Susan Sarandon
Actress, activist
Born: October, 4, 1946, in New York City
Grew up in: Raritan Township, New Jersey
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2010: Arts & Entertainment
Through a wide variety of roles over a five-decade career, Susan Sarandon has proven to be one of Hollywood’s most popular and enduring marquee names.
Born Susan Abigail Tomalin in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York, Sarandon moved with her family when she was 4 years old to Raritan (now Edison) Township. Her father was an advertising executive, TV producer, and a one-time nightclub singer; her mother was a homemaker. The oldest of nine children, Sarandon attended Edison High School, where she got her first taste of acting in school plays. After graduation, she enrolled in Catholic University in Washington, D.C., earning a B.A degree in drama.
By 1968, the aspiring actress had married follow Catholic University grad Chris Sarandon. They worked together at a regional theater in Virginia before moving to New York. In 1970, Sarandon landed her debut film role as the ill-fated runaway in the drama “Joe.” In the ensuing years, she had roles in the TV soap operas “A World Apart” and “Search for Tomorrow.”
Sarandon was back on the big screen in 1974 in the comedy “The Front Page” (holding her own with stars with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau). The following year she had a key role in the cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and scored her first starring role (opposite Robert Redford) in “The Great Waldo Pepper.” In 1980, she received the first of her five Academy Award nominations as the world-weary casino waitress in the New Jersey-based film “Atlantic City.” Later in the decade, she starred in “The Witches of Eastwick” (with fellow future New Jersey Hall of Fame inductee Jack Nicholson) and the hugely popular “Bull Durham.”
In the 1990s, Sarandon was an Oscars favorite. She earned her second Oscar nomination for “Thelma & Louise,” an occasionally comic, but mostly tragic 1991 road movie, with Sarandon impeccably paired with co-star Geena Davis. Next up were the drama “Lorenzo’s Oil” (1992) and the legal thriller “The Client” (1994); Sarandon was Oscar-nominated for both. Finally, Sarandon won her best actress award as the passionate and persistent Sister Helen Prejean in the powerful 1995 prison drama “Dead Man Walking.”
Sarandon remained busy in her fourth Hollywood decade, with starring roles in films such as “White Palace” (2000); “The Banger Sisters” (2002); “Igby Goes Down” (2002); “Bernard and Doris” (2007); and “The Lovely Bones” (2009). She also narrated numerous documentary films, often dealing with social and political issues. Additionally, she was an activist off the screen, speaking out for many progressive and left-wing causes.
In addition to her Oscar plaudits, Sarandon has received multiple nominations for the Golden Globe Awards, the Emmy Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2009, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Stockholm International Film Festival.