George Clooney portrays Ryan Bingham in a scene from Up in the Air
Updated: Dec. 4, 2009
Actors are salesmen. Stories, characters, movies are their products, and they are the packaging and the pitch. That makes film stars the industry's supersalesmen. And no one closes a deal with more assurance or grace than George Clooney.
Not that all his pictures are blockbusters. Since The Perfect Storm in 2000, only his Ocean's (Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen) capers have topped $100 million at the domestic box office. But at 48, Clooney--handsome and affable, with a wit that can deftly cut as it charms--is surely the modern idea and ideal of stardom. Whereas other celebrities seem tortured...
