George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. Clooney has balanced his performances in big-budget blockbusters with work as a producer and director behind commercially riskier projects, as well as social and liberal political activism. On January 31, 2008, the United Nations named Clooney a "Messenger of Peace."

Clooney was born in Lexington, Kentucky. His mother, Nina Bruce (née Warren), was a former pageant queen; his father, Nick, is a journalist, anchorman, game show, and American Movie Classics host, and an aspiring politician from the state of Kentucky. Clooney was raised in an Irish Catholic family. He has an older sister, Adelia (also known as Ada), and his cousins include actors Miguel and Rafael Ferrer, who are the sons of his aunt, singer Rosemary Clooney, and actor José Ferrer. He is also related to another singer, Debby Boone, who married José and Rosemary's son, Gabriel Ferrer. From an early age, Clooney would hang around his father's sets, often participating in shows, where he proved to be a crowd favorite.

Clooney began his education at the Blessed Sacrament School in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Spending part of his childhood in Ohio, he attended St. Michael's School in Columbus, St. Susanna School in Mason, Ohio. In middle school, Clooney developed Bell's palsy, a debilitating condition that partially paralyzes the face. The malady went away within a year. "That was the worst time of my life," he told the Mirror in 2003. "You know how cruel kids can be. I was mocked and taunted, but the experience made me stronger."