1946
Susan Sarandon is born
The New York-born actress went from Rocky Horror to an Oscar for Dead Man Walking, and paired a five-decade career with outspoken activism.
Susan Abigail Tomalin was born on October 4, 1946, in Jackson Heights, Queens, in New York City. She was the eldest of nine children. Her father worked in advertising and television production and had once sung in nightclubs, and her mother’s family had roots in Tuscany and Sicily. When Susan was four, the family moved to a new suburban development in Edison, New Jersey, where she grew up in a Catholic household, won swimming races at the local club, and took lead roles in high school plays.
She studied drama at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1968, and paid her way with jobs that included cutting hair, cleaning houses, and running a switchboard. In college she met the actor Chris Sarandon. They married in 1967, and although they divorced in 1979, she kept his surname.
Her screen career began almost by accident. She went along with her husband to a casting call for the film Joe (1970), and she, not he, came away with a major role. Soap operas followed, and in 1975 she appeared in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which became a cult favorite. Louis Malle directed her in Pretty Baby and Atlantic City, which brought her first Academy Award nomination. She became a household name with Bull Durham (1988), where she met Tim Robbins, her partner for more than two decades.
Why it matters
Sarandon became one of the defining film actresses of the 1990s. She earned Best Actress nominations for Thelma & Louise, Lorenzo’s Oil, and The Client, then won the Oscar for Dead Man Walking (1995), playing Sister Helen Prejean, a nun who counsels a man on death row. Her later work ranged from Enchanted and Cloud Atlas to her portrayal of Bette Davis in the series Feud, and over her career she has also collected a BAFTA and many Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
Off screen she has been an outspoken voice for progressive causes. She was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1999 and an FAO Goodwill Ambassador in 2010, and she has narrated two dozen documentaries, many about social and political issues.
Did you know?
At the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Sarandon was one of eight women chosen to carry the Olympic flag into the stadium.
