SUSAN SARANDON

As well known for her political activism as for her varied screen roles, Susan Sarandon has defied stereotyping in both her career and her personal life. The mature actress's face bespeaks strength and integrity while the fierce intelligence in her large, luminous, hazel eyes remains undimmed, her unique combination of brains, beauty, tenacity and conscience making her more in demand past the age of 50 than ever before. The former Ford model, often the very embodiment of the seductive older woman, has demonstrated considerable range and fearlessness in accepting her acting challenges, excelling equally as devoted mother and working-class heroine, not to mention renouncing glamour altogether for her Academy Award-winning role as Sister Helen Prejean in companion Tim Robbins' "Dead Man Walking" (1995). Sarandon may yet prove friend and author Gore Vidal a prophet: "If pictures were made with interesting women as protagonists, she would have the same rank and commercial appeal as Bette Davis enjoyed for decades." After debuting as the ill-fated hippie daughter in "Joe" (1970) and adding to her resume with "Lovin' Molly" and Billy Wilder's ill-advised remake of "The Front Page" (both 1974) and the female lead opposite Robert Redford in George Roy Hill's "The Great Waldo Pepper" (1975), Sarandon attracted widespread attention in the cult hit "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (also 1975). As one half of the "straight" couple who find themselves stranded among Transylvanian weirdoes, she spoofed all the ingenues she had played, revealing "the bitch" beneath the sweet exterior. Released the same year that then-husband Chris Sarandon earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a pre-operative transsexual in "Dog Day Afternoon", it opened the door for more off-beat, controversy-sparking parts like the brothel-bound mother of a 12-year-old prostitute (Brooke Shields in Louis Malle's "Pretty Baby" (1978) and the lesbian lover of vampire Catherine Deneuve in Tony Scott's "The Hunger" (1983). In between, she earned her first Best Actress Oscar nomination for Malle's "Atlantic City" (1980), the now famous scene in which she bathed her breasts in lemon leaving an indelible mark of sex on her. Making her TV debut in the ABC daytime drama "A World Apart" (1970-71), Sarandon went on to appear in a great number of TV-movies and miniseries, including "June Moon" (PBS, 1974), "Who Am I This Time?" (PBS, 1982), based on a story by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., the ancient Roman miniseries "A.D." (NBC, 1985) and "Women of Valor" (CBS, 1986), playing a hostage Army nurse). She has lent her intelligent and distinctive voice and presence to a number of documentaries, narrating or appearing in "Your Water, Your Life" (PBS, 1988), "Postpartum: Beyond the Blues" (Lifetime, 1989), "Living in America" (VH-1, 1991, about censorship), "From Fury to Forgiveness" (The Discovery Channel, 1994, about crime victims), "One Woman, One Vote" (PBS, 1995, about the suffragette movement) and "Secrets of the Humpback Whale" (The Discovery Channel, 1998). On the lighter side, she played Bitsy in "Sesame Street's All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever!" (ABC, 1995) and provided the voice of the Ballet Teacher for a 1995 episode of "The Simpsons" (Fox). She also starred as a woman taken hostage in a bank robbery in the 1999 HBO movie "Earthly Possessions", based on the novel by Anne Tyler. For her 2001 guest appearance as a soap opera diva in an episode of the NBC sitcom "Friends", Sarandon garnered an Emmy nomination. Originally offered the meatier role that Cher would play in "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987), Sarandon acceded to a smaller role, suffering betrayal at every turn, then rebounded from the humiliating experience with a career-reviving turn in "Bull Durham" (the 1988 comedy which introduced her to Robbins), a part which required an amazing amount of verbiage plus good legs. Although she had to grovel for the role, it firmly established her star power and earned her the tag as the "thinking man's sex symbol," as well as some very nifty paydays for flicks like "Sweet Hearts Dance" (1988), "The January Man" and "A Dry White Season" (both 1989) and "White Palace" (1990), which again exploited her sexy older woman allure without heating up the box office. Disappointed by the Academy's failure to recognise her work in "Bull Durham", she finally earned her second Oscar nomination for Ridley Scott's feminist outlaw movie "Thelma & Louise" (1991), winning over a whole new generation of fans as the level-headed Louise opposite Geena Davis' more volatile Thelma. Sarandon appeared in the drama "Light Sleeper" and contributed cameos to Robert Altman's "The Player" and Robbins' directing debut, "Bob Roberts" (both starring her significant other), before striking gold again in "Lorenzo's Oil" (all 1992). Her complex performance as a mother whose unqualified devotion to her stricken son turns her into a largely unsympathetic, self-righteous matriarch brought her another Academy Award nomination. Joel Schumacher afforded her substantial creative input in "The Client" (1994), a slick legal thriller adapted from the John Grisham bestseller. Though she sparred with Tommy Lee Jones, Sarandon's true leading man was talented youngster Brad Renfro as the endangered titular character whom she serves and protects as his flawed, inexperienced, yet sharp lawyer. For fleshing out the thinly drawn Reggie Love, Sarandon received a fourth Oscar nomination as Best Actress the same year she essayed the mother of large broods in both "Safe Passage" and "Little Women" (both 1994). Portraying real-life anti-death penalty crusader Sister Helen Prejean in "Dead Man Walking", Sarandon wore no makeup and sported a bad haircut as the Louisiana nun who acts as spiritual counselor to death row killer Sean Penn, trying to redeem his soul while reconciling his needs with the heinousness of the crime and the grief of the murdered children's parents. Audiences and critics alike responded enthusiastically to her strong performance, and the Best Actress statuette was finally hers to take home. After providing the voice of the seductive Polish spider in the animated "James and the Giant Peach" (1996), she jumped at the chance to don sexy clothes and makeup for Robert Benton's "Twilight" (1998), excited to play a character that was bad and mysterious. Sarandon sacrificed glamour for grit, allowing Julia Roberts to "out-glow" her as she wore the frumpy caftans and makeup of the terminally ill in Chris Columbus' "Stepmom" (1998). She then starred in Wayne Wang's "Anywhere But Here" (1999) as yet another mother coping with a new love and a rebellious teen before teaming again with Robbins for "The Cradle Will Rock" (also 1999). The new millennium saw her undertake a diversity of roles. She lent her screen persona to the painter Alice Neel in "Joe Gould's Secret" (2000) and provided the vocals for a pair of animated features, "Rugrats in Paris - The Movie" (2000) and "Cats & Dogs" (2001). Teaming with Goldie Hawn, Sarandon played a former rock groupie in "The Banger Sisters" (2002). She then went on to play the title character's mother in "Igby Goes Down" (2002) and starred with Dustin Hoffman as one half of a married couple who take in their deceased daughter's fiance in "Moonlight Mile" (2002) In a Hollywood where most actresses her age are making visits to plastic surgeons, Sarandon has aged gracefully, her "lived-in" persona much more appealing than the blankness of her younger years, though she can still fit into the remarkable ("It looked like it was painted on") red-and-white striped dress that helped her capture the role in "Bull Durham". Guided by her social principles, she rejects characters that are heroes going in for ordinary people who become extraordinary when their moment comes. In that vein, she rose to the occasion and seized her moment at the 1993 Academy Awards, delighting some and infuriating others when she took 28 seconds to speak on behalf of Haitian refugees with AIDS. Not interested in fame for its own sake, she uses her celebrity to promote a wide variety of progressive causes saying, "I see how my life and the lives of my kids are connected to the outside world. How can you not participate in the world you live in?"