Why Clooney is no renaissance man

Apart from the invitation to Downing Street to meet Gordon and Sarah Brown, it wasn't a great week for George Clooney. His new film Leatherheads was beaten at the US box office by the far cheaper film, 21, suggesting his days as a matinee idol might be over. And a profile in the New Yorker magazine suggests that beneath the handsome good looks, the charm and the deep concern over human rights in Darfur, there lurks a man who doesn't appear to have a mind of his own.

The writer Ian Parker visited the actor at his home in the Hollywood Hills, which had been totally revamped - in Clooney's absence - by Rande Gerber, the husband of supermodel Cindy Crawford. Gerber, it transpired, made all the decisions, without a word of consultation, from the size of the swimming pool to the framed photograph of Steve McQueen in the living room. "I didn't know if George likes Steve McQueen," Gerber confided to Parker.

In Clooney's screening room, Parker spotted a row of tall glass jars containing sweets. Parker assumed this was a personal quirk until he read that Gerber keeps sweets in tall glass jars in his offices in New York and Malibu...

Later, Parker found himself in a side room where Clooney's buddies are allowed to smoke. "I suppose I have a hip flask collection," said the actor, pointing to a line of hip flasks on a shelf. Another decor decision by Gerber.