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Susan Sarandon
Academy-Winning Actress & Activist
Susan Sarandon
Academy-Winning Actress & Activist
Biography
Known as an actress and an activist, Susan Sarandon has shared with the world her dramatic talents and personal convictions. She began her career in acting in her first film Joe, and after a few other film roles, she landed a part in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a campy musical, which has developed quite a cult following over the years.
Receiving four Academy Award nominations, she earned her first one for Atlantic City, starring opposite screen legend Burt Lancaster. But her career really seemed to pick up steam later that decade in The Witches of Eastwick and Bull Durham. This comedic battle of good versus evil showed Sarandon’s talent for lighter fare. In Bull Durham, she played a smart and sexy baseball team owner who becomes involved with one of her players—Tim Robbins who would become her partner in real life.
With Geena Davis, Sarandon made one of her most memorable films Thelma and Louise, which centered on the friendship of two women on a road trip turned wrong. Her portrayal of the tough, protective, and somewhat broken Louise brought her another Academy Award nomination. Sarandon was also nominated for Lorenzo’s Oil and The Client. She played a nun in the gritty and powerful capital punishment drama Dead Man Walking and won her first Academy Award for her performance.
Outspoken on many issues and involved in many organizations including MADRE, Unicef, and the Heifer Project, Sarandon and Tim Robbins included information on the plight of Haitian HIV-positive refugees during the 1993 Academy Awards ceremony where they appeared as presenters. She has also devoted her talents to support efforts to relieve hunger, promote women's issues and help children in need and people with HIV/AIDS around the world. In 1999, she received the Amnesty International USA Media Spotlight Award for Leadership and the same year was appointed a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador.
In 2006, she was one of the celebrities that joined antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan in a fast against the war in Iraq and a year later, she appeared at an Anti-War rally in Washington, DC, with people such as Tim Robbins, and Jane Fonda. Her stance was, "Let us resist this war" and "Let us hate war in all its forms, whether the weapon used is a missile or an airplane." Committed to peace and justice, political and social activism has been a lifelong theme for Sarandon who feels strongly about a lot of things, and she's willing to make herself heard.
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