Career
In 1969, Sarandon went to a casting call for the motion picture Joe, with her then-husband Chris Sarandon. Although he did not get a part, she was given a major co-starring role in the film, which was released in 1970. Between the years 1970 and 1972, Sarandon appeared on the soap operas A World Apart and Search for Tomorrow, playing the roles of Patrice Kahlman and Sarah Fairbanks, respectively. On film, she acted in The Apprentice and Mario Monicelli's Lady Liberty (both 1971), appearing with Sophia Loren in the latter film.
In 1974, Sarandon co-starred in The Front Page with the comedy duo Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, and played Anthony Perkins' neglected wife in Lovin' Molly. In 1975, she starred as Janet in the cult favorite musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That same year, she starred opposite Robert Redford in The Great Waldo Pepper. In Pretty Baby (1978), Sarandon and Brooke Shields played a pair of mother and daughter prostitutes.
Sarandon received her first Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for her performance in Atlantic City (1980). In 1983, she appeared in Tony Scott's The Hunger, which generated controversy due to her lesbian love scene with Catherine Deneuve. In 1987, Sarandon played the role of Jane in the dark comedy/fantasy film The Witches of Eastwick, opposite Jack Nicholson. One of her biggest commercial successes came in 1988 when she starred in Bull Durham. In 1989, Sarandon co-starred with Marlon Brando in A Dry White Season, followed by White Palace (1990) with James Spader.
In the early 1990s, Sarandon received three more Academy Award nominations for her roles in Thelma & Louise (1991), Lorenzo's Oil (1992) and The Client (1994). In 1995, she won the award for Dead Man Walking.
In 1994, Sarandon was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award.
Additional performances in film include King of the Gypsies (1978), Tempest (1982), Compromising Positions (1985), Little Women (1994), Stepmom (1998), Anywhere but Here (1999), Cradle Will Rock (1999), The Banger Sisters (2002), Shall We Dance (2004), Alfie (2004), Romance & Cigarettes (2005), Elizabethtown (2005) and Enchanted (2007).
Sarandon has appeared in two episodes of The Simpsons, once as herself ("Bart Has Two Mommies") and another as a ballet teacher, "Homer vs. Patty and Selma". She has made appearances on comedies such as Friends, Malcolm in the Middle, Mad TV, Saturday Night Live, Chappelle's Show, 30 Rock, and Rescue Me.
Sarandon has contributed the narration to some two dozen documentary films, many of which dealt with social and political issues; in addition, she has served as the presenter on many installments of the PBS documentary series, Independent Lens. In 1999–2000, she hosted and presented Mythos, a series of lectures by the late American mythology professor Joseph Campbell. Sarandon also participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival that is dedicated to screening films made for children between the ages of 3 and 18.
Sarandon joined the cast of the adaptation of The Lovely Bones, opposite Rachel Weisz, and appeared with her daughter, Eva Amurri, in Middle of Nowhere; both of the films were filmed in 2007.
In June 2010, Sarandon joined the cast of the HBO pilot The Miraculous Year, in the role of Patty Atwood, a Broadway director/choreographer. The pilot was not picked up.
In 2012, Sarandon's audiobook performance of Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding was released at Audible.com.
Read more about this topic: Susan Sarandon
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