Cary On, George

V.F. brings the clothes, Clooney brings the class as Norman Jean Roy captures Old Hollywood

All George Clooney has to do is put on a pair of Ray-Bans and he looks like an outtake from North by Northwest. What Clooney shares with Cary Grant isn't a physical resemblance as much as the humor, elegance, and understated confidence that marked all of Hollywood's classic leading men. For instance, put him in a garden and throw a girl in his arms—as photographer Norman Jean Roy did for the August 4 cover shoot in Los Angeles—and he'll morph into Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story. Give him a car, a suit, and the same girl, and he's Grant again, in To Catch Thief. It helps that the suit was specially fitted by Giorgio Armani in Milan and that the girl is Australian model Gemma Ward, in her V.F. debut, effortlessly channeling Grace Kelly.

Ward was originally intended to be a foil for Clooney, but, according to fashion and style director Michael Roberts, "they played off of each other so well, it turned out to be a double act." Indeed, Clooney pulled the Aussie stunner into every shot, and had her in hysterics when, with disarming self-deprecation, he jumped on an apple crate to appear taller. Back from an unpublicized trip to Darfur with his father—and recovering from a stomach bug—Clooney was nevertheless the picture of grace.

JULIAN SANCTON