Nick was born to parents Andrew and Frances Guilfoyle Clooney in Maysville, Kentucky. He had two sisters, Rosemary and Betty Clooney. His parents separated when he was four years old and spent much time with his grandmother while growing up.

Nick Clooney married Nina Warren, whom he met while judging a beauty pageant in Ohio.

Clooney's early career consisted of various television and radio jobs. He worked as a news anchorman in Lexington, Kentucky for five years, he also worked in Ohio as a radio and television presenter, and gained a national profile when he hosted the ABC game show, The Money Maze.

He is best known for his television journalism and anchor positions where he had a reputation for delivering the news in a hard, factual manner.

Clooney has been a long time columnist for The Cincinnati Post, with his first work being published in 1989. He continues to write for the newspaper and covers a wide range of topics including politics, human rights, entertainment, and more.

Nick Clooney has also been involved in politics, when he ran for a seat in the House of Representatives. He had hoped to represent Kentucky's 4th Congressional district as a Democrat in 2004. He lost to the Republican Geoff Davis and announced shortly after the defeat that his brief political career was over.

Nick Clooney and his son George Clooney remain very close. The couple visited the troubled region of Darfur in Sudan and worked to get the crisis noticed by those in power. They labeled the situation the "first genocide of the 21st century".

In relation to the Darfur crisis, Nick Clooney said "I have been a reporter for 50 years. Maybe three or four stories in your lifetime are life-changing and you go in as a reporter and come out as an advocate. You don't usually like to do that but this time I did.. So yes, it was life-changing."

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