SUSAN SARANDON
Name: Susan Sarandon
Birth name: Susan Abigail Tomalin
Born: 4 October 1946 New York City, U.S.
Susan Sarandon (born October 4, 1946) is an American actress. She has worked in
films and television since 1970 and has won an Academy Award for her role in
Dead Man Walking. She is also noted for her political activism for liberal
causes.
Sarandon, the eldest of nine children, was born Susan Abigail Tomalin in New
York City, the daughter of Lenora Marie (nee 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, 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".
Sarandon was raised in a 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, working with noted drama coach and
master teacher Father Gilbert Hartke.
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 was cast in a
major role of a disaffected teen who disappears into the seedy underworld (the
film was released in 1970). Five years later, she appeared in the cult favorite
The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That same year, she also played the female lead
in The Great Waldo Pepper, opposite Robert Redford. 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 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. However, 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 received five Academy Award nominations for best actress, in Atlantic
City (1981), Thelma & Louise (1991), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), and The Client (1994),
finally winning in 1996 for Dead Man Walking. Her other movies include Stepmom (1998),
Anywhere but Here (1999), Cradle Will Rock (1999), The Banger Sisters (2002),
Shall We Dance (2004), Alfie (2004), Romance & Cigarettes (2005) and
Elizabethtown (2005).
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 made
appearances on the shows Friends, Malcolm in the Middle, Mad TV, Saturday Night
Live, Chappelle's Show, and Rescue Me.
Most recently, Sarandon joined the cast of the adaptation ofThe Lovely Bones,
opposite Rachel Weisz, and appeared with her daughter, Eva Amurri, in Middle of
Nowhere; both of the movies were filmed in 2007.
Name: Susan Sarandon
Birth name: Susan Abigail Tomalin
Born: 4 October 1946 New York City, U.S.
Susan Sarandon (born October 4, 1946) is an American actress. She has worked in
films and television since 1970 and has won an Academy Award for her role in
Dead Man Walking. She is also noted for her political activism for liberal
causes.
Sarandon, the eldest of nine children, was born Susan Abigail Tomalin in New
York City, the daughter of Lenora Marie (nee 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, 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".
Sarandon was raised in a 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, working with noted drama coach and
master teacher Father Gilbert Hartke.
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 was cast in a
major role of a disaffected teen who disappears into the seedy underworld (the
film was released in 1970). Five years later, she appeared in the cult favorite
The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That same year, she also played the female lead
in The Great Waldo Pepper, opposite Robert Redford. 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 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. However, 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 received five Academy Award nominations for best actress, in Atlantic
City (1981), Thelma & Louise (1991), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), and The Client (1994),
finally winning in 1996 for Dead Man Walking. Her other movies include Stepmom (1998),
Anywhere but Here (1999), Cradle Will Rock (1999), The Banger Sisters (2002),
Shall We Dance (2004), Alfie (2004), Romance & Cigarettes (2005) and
Elizabethtown (2005).
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 made
appearances on the shows Friends, Malcolm in the Middle, Mad TV, Saturday Night
Live, Chappelle's Show, and Rescue Me.
Most recently, Sarandon joined the cast of the adaptation ofThe Lovely Bones,
opposite Rachel Weisz, and appeared with her daughter, Eva Amurri, in Middle of
Nowhere; both of the movies were filmed in 2007.