George Clooney Intolerable Cruelty Venice 2003

The Venice Film Festival had its share of the famous and fabulous, none more so than George Clooney, reports Stephanie Bunbury.

George was still wearing his Mona Lisa half-smile, but his eyebrows were looking worried. A preposterous woman on crutches, wearing a bridal veil, emerged from the pack at the Venice Film Festival press conference for the Coen Brothers' film, Intolerable Cruelty, with a proposal for Mr Clooney. Quite literally: she proposed. She had been stalking him for years, she revealed.

Of course, he was laughing along like the thoroughly good-natured chap he is until someone dressed rather convincingly as a priest jumped up, too. How long would this pantomime go on? Probably not for the first time in his life, Clooney had to make his position clear: "I will not marry you!" he said.

This was Italian television at work. Clooney's suitor was a comedienne called Victoria Cabella, who has stalked quite a few stars for the purposes of her show. It was something of a godsend for the foreign journalists, because, while this year's Venice Film Festival had more stars, more substantial films and more surprises than the lackluster Cannes Film Festival in May, there was no real gossip.

Nobody lost limbs trying to get into films, press conferences or parties. There was even time for a little dip into the lagoon between films, although the soupy water was so suspiciously salty that it made your nostrils burn. (No, it was the salt water. Honestly.)

Festival director Moritz de Hadeln, who came to Venice from a long and successful, if sometimes stormy, run at the helm of the Berlinale (film festival), pulled together a festival that satisfied the local lust for the famous and fabulous without feeling obliged to shoehorn any real Hollywood howlers in the program.

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