KEY POINTS:
George Clooney may be the world's most eligible bachelor - or the most visible bachelor, anyway - but not all of his Hollywood friends think he will stay that way.
Michelle Pfeiffer, his co-star in one of his first hit movies, One Fine Day, revealed that she has upped a long-standing bet that he will, one day, find a nice girl and settle down.
The bet started out years ago at US$100 ($130). But Clooney, ever more adamant about staying unattached, has steadily increased the stakes. "I bet him he would get married and he keeps inflating the bet, from $100 to $100,000," Pfeiffer told Jonathan Ross in an interview. "I still think he will."
A hundred grand for Pfeiffer and Clooney is not, of course, the daunting sum it might be for the rest of us.
Clooney won an Oscar last year for his supporting role in Syriana, and received universal acclaim for writing and directing Good Night, and Good Luck.
At 46, Clooney is of course a celebrated charmer, frequently listed in the gossip rags as one of the sexiest men alive. He hardly lives like a monk - he rarely goes anywhere without a beautiful woman on his arm.
But Clooney has also campaigned harder than anyone to try to stop the genocide in Darfur, addressing the UN and lobbying politicians on both sides of the American political aisle.
He's often touted as a possible future political candidate, along the lines of Ronald Reagan, a charmer from another era, or Arnold Schwarzenegger. That seems unlikely, though. "Run for office?" he once said. "No. I've slept with too many women, I've done too many drugs, and I've been to too many parties."
Clooney did tie the knot once in the late 1980s, but it lasted just three years.
As for his record on winning bets, he looks like he's sitting pretty. Pfeiffer, along with Nicole Kidman, once bet him $20,000 he would have a child by the time he turned 40. When he turned that corner six years ago, he graciously returned the cheques the two women wrote with a note saying: "Double or nothing for another 10 years."
- Independent
