The unmade TV series that almost changed the course of George Clooney’s career
Before the lines between the two mediums became blurred to a point of near-invisibility, TV and film used to be quite separate.
If you were in movies, then you only did movies, or ff you were a television star, then that’s where you stayed. As TV was viewed as the ‘lesser’ format, it wasn’t uncommon for stars to graduate from people’s living rooms to the cinema, like George Clooney, for example, who, before he became the living epitome of Hollywood, made a name for himself on the small screen with ER.
As the dashing doctor Doug Ross, Clooney was one of the primary reasons to watch NBC’s medical drama during his five seasons on the show. A short-tempered, borderline alcoholic surgeon with a noble heart, the character captivated audiences and has followed the actor around even as his star continued to rise, but, according to the man himself, he initially worried that it wouldn’t last.
“Since I had the smallest part in the pilot and on the show, I thought that I would get edged out,” he told South Coast Today, “So I got a publicist, and I did some things to separate myself from the show in terms of getting my name out there. I started getting involved in other projects I wanted to publicise.”
Interestingly, had the wheels of fate turned in a slightly different direction, Clooney would have never gotten the part at all. As he explained in that same interview, he’d actually been working on another NBC show called Zero Tolerance when he first auditioned for Ross. Once he got the gig, he found himself in a bit of a pickle as both shows were being made by the same studio for the same network, hence he couldn’t appear in both at the same time. In terms of contact obligations, since he’d signed on to Zero Tolerance first, that was the one he had to do.
Proving that he might actually possess psychic powers, the man realised that ER would be the bigger show, and so went to the top brass and begged to be moved off Zero Tolerance. Perhaps through the powers of their own crystal ball, they acquiesced, and this turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to the silver-haired star. ER became the huge hit it was predicted to be, pulling in millions of viewers and leaving critics stunned, where in even Quentin Tarantino got involved, directing Clooney in an episode the year before they teamed up for From Dusk till Dawn.
Speaking of that movie, the actor’s career quickly encompassed the big screen, with the late 1990s yielding some of his earliest starring roles, including his spin as ‘the Dark Knight’ in the highly regrettable Batman & Robin. However, throughout this period, he remained on TV, which simply wasn’t done at the time, with the actor explaining why he stayed on ER despite it all: “They were honourable with me all along. It’s easy for me to do right and stick with the show”.
As for Zero Tolerance, that never even got made, and it’s nigh-on impossible to find anything about it online, except for the fact that George Clooney was nearly in it. If NBC hadn’t been so kind as to let him swap to ER, then the Hollywood landscape as we know it today might have looked very different.
