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Producer · Actor

1946-10-04 · New York, U.S. · Female

61 series in the catalog

Susan Abigail Sarandon ( sə-RAN-dən; née Tomalin; born October 4, 1946) is an American actor. With a career spanning over five decades, she has received accolades, including an Academy Award, an Actor Award, and a British Academy Film Award, in addition to nominations for seven Emmy Awards, ten Golden Globes, and a Grammy Award.

Sarandon made her film debut in Joe (1970) and appeared on the soap operas A World Apart (1970–1971) and Search for Tomorrow (1972). She gained prominence for her role in the musical horror film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). After receiving four Oscar nominations for Atlantic City (1980), Thelma & Louise (1991), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), and The Client (1994), Sarandon won the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking (1995). Her other notable films include Pretty Baby (1978), The Hunger (1983), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Bull Durham (1988), Little Women (1994), Stepmom (1998), Enchanted (2007), The Lovely Bones (2009), Cloud Atlas (2012), Tammy (2014), and The Meddler (2015).

Sarandon made her Broadway debut in the play An Evening with Richard Nixon (1972) and returned to the stage in the 2009 revival of Exit the King. On television, she had guest roles on the sitcoms Friends (2001) and Malcolm in the Middle (2002), as well as starring roles as an advocate in the HBO film You Don't Know Jack (2010), Doris Duke in the HBO film Bernard and Doris (2008), and Bette Davis in the FX miniseries Feud (2017).

Also known for her social and political activism, Sarandon was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1999 and received the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award in 2006.

Early life and education

Sarandon was born in Jackson Heights, Queens in New York City. She is the eldest of nine children of Lenora Marie (née Criscione; 1923–2020) and Phillip Leslie Tomalin, an advertising executive, television producer, and one-time nightclub singer. She has four brothers: Phillip Leslie Jr., Terry (an outdoorsman, journalist, and community leader), Timothy, and O'Brian (owner of Building 8 Brewery in Northampton, Massachusetts); and four sisters: Meredith (or "Merry"), Bonnie Priscilla, Amanda, and Melissa (or "Missy"). Her father was of English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry. His English ancestors came from Hackney in London and his Welsh ancestors from Bridgend. On her mother's side, she is of Italian descent, with ancestors from the regions of Tuscany (Coreglia Antelminelli) and Sicily. Her father worked for WOR-TV in New York City.

When she was four years old, the Tomalin family moved from New York City to the newly developed Stephenville community, located in the northern area of Raritan (now Edison) Township, New Jersey. The family was raised Roman Catholic and she and her sisters attended the all-girls Saint Francis Grammar School in nearby Metuchen, while her brothers attended the all-boys Saint Matthews Grammar School in Edison Township. Her mother was a member and board director of the Stephenville Women's Club and the Terra Nova Garden Club. The family was also member to the Woodside Swim Club, a private swimming club and park in the Stephenville community, where Sarandon and her sisters won many swimming competitions. Sarandon graduated from Saint Francis Grammar School in 1960.

Sarandon attended Edison High School, a public school located in Edison Township. In 1962, while still in high school, she joined a band and dance group to entertain sick children at a nearby rehabilitation hospital. As a high school junior, she performed the lead in the play Lady Precious Stream. As a senior, she played the title character in the comedy My Sister Eileen, earning mentions in the local newspapers. In 1964, Sarandon was inducted into the National Honor Society.

In May 1964, the Tomalin family moved to the newly developed Chandler Hill community, east of Stephenville in Edison. Sarandon graduated from Edison High School in 1964. She attended the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. from 1964 to 1968, earning a Bachelor of Arts in drama, and studying under the drama coach Gilbert V. Hartke. During and shortly after college, she supported herself by emptying bedpans in a hospital, cutting hair, cleaning houses and working as a switchboard operator.

Career

In 1968, Sarandon and her then-husband Chris appeared on stage at the Wayside Theatre in Middletown, Virginia. The following year, the couple went to a casting call for the motion-picture Joe (1970). Although he did not get a part, she was cast in a major role of a disaffected teen who disappears into the seedy underworld. Between 1970 and 1972, she appeared in the soap operas A World Apart and Search for Tomorrow, playing Patrice Kahlman and Sarah Fairbanks, respectively. Her career gained momentum in 1974, when she starred in F. Scott Fitzgerald and 'The Last of the Belles', a highly rated made-for-television film, and Billy Wilder's screen adaptation of The Front Page. In 1975, Sarandon appeared in the cult favorite The Rocky Horror Picture Show and had the female lead in The Great Waldo Pepper, opposite Robert Redford. She was twice directed by Louis Malle, in Pretty Baby (1978) and Atlantic City (1980). The latter earned Sarandon her first Academy Award nomination.

Her most controversial film appearance was in Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983), a modern vampire story in which she had a sex scene with Catherine Deneuve. It was the first mainstream American film to feature such a scene between two star actresses. She appeared in the comedy-fantasy The Witches of Eastwick (1987) alongside Jack Nicholson, Cher, and Michelle Pfeiffer. However, Sarandon did not become a "household name" until she appeared with Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins in the film Bull Durham (1988), a commercial and critical success. Roger Ebert praised Sarandon's performance in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times: "I don't know who else they could have hired to play Annie Savoy, the Sarandon character who pledges her heart and her body to one player a season, but I doubt if the character would have worked without Sarandon's wonderful performance".

Sarandon was nominated for an Academy Award four more times in the 1990s, as Best Actress as Louise Sawyer in Thelma & Louise (1991), Michaela Odone in Lorenzo's Oil (1992), and Reggie Love in The Client (1994), finally winning for Dead Man Walking (1995) in which she played Sister Helen Prejean who regularly visits a convicted murderer on death row. Janet Maslin, in The New York Times, wrote of her performance in the last film: "Ms. Sarandon takes the kind of risk she took playing a stubbornly obsessed mother in Lorenzo's Oil. She's commandingly blunt, and she avoids cheapening her performance with the wrong kind of compassion. Her Sister Helen is repelled and alarmed by this man, but she's determined to help him anyway. That's what makes the film so unrelenting." Sarandon was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award in 1994. Additionally, she has received eight Golden Globe nominations, including for the films White Palace (1990), Stepmom (1998), Igby Goes Down (2002), and Bernard and Doris (2007).

Her other movies include Bob Roberts (1992), Little Women (1994), James and the Giant Peach (1996), Anywhere but Here (1999), Cradle Will Rock (1999), Rugrats in Paris: The Movie (2000), Cats & Dogs (2001), The Banger Sisters (2002), Shall We Dance (2004), Alfie (2004), Romance & Cigarettes (2005), Elizabethtown (2005), Enchanted (2007), and Speed Racer (2008). Sarandon has appeared in two episodes of The Simpsons, once as herself ("Bart Has Two Mommies") and as a ballet teacher, "Homer vs. Patty and Selma". She appeared on Friends, Malcolm in the Middle, Mad TV, Saturday Night Live, Chappelle's Show, 30 Rock, Rescue Me, and Mike & Molly.

Sarandon has contributed the narration to two dozen documentary films, many of which dealt with social and political issues. In addition, she has served as the presenter…