The first live telecast of a Broadway performance combines George Clooney’s passion for the live broadcasting his father, Nick, did in Cincinnati with a tribute to his father’s journalism hero, legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow.
Clooney stars in Good Night, and Good Luck as Murrow, the CBS reporter and host who stood up to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who claimed Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government in the 1950s. McCarthy appears in 1950s news film.
The Broadway play — adapted from Clooney’s 2005 feature film of the same name — has been nominated for five Tony Awards, including Clooney for best lead actor. It’s also the highest-grossing play in Broadway history.
Good Night, and Good Luck — how Murrow would sign off his programs — will air live from Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 7, on CNN, CNN International and MAX, and will stream live on CNN.com, and via CNN’s apps on connected TVs and mobile devices, without requiring a cable login, according to CNN’s “How To Watch” page.
Before the movie premiered in 2005, George Clooney told me that Murrow “was someone that my father always talked about and quoted. That showdown (with McCarthy) was very famous in our family,” said George, a 1979 graduate of Independent High School in Augusta, Kentucky.
The Lexington, Kentucky, native grew up in Fort Mitchell and Mason while his father hosted variety shows on WCPO-TV and WKRC-TV (1969-75) before the family settled in Augusta, not far from his father’s hometown of Maysville. Nick returned to WKRC-TV as primary news anchor from 1976 to 1984.
As a child, Nick was mesmerized by Murrow’s authoritative voice describing the Germans bombing of London on CBS radio during World War II. Nick admired Murrow setting the gold standard for news when he started at Maysville’s WFTM-AM while in high school in 1950; broadcast on the Armed Forced Radio Network; and anchored TV news in Lexington and Cincinnati.
“Ed (Murrow) was the guy . . . Murrow presented (the news) so well," Nick told me in 2005. "Ed talked to you. It was biblical, it had resonance. And he had guts.” He also said he still had a photo on his mantel of Murrow, who died in 1965.
In the Clooney home “we talked about Murrow all the time,” particularly his courage to confront McCarthy’s anti-communism crusade now known as “McCarthyism,” Nick said. “You’ve got to have the courage to face it down. And it’s hard to do.”
Or as George says as Murrow in CNN’s promotion: “There are a certain kind of people who are the lifeblood of democracy, never wavering, never faltering, never straying in their pursuit of what matters. And what matters? Honesty, facts, integrity, accuracy, truth. Good night, and good luck.”
George Clooney’s fascination with doing a Murrow project goes back at least 30 years. After achieving stardom on NBC's ER in the 1990s, he often told me about wanting to do a film about Murrow. He co-wrote Good Night, and Good Luck with longtime writing partner Grant Heslov, and directed the film in 2006 — but chose to play CBS news producer Fred Friendly, with David Strathairn starring as Murrow. Now at 64, he felt he had the gravitas to play Murrow in his Broadway debut. (He and Heslov also tried to adapt Good Night, and Good Luck into a cable TV drama series in 2022.)
George’s love for live TV goes back to his childhood romping around his father’s live noon variety shows on WCPO-TV and WKRC-TV. He also operated the Teleprompter for his father’s 1970s newscasts at Channel 12. This inspired him to push for a live broadcast of an ER episode in 1997, and his remake of Fail-Safe, a 1960s Cold War drama, for CBS in 2000.
“I can’t tell you how exciting it is to do something that’s never been done,” Clooney said in CNN’s May 15 announcement for the first-ever live Broadway play telecast. “Live TV. No net. Buckle up everyone.”
Good Night, and Good Luck will end its Broadway run with a matinee on Sunday, June 8. That night CBS will broadcast the 78th Annual Tony Awards live 8-11 p.m. (Channels 12, 7) from New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
TWO CLOONEY NOTES: CBS’ 60 Minutes repeats its George Clooney profile from March at 7 p.m. Sunday before the Tony Awards . . .
Clooney will open Film Cincinnati’s 2025 gala to welcome the Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI) Cineposium to town for its 50th anniversary Sept. 15-18. He will participate in “A Conversation with George Clooney,” discussing “film, family and the future of storytelling” at Newport’s MegaCorp Pavilion on Sept. 15, Film Cincinnati announced. From the release: The conference connects national, state/provincial and local film commissioners with production industry decision makers and government policymakers to foster collaboration that promotes all forms of media production. The AFCI Cineposium is also open to non-AFCI members. For conference information, visit the registration website here.
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