Before the A-list movie career, before the Oscar win, before the Lake Como resort, there was Max.
The Vietnamese potbellied pig who stood stoutly by George Clooney from the actor's Return of the Killer Tomatoes! salad days to his ER break to his Ocean's Eleven heyday has died of natural causes.
Max was about 19. In people years, anyway.
"I can tell you any pig that lives over the age of 12, the owner knows what he's doing and is taking care of it," Richard Slayton of pigs4ever.com said Monday. "Obviously, Mr. Clooney did a very good job, and probably loved that pig very much."
The cause of death was not known. In recent years, Max suffered from arthritis and failing sight. He also carried around quite a bit of weight, anywhere from 150-300 pounds, though heft likely was not a contributing factor. Max was, after all, a real pig.
Clooney broke the news of his longtime companion's passing last Friday while doing publicity for his upcoming film, The Good German. According to USA Today, the actor spoke to reporters only about an hour after learning of the death.
"He was as old a pig as the vets had ever seen," Clooney said in the newspaper. "I was really surprised, because he's been such a big part of my life."
Clooney's rep did not respond to a call and email Monday seeking comment on burial plans.
According to Slayton, who runs his pig-related information and gift Website with wife Dottie Eggeman, Clooney was one of the best known potbellied owners in the United States.
"Everybody in the pig world...knows George Clooney," Slayton said.
Max scampered and/or waddled into Clooney's life in the late 1980s. At the time, Clooney was a working actor whose work consisted of recurring roles on The Facts of Life and Roseanne. Max was a hot young thing, his kind being a trendy pet upon their introduction to North America.
"When we first saw Max, he was a cute little Vietnamese potbellied pig," Clooney's father, newsman Nick Clooney, wrote in the Cincinnati Post last January. "Those who fostered the adoption neglected to tell George that Max would one day be the size of a linebacker with an appetite to match."
Initially, Clooney shared custody of Max with Kelly Preston, his then girlfriend.
"When George and Kelly broke up, he kept the pig," Marg Helgenberger, a colleague of Clooney's from a brief stint on ER, told People in 1996. "The guy always ends up with the pig. I wonder what that means?"
Max remained with Clooney through his 1989-1994 marriage to actress Talia Balsam--and beyond.
A confirmed bachelor since his divorce, Clooney has been linked to the likes of Renée Zellweger, Teri Hatcher and Krista Allen. But the only constant was Max, who became a minor celebrity in his own right.
A silent partner, squealing excepted, Max owed his notoriety to Clooney, who frequently talked about the pig being his longest-lasting relationship.
"Usually, he sleeps on the foot of my bed, but he's gotten so fat in the last year," Clooney told 60 Minutes last February.
Unfortunately, the passing of the years was not kind to the couple. Clooney suffered a spinal injury; Max got run over by a car.
In 2005, reports out of Britain said Max was dead. But news of his demise proved greatly exaggerated. "Max is relaxing," a Clooney friend said at the time, according to contactmusic.com.
Max spent his golden years "at his vacation home, a comfortable bed in the garage," Nick Clooney wrote, his custom pig house located down too steep an incline for the arthritic animal to frequent.
At 19, Max would have been a very aged pig--the oldest Slayton had ever heard of lived to 19. Slayton himself lost a 15-year-old potbellied, Ziggy, to a stroke in October.
Slayton empathized with Clooney, who in his mourning has said he is not planning to adopt a new pig.
"It's very stressful," Slayton said, "even if you know it's coming."