hellomagazine.com

Susan Sarandon

SEND TO A FRIEND

She graduated effortlessly to less revealing roles, however, and went on to earn five Oscar nominations, all while living according to her personal motto: "Plan to be surprised".

Susan Abigail Tomalin was born on October 4, 1946, in New York City, but grew up across the bridge in New Jersey, the eldest of nine children. Despite her current image as a sexy, politically active mom for the new millennium, she was schooled in a convent and went on to study at Washington DC's Catholic University Of America.

She never even planned to be an actress, let alone a major star. But after doing some advertising work in order to pay the bills, she ended up reading for director John Avildsen and landed a role in the 1970 feature film Joe. Soap opera stints followed, before Rocky Horror and Pretty Baby – co-starring a then 12-year-old Brooke Shields – brought Susan into the limelight.

After the questionable accolade of being voted "Celebrity Breasts Of The Summer" by Playboy readers in 1981, Susan enjoyed professional acclaim in the form of her first Oscar nomination for her role in 1982's Atlantic City. Another four Oscar nods followed, and in 1996 she took home the coveted trophy for her tour de force performance as a nun who befriends a death-row inmate, played by Sean Penn, in Dead Man Walking.

Although her position on the A-list is secure, Susan has never been one to play the diva. She's more likely to use her fame to campaign for the freeing of detained refugees. The oft-arrested star – her involvement in anti-Vietnam protests in college landed her in jail and even today she is often detained as a result of her activism – relishes the chance to "use my celebrity instead of being used by it".

"It would be harder to live with myself if I did not take advantage of my celebrity," says Susan, who serves a special representative to the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF. "I feel my life is saved by the fact that I am able to use my celebrity to shine a flashlight on information not necessarily being represented in the media."

Proud as she is of her work as an actress and on behalf of charity – AIDS research is among the causes she espouses – the role to which Susan is most devoted is that of a mother. After the demise of her 1967 marriage to her college sweetheart, actor Chris Sarandon, Susan took up briefly with Italian writer-director Franco Amurri, with whom she had a baby girl, Eva, born in 1981.

She also has two sons by her partner Tim Robbins, whom she met in 1988 on the set of Bull Durham. Jack Henry was born in 1989, and Miles Guthrie followed three years later. A mum before all else, Susan refuses to shoot films during the children's school holidays.

When accepting her Dead Man Walking Oscar, she dedicated it to longtime love Tim – the film's director – saying: "This is yours as much as mine. Thank God we live together". In the multi-talented actor and director she seems to have found her soulmate – someone who shares her passions for film, political activism and family.

In the year 2000, Susan was honoured for her substantial body of work at the Deauville Film Festival. She was quick to point out, however, that the tribute should not be regarded as lifetime achievement kudo but rather a "Midlife Achievement Award".

PROFILE

ONLINE POLL

VIDEO

SPECIAL