Snippets from "Clooney's last shift"

Cincinnati Enquirer

February 18, 1999

ER opened the year with a hint of his departure on Jan. 7, when Dr. Ross kept an Oregon job offer secret from his girlfriend, nurse Carol Hathaway (Julianna Margulies).

In recent weeks, Dr. Ross violated hospital rules and risked the hospital's research grants by giving narcotics to a boy (Kyle Chambers) in the last stages of adrenal leuko dystrophy (ALD), a degenerative disease.

When the child died at home from an overdose of medicine from Carol's health clinic last week, the district attorney began investigating whether to charge Dr. Ross with murder.

His woes actually began last May, when Dr. Kerry Weaver disciplined Dr. Ross for treating a crack baby without parental permission.

"Our characters always locked horns. It was always great fun to mix it up with George," said Laura Innes, who has played Dr. Weaver since 1995. She hinted that the Ross-Weaver relationship deteriorates further tonight.

"Yeah, America's really going to hate me!" she laughs.

Mr. Clooney, the ER class clown, often prescribed liberal doses of laughter. When rehearsing with a baby doll, he'd intentionally drop it on the floor or fling it around like a football. He liked to put sticky surgical lubricating gel on telephones, door knobs or Dr. Weaver's cane.

He handed Ms. Innes her cane right before a scene in which she had very technical medical dialogue. "This goo was going through my fingers and dripping down my leg," she said.