Starring Greenville

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Bobby BROOKSHIRE already was planning to open a gym here before Hollywood came to town -- it wasn't like the ex-Marine was starting it just to get George Clooney and Renee Zellweger in there. But it wouldn't hurt to have photos of celebrities like that working out, you know? So off he went last year to the Expo Center, where representatives of "Leatherheads" had set up shop to find extras for the film about early pro football, telling them the stars could use his gym, anytime, "for free, no tipping."

Well, that plot never quite worked, though Brookshire still was trying to pass his invite to the actors last week, when they came back to promote their romantic comedy, which hits theaters Friday. But a lot had transpired in a year, and he had more on his plate now than giving stars free workouts.

He had 300-plus fellow extras to worry about, and their big event, a premiere complete with red carpet, searchlights and limo rides for the locals intent on extending their brush with Hollywood a little bit longer.

rom Hollywood's perspective, "Leatherheads" may be most significant for marking Clooney's return to directing, his first time back in that chair since "Good Night, and Good Luck," the Edward R. Murrow biopic set amid the McCarthy-era anti-Communist witch hunts. But his movie about pro football circa 1925 arguably is a higher-risk venture. Featuring two Oscar winners, Clooney himself and Zellweger, "Leatherheads" aspires to a different sort of high calling -- pure entertainment -- and Clooney sets a formidable standard with references to the classic farces of Preston Sturgess and Billy Wilder, the repartee of "The Front Page" and the period flavor of "The Sting."

There's an old-fashioned love triangle too, involving Clooney as the aging footballer, "The Office's" John Krasinski as the college hotshot and war hero Carter "The Bullet" Rutherford, who promises to give the pro game the boost it needs, and Zellweger as a Chicago newspaper reporter assigned to "chop down his cherry tree" (expose the truth about how "The Bullet" got dozens of Germans to surrender in WWI).

All that counted to Bobby Brookshire, however, was that thetale set in the Midwest would be filmed in the Carolinas. The 43-year-old is one of this area's enterprising characters, having promoted tough-man contests (the "Baddest of the Bad") and beauty pageants and operating a businessflying banners over Myrtle Beach, NASCAR tracks and football stadiums.