While watching the latest episode of hit US medical drama 'er' I tried to remember how long had it been since the corridors of Chicago's 'County General' hospital were graced with the presence of Dr. Doug Ross - played by actor, and now director, George Clooney.
Clooney was a regular star for the first five seasons of the award winning drama (the show is now in it's fourteenth and, unfortunately, penultimate season) and along with the likes of Anthony Edwards (Dr Peter Greene), Eric La Salle (Dr Peter Benton), Sherry Stringfield (Dr Susan Lewis) and Julianne Margulies (nurse Carol Hathaway) made up part of the original 1994 cast.
This week Clooney directs, and stars, in 'Leatherheads' a comedy set in the world of 1920s American football, but more of that in a minute.
What a lot of people may not know is that one of George Clooney's first acting jobs was in a 1980s American sit-com, also called 'E/R', starring Elliott Gould - who he would later be reacquainted with for the Oceans' movies - which was also set in a Chicago Emergency Room.
After brief appearances in a number of hit American shows ('Crazy Like a Fox', 'Hotel', 'Murder She Wrote', 'Hunter' and even 'The Golden Girls') Clooney was cast as a regular in 'Roseanne' where he played Booker Brooks.
But it wasn't until he was cast as Doug Ross in Michael Crichton's new medical drama 'er' that the world really started to change for Clooney.
I am told that women simply go mad for his 'good looks' and dulcet tones and that his face was destined for the movies, although maybe it was somewhat inevitable his movie career would start with a number of poor romantic comedies.
As his popularity in 'er' grew the better roles started coming in and, over the last ten years Clooney has had a chance to show himself as a very adaptable actor who can lend his talents to most kinds of movie.
In the past year movies such as 'Good Night and Good Luck' - which he also directed - and 'Michael Clayton' have shown us an actor approaching the height of his powers.
This week Clooney does the double again (actor and director) in 'Leatherheads' which also stars Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski and Jonathan Pryce.
Set in the early days of American football the film focuses on the difference between College football - which was the polished game which received all the public, and media, attention - and the 'professional' game, which was unglamorous by comparison.
Clooney plays Dodge Connolly, the oldest player for a downtrodden team by the name of Duluth Bulldogs while his nemesis (played by US Office star Krasinski) is Carter Rutherford, a clean cut player for one of the country's top College football teams.
Devious Dodge comes up with a plan to shift the public attention away from the college sides towards the professional - a move which might just save the future of his team-mates, and his team in the process.
His plan is to lure Rutherford away from college football to the professional game but a spanner is thrown into the works in the shape of Renee Zellweger's Lexie - an investigative newspaper reporter sent to spy on Rutherford to see if rumours that he isn't all he claims he is are true.
Naturally, this being Hollywood, Lexie falls for both men which starts off a tug of love which is played for all it's comic potential (and more).
I believe the film's title, for those who may wonder, comes from the headgear worn by the players back in the day.
Clooney has obviously a fondness for the vintage 'falling about' comedies and it would appear this is where much of the film's inspiration comes from.
Whether it works is debatable but Clooney remains likeable and, like in most of the things he stars in, he almost makes you like this film through niceness.
