George Clooney is an exceptionally successful actor, producer, director, and activist, and it’s well known that he comes from a family with many big names. Could he also be related to Rosemary Clooney?
George Clooney and Rosemary Clooney are related. Rosemary was George’s aunt, as she was the older sister of his father, Nick Clooney. George Clooney was very close to his aunt as he was growing up, as well as to his other famous relatives.
Read more below to find out about George and Rosemary Clooney’s relationship, and the other famous Clooneys.
George Clooney’s Aunt Rosemary
Clooney often talks about how his family helped to prepare him for a life in the public eye and credits a lot of what he learned to his aunt, Rosemary Clooney. There have been many famous Clooneys, but George Clooney and Rosemary Clooney arguably had the biggest success.
Rosemary was a big influence in Clooney getting into acting. “I was always around fame, whatever that would be called. I remember when I was a kid, my dad said, what do you want to be, and I said, I want to be famous, because I thought that was a job. Because that’s all I’d ever seen my father be, and Rosemary too,” he said when asked if she’d inspired him to go into show business.
In a 2006 interview with Larry King, Clooney goes into detail about his relationship with his aunt and what he learned from her. “She taught me a lot about what can happen to you. She taught me a lot about the mistakes you can make as well.”
Rosemary Clooney suffered from depression and drug addiction, which are both common for very successful entertainers. George Clooney talks about how she taught him how to deal with tabloids and privacy becoming harder to protect, as well as how to have confidence in himself as an actor.
Rosemary was a long time smoker, and was diagnosed with lung cancer at the end of 2001, and she performed her final concerts before she passed away in 2002. There are still fans of the singer today, posting various appreciation tweets like this one and otherwise respecting the actress and singer’s memory.
Check out the YouTube video below to see Rosemary Clooney perform her version of the song Tenderly at the 1981 North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague, the Netherlands.
The Clooneys
George Clooney has many famous relatives other than Rosemary. His mother, Nina Bruce, was a beauty queen and city councilwoman, and his father, Nick Clooney, was a TV anchorman and host.
His father, like Rosemary, was a big source of inspiration in Clooney’s life, showing him that he could be famous. Outside of his immediate family, Clooney also has many cousins who broke into the entertainment industry.
Betty Clooney, Rosemary’s sister, was also famous for a time, when she and Rosemary were a sister act who sang together before they focused on their solo careers. Though Rosemary’s solo career was longer and more successful than Betty’s, Betty released several singles and won over audiences with both her voice and her charm.
Rosemary’s sons, Miguel Ferrer and Rafael Ferrer, both became actors as well. Miguel was an actor and voice actor, known for his roles in RoboCop, Mulan, and Iron Man 3, just to name a few. Rafael became a voice actor for trailers and on-air productions.
Miguel Ferrer was also a big influence on George Clooney, having urged him to pursue acting, and when Clooney’s career picked up, even starred in some of the same stage plays as Ferrer.
Rosemary’s husband and father of Miguel and Rafael Ferrer, José Ferrer, was an actor and film director, and was the first Hispanic actor to win an Academy Award.
Clooney has many famous relatives, both on his mother’s side and his father’s side as well as in-laws.