IS Gorgeous George really all that gorgeous? The man from ER, George Clooney, said to melt the hearts of women viewers by the million, is different from all the other Hollywood heart-throbs of the day in one crucial respect - he is not a midget, but 5ft 111/2 inches tall in his socks, not in the shoes with built-up heels.

He could be the new Cary Grant, although for proof of that we must await his

next picture, One Fine Day, out next week, a romantic comedy in which his co-star is Michelle Pfeiffer. For the moment we have Clooney as the latest Bruce Wayne, wearing the Batcape and rubber Batsuit and squabbling with a

distinctly elderly Robin - Chris O'Donnell's days as a teenager are long gone - in the fourth Batman film, Batman and Robin.

He waxes eloquent about the discomfort of that suit, dismissing it as a miserable costume. ''You cannot hear, cannot see, it is catastrophic to wear and hot,'' he says. ''I would be sitting in the suiit, sweating and miserable, and I would say to Joel Schumacher, the director, this is hell, and he would say this is your dream, don't mess it. I am more successful than I ever thought I would be. I have been in television series for the past 15 years and if you are an actor and making any kind of living you are one of the 5% in our union who is doing so. It is not easy to get work, but it is nice when you get it. I have been working. I have not necessarily been doing great jobs.''

Being the third man to play the role did not, he says, put any great pressure on him. The pressure had been on his predecessor Kilmer, who had to replace the man who created the role. He had also

been protected by the co-stars on whom the film also depends, particularly Arnold Schwarzenegger. Anyway, David Hasselhof would be doing it next time round and it would be called Batwatch.

''Batman has succeeded above and beyond the people who play the role,'' he adds. ''Nor has film stardom increased the attention I get from people. I get as much as I do on television, ER arguably being the most successful show of all time. But I am not the lead, nor am I the stand-out actor. I get protected and carried along with the success of the show.''

Clooney may be the new Batman, but in real life he is clearly The Joker. He is also singularly sane about what lies ahead, his years as a TV star and what happened to his aunt, the singer Rosemary Clooney, having conditioned him to the transience of fame. ''In the 50s Rosemary was as big as she could be as a singer, by the 60s she was finished,'' he says. ''Rock and roll had come along. Things changed which had nothing to do with her talent and she did not handle it very well. People told her in the 50s that she was brilliant and she believed it, so in the 60s she thought she had lost it because of what they had told her.''

He is 36, reckons he has a chance to make it big as a movie star, but he has still to prove it. But he has been given the chance. He could just fill that gap in the Hollywood stellar system which, while there are loads of himbos and elderly chaps lying about their age, currently lacks a romantic leading man in his prime. And George, by the way, according to the lady from the Sunday Post in the row in front of me, the front row by the way, really is gorgeous. She had to be carried out of the news conference drooling because he had smiled at her.

NEW RELEASES

Batman and Robin (PG) 145 mins. Directed by Joel Schumacher.

Love Jones (15) 109 mins. Directed by Theodore Witcher.

Lady and the Tramp (U) 76 mins. Directed by Hamilton Luske.

On general release.

Kama Sutra: a tale of love (18) 114 mins. Directed by Mira Nair.

GFT and Filmhouse, Edinburgh.

All films open tomorrow.