Early Life
Clooney was born in Lexington, Kentucky. His mother, Nina Bruce (née Warren, 1939–), is a former beauty pageant queen. His father, Nick Clooney, is a former anchorman, as well as a game show and American Movie Classics host. Clooney's ancestry includes Irish, German, and English. His paternal great-great-grandparents, Nicholas Clooney (of County Kilkenny) and Bridget Byron, emigrated to the United States from Ireland. His maternal four times great-grandmother, Mary Ann Sparrow, was the half-sister of Nancy Hanks (Nancy Hanks was the mother of President Abraham Lincoln). Clooney has an older sister, Adelia (also known as Ada); 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 his cousin Gabriel Ferrer (son of José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney).
Clooney was raised a strict Roman Catholic. 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, and St. Susanna School in Mason. 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 Daily Mirror in 2003. "You know how cruel kids can be. I was mocked and taunted, but the experience made me stronger."
His parents eventually moved to Augusta, Kentucky, where Clooney attended Augusta High School. He has stated that he earned all As and a B in school, and was an enthusiastic baseball and basketball player. He tried out to play professional baseball with the Cincinnati Reds organization in 1977, but was not offered a contract. He did not pass the first round of player cuts. He attended Northern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1981, majoring in Broadcast Journalism, and very briefly attended the University of Cincinnati, but did not graduate from either. He had odd jobs such as selling men's suits and cutting tobacco.
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