Susan Sarandon
This world class actress has had everyone talking about her since the 70’s, but her private life has been somewhat of a mystery. Now she is willing to talk about how her life story has been such a pivotal role in overcoming her most significant struggle.
Susan Sarandon
Taking Names
Susan Sarandon has actually held onto her ex husband’s name since they married in 1967 and later divorced in 1979. She was only 20 years old when she married Chris Sarandon, but she has kept his name for a lifetime.
Taking Names
The Start
Sarandon graduated from university with a Bachelor of Arts in drama and even managed to be mentored by the master teacher, Gilbert V Hartke. In 1969, both Susan and her husband Chris auditoned for a role in “Joe”. Chris didn’t make the cut, but Susan did and her role as “Melissa” would become her first break in the industry. The movie succeeded far more than anyone expected.
The Start
The Young Actress
After getting her name and her acting talent out there, Sarandon began making appearances in soap operas, small films and productions. One such notable production was the “Rocky Horror Picture Show”. When she starred alongside Burt Lancaster in the movie, “Atlantic City” she was so impressive that she was nominated for “Best Actress” at the Academy Awards. That would be the first of a series of nominations.
The Young Actress
Turning Heads
When it comes to taking risks, Sarandon is way up there. This was especially true during the shooting of “Atlanta City” when she took a bath in front of an open window, without anything covering her torso… and there were lemons.
Turning Heads
Before The Fame
Before we get carried away with Susan Sarandon’s fame, let’s backtrack to where she came from. On October 4th, 1946 Susan Abigail Tomalin was born in New York. She was the first-born to a family that would later have 8 more children. Being the eldest of 9 children posed a number of challenges for Susan.
Before The Fame
Eldest Sister
As you can expect, Susan found herself piled with responsibilities that most young children don’t find themselves with. Her siblings started to see her not as an older sibling, but more as a parental figure. During an interview with Time Out magazine, she revealed her feelings about that time, “Being at the top, I had a lot of responsibility, which was a good thing as I tended to be spacey and always daydreaming.”
Eldest Sister
Family Life
Being in a household with so many children running around meant that Susan hardly ever had any space to herself. She said “It was very good training; lack of privacy and chaos are very good conditioning for show business.”
Family Life
Good Catholic Girl
Susan’s upbringing was surrounded by Catholicism mainly because her mother came from a religious Italian background. All throughout her childhood she was placed in Catholic schools and it had a strong effect on her. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, she confided, “I was very spacey, kind of in my head, dreamy and really concerned with my faith and being a good person.”
Good Catholic Girl
Catholic College
Susan Sarandon went to a Catholic university but only because her parents didn’t manage to apply elsewhere on time… or at least that’s what they told her. But despite being enrolled into another Catholic institution, the move just encouraged her to question her religious upbringing.
Catholic College
Winds Of Change
Coming back to the moment Sarandon became an Oscar nominee, she was thrilled that she was nominated, but there was something lacking in her career. “In movies, I wasn’t getting parts that were stretching me so much. I was earning a living and having a good time; I’ve always had a good time. But I was at a crossroads and needed to move on in some way.”
Winds Of Change
A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking
When she felt she needed a change, she decided to take a step back from movies and established an improvisation company. This improv move pushed her in the direction of a show called ” A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking” in 1981. The off Broadway show granted her impressive reviews.
A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking
Change In The 80’s
The 1980’s were challenging for Sarandon, but not too much for her to give up. An unkind surprise jolted her when the studio of “Bull Durham” told her that she was too old to play ‘Annie’. Susan Sarandon was not going to take that information lying down, so she flew in for the audition with an off shoulder dress, like the one in the film, and blew them away.
Change In The 80’s
The Black Book
Since Sarandon married at a young age, when she divorced there was so much uncharted celebrity dating terrain out there. The newly single actress dated notable figures like “Atlantic City” director and Academy Award winner, Louis Malle. Later in 2014 she paired up with David Bowie, whom she acted with in the 1983 vampire movie, “The Hunger”.
The Black Book
Bad News
Things were going well for her and Bowie while they filmed “The Hunger”, but then something happened. On one occasion Sarandon suffered from sporadic bleeding and fainted. This happened more than once and after doctors assessed her, they conclude that she had a condition called Endometriosis. The illness, although treatable, poses problems for women when it comes to having children.
Bad News
Mixed Emotions
Surprising everyone, Sarandon spoke out at the Blossom Ball in 2011, calling the diagnosis “half assed”. Years later she would reveal to Time Out magazine, “It didn’t break my heart; I had plenty of nieces and nephews by that time. I wasn’t dipping into gene pools that I felt the need to replicate so I was fine with it.”
Mixed Emotions
Getting On Board
Many people don’t know about this illness, and as much as 10% of women fall prey to it. Aside from Susan Sarandon, other Hollywood celebrities, such as Whoopi Goldberg and Lena Dunham have also taken to the podium to raise awareness about the illness.
Getting On Board
New Man
It wasn’t long before Susan Sarandon found herself with Franco Amurri. Amurri was a successful Italian filmmaker who had met Sarandon on the set of “Tempest” a few years before. Interestingly enough, the two thought that their relationship would be short lived, but something connected the two forever that they never expected.
New Man
Big News
Ever since her diagnosis, Sarandon believed that she could not fall pregnant. So we can imagine her surprise when after some time she found herself to be pregnant with Franco’s child. The pregnancy posed a difficult situation for her as she wasn’t expecting to fall pregnant, and her career was at an all time high.
Big News
Making Up Her Mind
The decision she needed to make wasn’t easy, but it was important. During an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2013, she explained, “I said to Franco, you know, ‘I’ve decided that I’m going to have this baby. And if you want to be part of it, that’s great. If you don’t, that’s great too. Because I thought, you know what, if this was an impossibility and it’s happened, clearly it’s meant to happen.”
Making Up Her Mind
Baby Girl
Her little miracle was born on March 15th, 1985 and it was one of the happiest days of her life. When Eva Amurri came into the world, she wasn’t married to Franco, they weren’t even dating anymore. Nevertheless, Susan decided that it was important for their daughter to take her father’s surname even if Eva would live with her.
Baby Girl
Love Triangle
Sarandon didn’t have it easy seeing as she had a three-year-old daughter on the set of “Bill Durham”. But at the same time something in her love interest was cooking up. As part of the movie’s plot, Sarandon played a minor league baseball groupie who finds herself in a difficult love triangle. Off screen the young pitcher (Tim Robbins) was making better progress with the beautiful star than the veteran catcher (Kevin Costner). Their relationship was made to stand the test of time.
Love Triangle
Higher And Higher
Everything seemed to be going in the right direction for Susan Sarandon. Firstly her relationship with Tim Robbins was flourishing as their shared movie became one of the highest grossing films of 1988. She also managed to scoop up a number of awards and nominations, which included an Academy Award for Best Actress four times for Thelma & Louise, Lorenzo’s Oil, and The Client but she actually won in 1995 for her role in “Dead Man Walking”.
Higher And Higher
Big Money
After shooting the movie of The Client, Susan Sarandon was paid an incredible $5 million! If you’re thinking that it isn’t such a big amount, consider that this was 1995, so it was big bucks!
Big Money
The Oscar
Taking to the stage, even as a famous actor, is a big event. So when Sarandon got up to thank everyone for her Oscar, she completely forgot that she had planned to advocate peace and dispel violence in her acceptance speech. The moment completely overtook her, but can we blame her?
The Oscar
Speaking Out
Even though she didn’t get to make her political statement at the 1995 award ceremony, a different political statement of hers still stuck in the minds of the audience. A few years before that evening, she rallied support for the release of HIV positive Haitian refugees held captive on Guantanamo Bay. The Academy did not take to her speech well.
Speaking Out
Real Life Role
It’s incredible what impact a role can have on the real life of actors. In “Dead Man Walking”, Sarandon played a nun that befriends a deathrow inmate and tries to save his life. In real life she took on a similar role as she became an activist in support of Richard Glossip – a deathrow inmate. She stands alongside other big personalities like Mark Ruffalo, Richard Branson and even Pope Francis, working towards getting him released.
Real Life Role
Putting A Spin On Things
Not quite what anyone was expecting was the project Sarandon undertook in 2009. She took to a new kind of bar scene which she called “SPiN”. This bar serves as a table tennis club and an opportunity for professional and amateur players to come and compete against one another. It’s not just a table tennis club, many celebrities pop in for a game or two too.
Putting A Spin On Things
Another Child
Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were a Hollywood power couple and everyone wanted to know when they would take the next step. The big news that the public got was not a wedding announcement, rather it was news that they were going to have a baby together. In 1989 Susan gave birth to John “Jack” Henry and a few years later she gave birth again to another boy, Miles Guthrie. It’s amazing to think that at one point in her life, Susan Sarandon thought she would never have children.
Another Child
Shocking News
The world was shocked when in 2009, Susan and Tim made an announcement that we never wanted to hear. They told the public that they were breaking up. Susan told a reporter, “I thought that if you didn’t get married, you wouldn’t take each other for granted as easily. I don’t know if after twenty-something years that was still true.”
Shocking News
Coming Out
At 71 years old, Susan Sarandon opened up about her sexual orientation and it has surprised many people. She said that when it comes to her sexual preferences she is “open” and “up for grabs”. Susan said that she feels open minded when it comes to a relationship with both men and women. Whether this has or will flourish into something, we don’t know.
Coming Out
Lasting Impressions
Throughout her life, Susan Sarandon has had a man with her, but with none as interesting as Philip Sayer. The two acted alongside one another in “Hunger”, but he was different. Their love affair was strange as Sayer was gay. Sarandon joked, “I did at one point have a very successful and very loving and wonderful affair with a man who then wasn’t with another woman after me, and that worked out fine!”
Lasting Impressions
The Vietnam War
Susan Sarandon had her run-in with the law on a few occasions. She was arrested during the Vietnam War where she protested against America’s involvement. It was important to her for Americans not to send troops – young ones in particular – into the conflict.
The Vietnam War
Feeding The Poor
The international women’s organization, MADRE, traveled with Susan Sarandon to Nicaragua on a special mission in the 1980’s. The mission was to deliver milk and food for babies, to mothers in need.
Feeding The Poor
The Death Penalty
Sarandon has taken upon herself the task of fighting the flawed laws that determine the death penalty in the state of Texas. The organization that she works with is called “Texas Defender Service” which labels itself as a “team of experienced death penalty attorneys who combat the systemic flaws facing the Texas death penalty.”
The Death Penalty
Helping Communities Support Themselves
Susan Sarandon has put her effort into a number of other organizations that work towards building and supporting underprivileged communities. Some of the organizations that benefit from Sarandon’s support are, Doctors Without Borders, Water for our World, Grassroots International, and SOS Children’s Villages.
Helping Communities Support Themselves
Controlling Television
In 2000, when Dr Laura Schlessinger had a TV show, she didn’t realize what kind of threats she had lurking in the shadows. The conservative TV show host came under Susan Sarandon’s fire when Sarandon made it her mission to have her show removed from the air. Susan succeeded and in less than one year, the show was gone.
Controlling Television
All Kinds Of Roles
We can’t imagine Susan Sarandon being ready to settle for just one kind of typecast. She definitely made sure that she wouldn’t be that way and has since played a collection of different kinds of characters. To name a few, a journalist, a prisoner of war, a medical researcher, a music teacher, a college professor, a waitress, an attorney, a linguist, a mother and a wife.
All Kinds Of Roles
The Model
With such beauty, we shouldn’t be surprised that Susan Sarandon was first a model before she became the brilliant actress that she is today.
The Model
Eva Amurri
Susan’s daughter, Eva Amurri is a Hollywood actress just like her mother. She has starred in a number of popular films, like, Saved!, The Banger Sisters, and Middle of Nowhere. She’s the daughter of Susan and Italian film director, Franco Amurri.
Eva Amurri
Her Daughter’s Wedding
Eva Amurri married former soccer star, Kyle Martino in 2011. Three years after their marriage started, Eva gave birth to their first child – a daughter. They named her Marlowe Mae, and two years later they had a boy, Major James.
Her Daughter’s Wedding
She’s A Grandmother
Susan commented on becoming a grandmother, “There’s some part of your brain that can’t wrap itself around this idea that your child, that your daughter, is going to have a daughter. I mean, it’s just so beautiful and huge.” She continued, “Being a grandmother is so much easier than being a mother. You don’t have that constant worry that’s in your mind all the time.”
She’s A Grandmother
UNICEF Ambassador
In 1999, Sarandon was appointed to the position of UNICEF’s Goodwill ambassador. She took the role and responsibilities on without thinking twice. But that wouldn’t be the only project she went full steam into.
UNICEF Ambassador
Canada UNICEF
This Hollywood star has also included herself on the Canadian UNICEF Committee, which causes us to ask a simple question – How on Earth does she manage to get all of these things done?
Canada UNICEF
Drinking On The Job
Sometimes a little alcohol can go a long way, and that was definitely true for Sarandon and co-star Gina Davis in 1991 on the set of Thelma and Louis. Davis recalls it, “We asked the prop guy, ‘Do you have any real tequila? Because it’s easier to act if we taste alcohol.’ So we pounded back quite a few, and we’re laughing between takes and both feeling, We’re so drunk! This is great!”
Drinking On The Job
The Iraq War
When America went to war in Iraq in 2003, Susan Sarandon was very vocal about her protest against sending troops over. She took to political advertisements which she herself appeared in. This was not the first time that she broadcast her opinion on war.
The Iraq War
Head To Head With Mom
Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree, and Sarandon knows this all too well. Despite being a hardcore anti-war pacifist, her mother certainly is not. Leonora Tomalin, who is a staunch Republican, strongly supported former President George W. Bush and his decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
Head To Head With Mom
Pope Problems
We all know that it takes more than a dam to hold back Susan Sarandon when she has something to say, and this couldn’t have been more true than at the Hamptons film festival. She spoke about Pope Benedict XVI, and how she sent him a copy of Dead Man Walking. Later she wanted to clarify what she meant, and she said, “The last (pope), not this Nazi one we have now.”
Pope Problems
The Humanist And Feminism
Even though she has many liberal views, she is by no means a feminist. She likes to label herself as a “humanist”, and she explains why: “I think of myself as a humanist because I think it’s less alienating to people who think of feminism as being a load of strident b**ches.” She went on to say in an interview in March 2018 about equal pay for women in Hollywood, “Emma Stone… she got equal pay because her male stars insisted on it, that happened with me with Paul Newman. He (Paul Newman) stepped forward and said, ‘I’ll give you part of mine.'”
The Humanist
Love For All
As part of the many projects Sarandon has gotten behind, a documentary called Celluloid Closet was another. In 1995, the documentary included Hollywood actors, directors and writers who answered questions about how Hollywood depicts homosexuality.
Love For All
A Special Commercial
A commercial that came out in 1995 was lucky enough to have Susan Sarandon take part in it. The commercial for “Love is love is love”, aimed to promote global acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals.
A Special Commercial
Appearing In Friends
For all the Friends fans out there, do you remember Susan Sarandon on the show? Or should we rather say “Cecilia Monroe”, or Jessica Lockhart from Days of Our Lives? Susan’s daughter, Eva also appeared in the season 7 episode.
Appearing In Friends
No Meat
Susan Sarandon is very strict about the food that she eats. She is strictly vegetarian. Maybe that is her secret to looking young for all of these years, I mean she is 71 years old.
No Meat
The Inspiration
Whether you agree with all she has to say or not, Susan Sarandon is a person of action. No matter what it is, when she pours her energy into something, she makes it happen. It’s no wonder she’s such an inspiration to so many. Here’s to many more years!
The Inspiration
