Films, fashion, law, politics: George and Amal Clooney's global fame grows | George Clooney

IIt took a famous TV doctor to diagnose the patient. After two weeks of turmoil within the US Democratic Party over President Biden's re-election bid, it was decided to EASTs Doug Ross, aka George Clooney, who wrote a devastating assessment of the outgoing president.

The 63-year-old actor was not in theatrical mode when he wrote a sadder letter published by the New York Times Last week, who called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, the White House apparently begged him not to submit, three weeks after Clooney helped raise $30 million for the Biden-Harris ticket at a lavish Hollywood fundraiser.

But Clooney had an impeccable attitude toward his patient: “I love Joe Biden. As a senator, as a vice president, and as a president. I consider him a friend and I believe in him,” he wrote. But the one battle he can’t win is the one against time. None of us can.

Clooney was speaking for himself and a large portion of liberal Hollywood donors who are angry at what they see as White House deception about Biden’s apparent decline in health. Clooney said the man at the fundraiser was the same man we all saw when he performed at the debate two weeks later.

In the current spirit of panic and recrimination, as the White House press corps turns every Biden appearance into a test of competence, Democratic fundraisers, including Biden reelection campaign co-chair and film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, are being blamed for helping to cover up Biden’s apparent health problems.

Clooney's letter set the Oceans Eleven Democrats may not be so lucky. Democrats, says James Carville, the Clinton strategist who last week called a snap primary to choose a new nominee, are determined to force the American people to do something they don’t want to do in order to vote for Joe Biden.

Georges went out, [former house speaker] Nancy Pelosi has come out. “I don't know what else people can do,” Carville told the Observer. Except for a few people in Congress, everyone thinks this is a terrible idea. [for Biden to run]. But you're dealing with a guy who doesn't want to leave, and that's exactly where we are.

George Clooney isn't the only one making headlines on the international stage. Last month, it was revealed that his wife Amal Clooney played a key role in the International Criminal Court's (ICC) request for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three senior Hamas leaders.

Biden called the ICC decision outrageous and said that no matter what the ICC prosecutor may imply, there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas. According to Washington PostGeorge Clooney called Steve Ricchetti, an adviser to the US president, to protest the administration's desire to impose sanctions that could include his wife.

This week, the Biden-Harris campaign tried to attribute Clooney's letter to pre-existing tensions over the ICC incident. A Hollywood producer familiar with the couple told the outlet Observer that the White House's explanation for the letter was bogus and that the lawyer had been defamed because her work focuses on human rights, regardless of political divisions.

George has power in Hollywood. Amal doesn't, except as George's wife, they added. Her power is in the UK, in The Hague and in the pages of Vogue.

The lawyer did not comment on her husband's political intervention, which could have been tacitly approved by Barack Obama. But after ten years together, George and Amal Clooney are considered one of the most stable couples in Hollywood.

They met at the actor's home in Lake Como, Italy, when a mutual friend brought her along. Clooney's agent had also heard about their meeting, the actor later revealed. My agent said to him, 'I met this woman who's coming to your house, who you're going to marry.' That's really how it happened.

“It was the most natural thing in the world,” Amal said. “I always hoped that there could be a love that was overwhelming and didn’t require any evaluation or decision-making.”

A safari in Kenya to see giraffes sealed the deal. In 2014, he proposed to her, they married in Venice and now have twins.

The political instinct that had surfaced in Clooney's films, in particular Good night and good luck (2005) and The Ides of March (2011), quickly took off. In 2016, the couple met with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss refugee policy; that year, they attended a United Nations summit on refugees and soon after created the Clooney Foundation for Justicewhich focuses on the legal rights of people targeted by oppressive governments, tracking the money of human rights abusers and those who profit from war crimes.

We are both inspired by young people fighting injustice in their communities, a new generation that does not accept the status quo, the actor said in an award speech two years ago.

But Clooney’s intervention comes at a price. The Bidens, like the Clintons and the Obamas, may see themselves as winners by rubbing shoulders with celebrities, but the intersection of entertainment and politics, and the money and ideologies that underpin it, is repugnant to many outside enclaves of political entertainment. Echoing Trump, Biden now claims that the growing chorus of voices against him comes from members of the elite, despite the ill-timing of first lady Dr. Jill Biden’s appearance on the cover of the August issue. Vogue USA.

The tradition of celebrity political endorsements dates back to Frank Sinatra, who organized his friends, the Rat Pack, to campaign for John F. Kennedy. Two decades later, disagreements over Ronald Reagan forced celebrities to choose their places.

That’s where we’re at again, says veteran Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. Celebrities see themselves as an important part of Democrats’ fundraising and thinking, something many Americans disagree with.

Sheinkopf says the fight over Biden's future is as much about the future of the Democratic Party as it is about Biden's health, and that Clooney's intervention will inspire Republicans to fight harder for candidate Trump.

Democrats are the party of elites, even if they consider themselves the party of non-elites, he says. No matter who signs the checks — Hollywood celebrities or a right-wing Texas industrialist — what all elites want is a party that does what they want because they think it’s right.

But that's not who Joe Biden is. He represents the old, pro-union, almost color-blind left, but that's not who the actors behind the scenes are, he adds.

Peter Bart, former editor of Hollywood's business bible Varietywrote in a Deadline column that he had great respect for Clooney's decision, but it was also a decision that it will cost him.

He noted that other Hollywood stars have mixed politics and entertainment, including Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston and John Wayne. In addition to risking damage to his career, Clooney must contend with donors who spent millions at his request to support a candidate he is now abandoning, Bart, 91, warned.

He recalls a conversation he had with Ronald Reagan about Nixon. “I want people to like me, even the voters who vote against me,” Reagan told him. Nixon doesn't seem to care, but I'm still an actor.

Clooney’s intervention has nonetheless exposed him to criticism. The progressive left and African-American voters, two voting blocs that Biden is seeking to bolster his support, have criticized the actor for taking a position that comes with being famous, white and male.

Others have suggested that the outlook is different from the window seat of a Gulfstream jet flying between homes in Los Angeles, England, France and Italy. (In addition to being a successful actor known for pranking his friends, Clooney and his partner Rande Gerber, husband of Cindy Crawford, have shared as much as $1 billion from the sale of their Casamigos tequila brand.)

Clooney also came under fire from the other side. Trump responded by saying that Clooney had turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are, and some questioned why Clooney, and Hollywood in general, waited until after the debate to reveal what they had witnessed at the fundraiser.

However, the New York Times The Kentucky-born actor's letter makes him a modern-day Warren Beatty, the actor who has made his political beliefs part of his public persona. Beatty has never run for office and has joked that doing so would be more like running for crucifixion, and neither has Clooney, which allows both to skim over the humdrum of retail politics.

Georges' editorial was provocative, well done, but voters don't want that anyway: 73% of voters say they want something different, Carville says. They're not asking for anything difficult, just another candidate. We're in crisis.