George Clooney on growing old, putting on a suit again, and his hopes but lack of optimism for COP26
George Clooney has told Sky News he’s “hopeful” but “not all that optimistic” that meaningful change will come out of COP26, the UN’s climate change conference, at the end of the month.
While the American actor, director and environmentalist acknowledges the US’s failings when it comes to environmental policy, he also says he’s not confident the summit, which will be held in Glasgow from 31 October, will lead to much progress.
“There’s a better chance here than we’ve had in the United States recently because our Congress lives in a bit of a state of denial,” he said.
“It used to not be a political situation, Nixon used to do something about this, quite honestly, so I’m disappointed with the way and the direction that our Congress has gone.
“I’m hopeful that more will be done here, I think some will, but I’m not, I’m not all that optimistic about it – I don’t know, I’d like to be, I’m a pretty optimistic guy.”
The star was speaking at the UK premiere of The Tender Bar, which he directed.
The movie is a coming-of-age story based on a memoir by J R Moehringer, an American journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize.
One of the lead roles, played by Ben Affleck, would have once been Clooney’s – something the filmmaker, who recently turned 60, is philosophical about.
“The only thing you can do that’s dumb is try to hold on to things that you aren’t anymore, right? You know, there was a picture, I was in Italy and somebody took a picture of me – I think it was a paparazzi picture on the boat, and I saw this old, grey-haired guy on the boat and I was like ‘who is that?’ And it was me!” he said.
“If you don’t really have some understanding of time and ageing, then I think you’ll constantly try to do things that you know are past your due date.
“I’m really enjoying it, I don’t mind, it’s fun to watch Ben step into a role that 15 years ago I would have felt right for.”
Clooney says he’s enjoyed watching Ben Affleck play a role that 15 years ago he would have felt right for
Production on The Tender Bar was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Clooney says like everyone else that his world has been changed by the events of the last 18 months.
“It changed everybody, right? Suddenly, we think Zooming is OK, I haven’t seen anybody in person – it’s the first time I’ve put on a suit in two years… I was afraid it wouldn’t fit,” he said.
“It changes a lot, it’s harder as a filmmaker because you’re not able to communicate in the same way because you’re wearing all this crap (PPE).
“But you know, it’s a funny thing, it also reminds us of how resilient we are – I just saw a picture of all these kids during the London Blitz, and they’re all wearing those huge gas masks, 500 kids with those gas masks, and you go ‘well, if they could do it, we can do it – we’ll figure it out’.”
The Tender Bar will be released in select cinemas in December, and will stream on Amazon Prime Video in January 2022.
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Davina McCall has said her short-term memory is “a bit remiss” as she recovers from brain tumour surgery.
Speaking from her bed, the visibly emotional TV presenter posted a short video updating her Instagram followers on her condition, saying it had been a “mad” time.
She expressed an “enormous heartfelt thank you” to people who had messaged her after she revealed this month she had a benign brain tumour, a colloid cyst, which she described as “very rare”.
Looking bright, but with a visibly bruised left eye, McCall said: “My short-term memory is a bit remiss.
“But that is something I can work on, so I’m really happy about that. I’m writing everything down, to keep myself feeling safe.”
She added: “It’s been mad, and it’s just really nice to be back home, I’m on the other side.”
In a message posted with the video, she reiterated her thanks for all the support she has received, adding: “Had a great night’s sleep in my own bed. Have a couple of sleeps during the day which keeps my brain clear… Slowly, slowly…”
When she first shared her diagnosis, she said chances of having it were “three in a million” and that she had discovered it several months previously after a company offered her a health scan in return for giving a menopause talk.
The 57-year-old star said support from her fans had “meant the world”.
She said she was being “brilliantly looked after” by her partner, hairdresser Michael Douglas, and her stepmother, Gabby, who she calls mum.
Becoming tearful, the presenter said: “I’d quickly like to say big up the stepmums. I don’t really say thank you to Gabby enough. She’s been an amazing rock my whole life.”
McCall was estranged from her birth mother, Florence McCall, who died in 2008.
McCall with 2002 Big Brother winner Kate Lawler. Pic: Rex Features
With a catch in her voice, McCall went on: “I’ve got a massive dose of vitamin G – I’m just really grateful. I’ve always been really lucky in my life, but I feel unbelievably grateful right now. So, thanks for everything, all of you.
“I’m on the mend, I’m resting and sleeping loads and I feel really good. I’m just very lucky.”
Stars including presenter Alison Hammond, singer Craig David and radio host Zoe Ball quickly shared their delight at the positive update.
McCall rose to fame presenting on MTV in the mid-1990s, and later on Channel 4’s Streetmate, before becoming a household name as the host of Big Brother from 2000 to 2010.
McCall with her MBE, alongside her partner Michael Douglas and her daughter Holly Robertson. Pic: PA
She’s gone on to present programmes across the networks, the most recent being ITV dating show My Mum, Your Dad.
Last year, McCall was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.
Married twice, McCall has three children, two daughters and a son, with her second husband, presenter Matthew Robertson.
She has lived with Douglas since 2022, and they present a weekly lifestyle podcast together, Making The Cut.
Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling novelist who wrote A Woman Of Substance, has died at the age of 91.
The Leeds-born author, who sold more than 90 million books, died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness and was “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”, a spokeswoman said.
Taylor Bradford, who was often labelled “the grand dame of blockbusters”, hit the big time when A Woman Of Substance was published in 1979, making her an overnight success.
The story sold millions of copies and traced the journey of Emma Harte from life as a servant in rural Yorkshire to heading a business empire.
The rags to riches story was followed by many other successful books with the author’s works being published in more than 40 languages across 90 countries.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
The author on her 21st birthday. Pic: Bradford Enterprises/PA
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said the author was a “natural storyteller”, adding: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman Of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”
Taylor Bradford, who was made an OBE in 2007 for services to literature, wrote a total of 40 novels during her career – her most recent was The Wonder Of It All, published last year.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
Taylor Bradford with her husband Robert in 1993. Pic: PA
Born in May 1933 as the only child of Winston and Freda Taylor, she worked as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post before becoming a reporter and then the paper’s first woman’s editor.
At the age of 20, she moved to London and worked in Fleet Street for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News.
She met her husband, American film producer Robert Bradford, in 1961 and they married in London on Christmas Eve in 1963 before moving to New York the following year.
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The couple were married for 55 years until he died from a stroke in 2019.
Following a private funeral in New York, the author will be buried alongside her late husband at the city’s Westchester Hills Cemetery.
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