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| Birth Name(s) : Susan Abigail Tomalin |
Date of Birth: October 4, 1946 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Tim Robbins |
| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Susan Sarandon Biography
It was after the 1968 Democratic convention and there was a casting call for a film with several roles for the kind of young people who had disrupted the convention. Two recent graduates of Catholic University in Washington DC, went to the audition in New York for Joe (1970). Chris Sarandon, who had studied to be an actor, was passed over. His wife Susan got the major role of the daughter of an advertising executive. Dad kills her drug dealer boyfriend and befriends an opinionated assembly line worker who collects guns.
Five years later Sarandon made the film where fans of cult classics have come to know her as Janet, who gets entangled with transvestite Dr. Frank n Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show, The (1975). More than 15 years after beginning her career Sarandon at last actively campaigned for a great role -- Annie in Bull Durham (1988), flying at her own expense from Rome to Los Angeles. "It was such a wonderful script ... and did away with a lot of myths and challenged the American definition of success", she said. "When I got there, I spent some time with Kevin [Costner], kissed some ass at the studio and got back on a plane".
Her romance with the "Bull Durham" supporting actor, Tim Robbins, had produced two sons by 1992 and put Sarandon in the position of leaving her domestic paradise only to accept roles that really challenged her. The result was four Academy Award nominations in the 1990s and best actress for Dead Man Walking (1995). Her first Academy Award nomination was for Louis Malle's Atlantic City (1980). |
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Additional Susan Sarandon Biography
Sarandon, the eldest of nine children, was born Susan Abigail Tomalin in New York City, daughter of Lenora Marie (née Criscione) and Phillip Leslie Tomalin, who worked as an advertising executive, television producer, and nightclub singer during the big band era. Sarandon's father was of English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry and her mother was of Sicilian/Italian descent. Sarandon has said that her maternal grandmother, Anita Regali, was connected to the mafia. Sarandon was raised in a large Roman Catholic family. She graduated from Edison High School in 1964, and then attended The Catholic University of America from 1964 to 1968 where she attained a BA in drama. Since her rise to fame, Sarandon has disavowed all relationship with the school due to its conservative policies, particularly regarding abortion and homosexuality. While in college, she met and married fellow student Chris Sarandon in 1967. They divorced in 1979 and she retained her married name as her stage name.
In 1969, Sarandon went to a casting call for the motion-picture Joe with her then husband Chris Sarandon; although he did not get a part, she received the major role of the disaffected teen who disappears into the seedy underworld (the film was released in 1970). Susan did not follow up on the success of that movie, taking roles in lesser films such as Lovin' Molly; it was five more years before she appeared in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a cult classic. That same year, she also played the female lead in The Great Waldo Pepper, opposite Robert Redford. Susan was nominated for an Oscar in 1980 for Atlantic City. Her most controversial film appearance was in "The Hunger" in 1983, a modern Vampire story which turned out to be a critical and box office flop. The film is remembered, however, and has gained some cult status, for a rather graphic lesbian love scene between Sarandon and co-star Catherine Deneuve. It was the first mainstream American film to feature such a scene between two star actresses. But Sarandon did not become a "household name" until her breakthrough in the 1988 film Bull Durham. which became a huge commercial and critical success.
Sarandon appeared in The Simpsons as herself, in an episode which aired in March 2006; she has appeared on the show once before as a ballet teacher. She has also made appearances on the shows Friends, Malcolm in the Middle, Mad TV, Saturday Night Live, Chappelle's Show, and Rescue Me. She is also noted for portraying characters who display copious décolletage.
Sarandon has expressed support for various tolerance and human rights causes. In 1995 she was one of many Hollywood actors, directors and writers who were interviewed for a documentary called The Celluloid Closet which looked at how Hollywood films have depicted homosexuality.
In 1982, she was one of several celebrities to support Jack Henry Abbott (Jack Abbott) in a trial for which he was convicted of killing Richard Adan in Manhattan the previous year. In 1999, she was appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and in that capacity has actively supported the organization's global advocacy as well as the work of the Canadian UNICEF Committee.Susan Sarandon with Tanzanian Children, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 2000
Sarandon spoke out against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, expressing interest in portraying "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan in a movie about Sheehan's crusade. Also in 2003, Sarandon appeared in a "Love is Love is Love" commercial, promoting the acceptance of gay, lesbian and transgender individuals. In 2000, she supported Ralph Nader's run for President. In 2004 she tried to persuade Nader not to run for President. However when she appeared on an episode of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher she referred to Nader as "your guy" (to Maher), implying that she had not supported Nader and appeared at his Madison Square Garden rally in October 2000.
Sarandon hosted a section of the Live 8 concert in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2005. In 2006, she participated in the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony by carrying the Olympic flag in Turin, Italy.
In 2007, Sarandon appeared at an anti-war rally in Washington, D.C., with people such as Tim Robbins, and Jane Fonda. Her stance was, "Let us resist this war" "Let us hate war in all its forms, whether the weapon used is a missile or an airplane". Sarandon, and 10 of her relatives (including her significant other Tim Robbins and her son Miles), traveled to Wales to track her family's Welsh genealogy. Their journey was documented by the BBC Wales programme "Coming Home: Susan Sarandon".
Upcoming:
- This Child of Mine (2007) (narrator)
- World Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans & the Movies (2007) |
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Susan Sarandon Quote(s)
| I feel I've always been on the outside and always on the edge of an abyss. The women I portray, and the woman I am, are ordinary but maybe find themselves in extra-ordinary circumstances, and what they do is at great cost. |
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