Withering Glance: Is George Clooney without flaw?

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, relationships, grooming and more in a weekly dialogue.

RN: After reading a recent profile in Time, I'm going to borrow from Mary Poppins' self-assessment when I say that George Clooney appears to be practically perfect in every way.

CP: How could it be otherwise, when Rosemary Clooney is your aunt? Imagine Christmas with the Clooneys.

RN: Ho, ho, ho. I love his self-deprecating manner. I don't care if it's genuine or artificial -- it works. Remember when he won the Oscar for best supporting actor for "Syriana," and he was also nominated in the best-director category? Nicole Kidman handed him the statuette; he stepped to the podium and said, "Wow, all right, so I'm not winning director." And then he laughed, that crinkly-eyed, toothy grin that has made him the World's Biggest Movie Star. Tom Cruise who?

CP: If that was the year Clooney was up for directing "Good Night, and Good Luck," he didn't deserve the Oscar. That movie was dullsville, dramatically forgettable, and he co-wrote, acted and directed.

RN: This is where you and I part company. I loved it.

CP: I much preferred "Michael Clayton," and he was good in it. Re: the Time story, I thought the writer Joel Stein was going to faint dead away from his own breathlessness. He could not believe that Clooney would consent to visit Stein's place for dinner and an interview. Like Clooney, or his people, are going to turn that down, when the payoff is being on the cover of Time magazine, with its 3.4 million circulation.

CP: Clooney is so non-tortured as an artist. I prefer my artists to be quite tortured. His hair is very nice, however.

RN: Cut him some slack; the man has single-handedly made salt-and-pepper the L'Oréal color of the moment. My feeling is that Clooney could be tortured, but he refrains from yapping about his angst-ridden process to the likes of "Inside the Actors Studio" host/professional fawnmaster James Lipton. He sure cleans up nice, too. Does anyone wear a tuxedo better? Wait, maybe. Did you seen Dwayne (The Rock) What's-His-Name on Oscar night? That's how you wear a monkey suit. But I digress. You have to admit: Clooney has style.

CP: He seems comfortable in his own skin, and looks great in a T-shirt or an Armani suit. Did your Clooney love extend even to his performance in "Batman and Robin," that bomb?

RN: Yeah, stink-o-rama, but it did co-star professional dreamboat Chris O'Donnell. And don't forget the homoerotic Batman costume that poor Clooney had to squeeze into. Yikes. Tilda Swinton slayed it at the Oscars. I howled when she picked Clooney out of the audience at the Kodak Theatre and said, "George Clooney, you know, the seriousness and dedication to your art, seeing you climb into that rubber bat suit from 'Batman and Robin,' the one with the nipples, every morning under your costume, on the set, off the set, hanging upside down at lunch. You rock, man."

CP: Sans the magnif Tilda, who also made that great remark about her agent's butt, the Oscarcast might have been entirely missable.

CP: I suppose O'Reilly saw an opening when Clooney suddenly made his Hollywood-to-Darfur trek. Even Clooney worried, in the Time piece, that his advocacy on behalf of those victims might make no difference -- despite his having raised a quick $9 million for the cause.

RN: Hey, it's more dough than we raised at that bake sale for the Claude Peck Shoe Fund.