George Clooney's First 'ER' Series Wasn't The One That Made Him Famous

Most people know, at this point, that beloved movie star George Clooney got his start on "ER," Michael Crichton's groundbreakingly realistic depiction of the day-to-day experience of working in a busy emergency room. That's technically true, but weirdly, Clooney was on a different show of the same name (kind of) beforehand; a CBS sitcom called "E/R."

"E/R" only graced the airwaves from September 1984 until February 1985, and when you consider that "ER" aired from the 1990s until the 2000s and spanned a whopping 15 seasons, you'll probably understand why "ER" gets mentioned a lot alongside Clooney's name and "E/R" does not. So what ... was "E/R?" According to TVGuide, the show isn't even available to stream and does seem to be fully lost to time, but I'll do my best to represent what it was in the first place. The show was fronted by the Wisconsin-based Organic Theater Company, the company's leader, Stuart Gordon, a physician named Dr. Ronald Berman, and boasted an all-star cast. Luminaries like Elliott Gould, Mary McDonnell, and Corinne Bohrer joined Clooney on the series, where he played the recurring role of ER tech Mark "Ace" Kolmar (he didn't even get a white coat this time), the nephew of the fictional hospital's head nurse Joan Thor (played by Conchata Ferrell).

Thankfully for Clooney and, honestly, for most of this show's talented cast, "E/R" didn't last, and they were all freed up for bigger and better things. For Clooney, hilariously, that meant "ER" — though, in between, he appeared on several other shows in small roles, including "Riptide," "Murder, She Wrote," and "The Golden Girls" as well as longer arcs on both "The Facts of Life" and "Roseanne." So who did Clooney play on "ER" again?

George Clooney only appeared in eight of the 22 episodes that aired of "E/R," but on "ER," he led the series for its first several seasons and appeared on a whopping 109 episodes as Dr. Doug Ross, an acerbic but incredibly compassionate pediatric fellow who spends quite a bit of time in the titular emergency room with colleagues like nurse Carol Hathaway (Julianna Marguiles), and new medical student Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle, whom you might know as the guy from "The Pitt"). Doug's biggest pitfall as a physician is that he's constantly willing to bend or even break the rules to help his patients, and while this might seem like a net positive if you happen to be his patient, this gets the guy into a lot of trouble. 

In the standout season 2 episode "Hell or High Water," Doug, who's at risk of losing his job after breaking protocol to treat a child who's HIV-positive, risks his life by running into a flooded storm drain to save an entirely different kid. When he does, his boss — Dr. Kerry Weaver, played by Laura Innes — is convinced to take him back at the fictional Chicago County General.

In the show's fifth season, Doug moves to Seattle (which is when Clooney decided to leave the show for greener pastures, which here means a movie career), and in season 6, Carol joins him, and the two get married, which means Clooney returns in Marguiles' final episode for a cheeky cameo. (Sweetly, Clooney reportedly was paid scale for the cameo and did it for the fans.) The two reappear in season 15 to lend some aid to Carter, but beyond "ER," Clooney is ... a huge star.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past few decades, George Clooney launched a pretty major movie career after leaving "ER," and despite his ill-fated turn as the benippled Caped Crusader in 1997's oft-maligned "Batman & Robin," his movie career has gone pretty well for quite some time. After playing Batman, Clooney rebounded quickly with projects like "The Thin Red Line" and "Out of Sight," and despite his infamous clash with director David O. Russell on the set of "Three Kings," it's a pretty good movie. 2001 was a banner year for the actor with two of (in my humble opinion) his best-ever projects, "Ocean's Eleven" with Steven Soderbergh and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" with Joel and Ethan Coen, who reportedly didn't bother to read "The Odyssey" before making their own spin on the classic tale. From there, the name "George Clooney" was synonymous with "movie star."

Clooney has, as of this writing, won two Academy Awards — one for his supporting performance in "Syriana" and one for producing best picture winner "Argo" — and been nominated for many more ... and in 2025, he brought his film "Good Night and Good Luck," which he directed on-screen in 2005, to Broadway and scored a Tony nod for his effort. (He did go on to lose best actor in a play to "Oh, Mary!" playwright and star Cole Escola, and based on Clooney's sense of humor, I'd wager a guess that he found that more than fair.) The point is, Clooney is one of the most beloved stars in the world — and recently lampooned that in 2025's "Jay Kelly" — so he's likely not feeling bitter about "E/R."