, the A-lister
showered her with presents after a visit
to his villa at Lake Como. “George gave
us tons of beautiful clothes,” Duffy told
People magazine.
“I adore him and he’s a great guy and a
good friend,” an earlier ex who dated him
when they were both starting out in L.A.
tells Page Six Magazine. “Even though we
don’t see each other that much because of
his fame, we’ve been part of each other’s
lives forever.”
So take heart, ladies. Long after the magic wears off, you’ll still have the memories.
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