Maybe people are turned off by Clooney's politics. If Clooney really believes what he says, how can he justify taking millions for movies that lose money.

What nonsense. Clooney makes decent movies, and he makes plenty of money. Why should he care whether his movies make money for the Hollywood money boys or not? If he keeps making good movies which lose money, and Hollywood dumps him, he can join the indie circuit. I'm sure he'll have enough money to get by, and he got the money without sucking up to the mouth-breathing Fox News watching pinheads.

Most of Hollywood has left of center politics. That's doesn't prevent people from watching and enjoying a good actor's movies unless the actor's behavior turns them off. I would never watch a Sean Penn movie, not because I disagree with his politics, but because he's an arrogant loud-mouthed jerk. Mel Gibson has pretty much painted himself into the same corner. Clooney is opinionated but he's also reasonably thoughtful, and at least his point of view can make you think rather than cringe.

I agree entirely. He lost me with his "smug - kudos to South Park" Oscar acceptance speech. I actually get paid to go to movies, I review them for a newspaper, and I still have to force myself to see movies made by Clooney, Pitt, Penn, Alec Baldwin, etc. By the way, I can review them objectively, I saw Michael Clayton, I gave it a good review, but I do think that is why the public is staying away. I don't care what his politics are, but I don't want to hear them. Same with music. They can give the Dixie Chicks all the Grammies they want, that won't make what was their core audience buy their music or go to their concerts. Shut up and sing, shut up and act, whatever. Just the fact that you are famous does not mean that everyone is interested in your opinion.

As "Farenheit 9/11" proved, and as Hollywood itself knows, there are $100 million grosses available in making movies that the right never goes to see.

If politics don't enter in, and nobody boycotts your movie, you can make $300 million with "neutral" movies, but Clooney can live in his Italian mansion on what he makes from his fans alone.

Since most all of Hollywood is pretty much left, it really ends up being a matter of personal presentation that makes actors "accessible" to the public, or not.

Sean Penn has always seemed unbearable off the screen --he criticizes other people's movies as being "trash rather than art" and then makes movies like "The Crossing Guard" and "The Pledge" which have their own flaws AS art. He publically critized his "friend," Nicholas Cage as "an actor who became a performer" -- and then makes "The Interpreter." He acts like the "tough guy from the mean streets,"but he grew up rich and privileged on the beach in Malibu, the son of a very successful TV director of shows like "Columbo" -- and with immediate access to the casting agents and inside dope of Hollywood.

Clooney is more charming than Penn, but he acts sometimes like the Big Man on Campus who gets a kick out of making fun of everyone else.

Clooney had the entry level skills for TV or movies--handsome, great voice -- from a young age. His aunt was Rosemary Clooney, her ex- was Oscar winner Jose Ferrer, Clooney's father in law from his sole marriage was Oscar winner Martin Balsam. Those talented oldsters may have been has-beens and struggling at the time that George Clooney was starting out, but surely they gave George pretty immediate entree to the Hollywood hiring structure when he moved out to LA from Kentucky as a young actor.

And then Clooney took off. TV shows (Roseanne, ER.) A divorce from Balsam's daughter Talia and an endless run of beautiful girlfriends. Movies. Wealth. More handsome all the time. A pretty easy ascent.

Which is just my way of saying, Clooney's smug and confrontational stance sometimes seems off-putting, as if he doesn't much understand how easy it was for him, and as if he enjoys putting down others who'll never have his life of babes and wealth. So evidently some folks are choosing not to help out with that life.

Cary Grant is offered as Clooney's model, but Grant was a pretty reclusive and mysterious fellow. Clooney's heart is on his sleeve, for better and a little for worse.

Exactly, Fenella. I and other white collar professionals are sick of Clooney's left-wing politics and his self-righteous " blame the CIA, blame the military, blame law enforcement " movies. Clooney can't hold a piss bucket for the Army's Special Forces commandos (Green Berets) , yet he pretended to be a Green Beret (hey, "pretending" is what Hollywood does best) in two movies. In "Three Kings," of course the soldiers were foul, self-involved thieves. I work in an office full of educated professionals, and even the Democrats in the office are sick of Clooney's political commentary and stay away from his movies. It's always easy for the super-wealthy blowhards like Clooney and Ted Kennedy to preach to the rest of us, while they live in their mansions and travel on private jets