Tragic Details Of Susan Sarandon

The following article includes references to substance use.

Susan Sarandon is a certified badass. Impressive as that is, it's just one of the many sides of the Oscar-winning actor synonymous with acclaimed films like "Thelma & Louise" and "Dead Man Walking." Behind Sarandon's hardy exterior lies a complicated history of events that weren't as placid as her perceived public image is. From difficult breakups to harsh criticisms and even threats to her acting career, Sarandon has navigated many rocky phases in her life. 

Not one to take things lying down, she has managed to maneuver herself through them. "One of my strongest talents is that when something that I have not known presents itself, I am able to recognize it and change directions and give it a shot," she told The Talks. While this philosophy has carried Sarandon through into the golden pages of Hollywood and political activism, the fine print reveals a lot more tragedy than her trademark rebellion lets on. 

Susan Sarandon grew up in a pretty chaotic household in New Jersey, with a frequently pregnant mother, Lenora Criscione Tomalin, and eight siblings under her to take care of. "My mum would have had more babies, but some of them died, some were miscarriages," she told The Guardian. Tragic as that was, it was not the full extent of the complicated legacy Sarandon was part of. Having been abandoned by her mother, Tomalin grew up in institutional care and outside of whispers of "how bad Grandma was," she passed down little information to her children about their grandmother. 

The complete identity of Anita Rigali, Sarandon's maternal grandmother, apparently remained a mystery to the actor for the better part of her life. Sarandon was in her 60s when she finally decided to go the full mile and discover the truth about her lineage — a journey that was documented in the docuseries "Who Do You Think You Are?" Sarandon's search led her all the way to Italy. "From the first time I came to Italy, I felt inexplicably at home. Now I know why. My gene pool is crying out," Sarandon revealed on the show. She realized that Rigali was only 13 when she first married and got pregnant, and that she lived a largely unstable life until her death in New York City. 

The first and only time Susan Sarandon said "I do" was to actor Chris Sarandon in 1967. The two were students at the Catholic University of America when they first met — both yet to make their Hollywood entries — and, after a few years of dating, tied the knot. Twenty at the time and already an independent thinker, Sarandon was not too keen on having the institution of marriage looming large over her relationship. "I decided to get married, and only because we would've gotten kicked out of school," she revealed on the "Uncut and Uncensored" podcast. 

Though she gave in against her wishes, Sarandon was clear that her marriage would undergo a yearly review that would decide the way forward — an idea she reiterated over the years. "I always thought marriage contracts should be renewed every five years, so you get together and then there's a no-guilt release clause after five years," she once told The Guardian. 

Despite her mother's opposition to the whole affair and Sarandon's own desire to never get married, the actor remained successfully married to the "Fright Night" star until 1979. The divorce neither hampered their friendship nor Sarandon's decision to keep her ex-husband's last name. As she told him on his podcast "Cooking By Heart" in 2023, "I credit you with my foundation and my survival." 

In the 1980s, when she was charting an upward journey in films, Susan Sarandon was presented with a concerning diagnosis: endometriosis. "I had no idea what that was," Sarandon said during a speech at the Endometriosis Foundation's Blossom Ball in 2011, recalling the years of pain and confusion she went through. "They did not explain it to me. They said, 'You know, if you ever want a child, you will probably have to have surgery.'" 

While endometriosis did not immediately capsize Sarandon's dreams of motherhood — of which she had none at the time — it did urge her to reckon with her condition. "When all you know is pain, you do not know that that is not normal. I even had female doctors tell me I was imagining my problem," she said. 

By the time Sarandon began toying with the idea of motherhood, she was in her late 30s and, as she told The Guardian, "praying for something to give [her] life more meaning." Much to her surprise, an unplanned opportunity presented itself following a fling with director Franco Amurri. At 39, Sarandon welcomed her first child. 

Susan Sarandon has been in Hollywood long enough to be well-informed about the darkest corners of showbiz. And being the outspoken actor that she is, she's not afraid to talk about the sexism that plagues her industry. During a 2018 appearance on BBC Radio 5, Sarandon recalled how she, as she was nearing the height of her career, was offered less pay than her male co-stars for the 1998 thriller "Twilight." "They said it was 'favored nations,' but they only meant the two guys," Sarandon revealed, adding that Paul Newman, one of the film's leads, stepped up and gave her a share of his pay. 

What also didn't make work easy for Sarandon was something called "The List" — "actors or actresses who trigger financing — who are bankable," Ron Shelton, who directed Sarandon in "Bull Durham," explained on The Hollywood Reporter's "It Happened in Hollywood" podcast. This secret limited roster apparently didn't always guarantee female stars job security, and that meant Sarandon almost lost out on the film. One way the industry did dangle roles before women was through casting couch, which Sarandon experienced firsthand during her early career. While she expressed doubt over the phenomenon ever dying out in Hollywood, she told BBC 5, "What we don't want to have is being exploited and have the Harvey Weinsteins of the world holding it over your head and holding it over your project." 

Unlike a large majority of her acting peers, Susan Sarandon doesn't shy away from getting political. And while her activist inclinations are no industry secret, she got a little louder than Hollywood would have liked back in 1993. That year, the "Thelma & Louise" star took to the Oscars stage with her then-partner Tim Robbins to present the award for Best Editing and used the podium to turn the volume up on HIV-positive Haitian refugees being held at Guantanamo Bay. 

"On their behalf and all the people living with HIV in this country, we'd like to ask our governing officials in Washington to admit that HIV is not a crime and to admit these people into the United States," she said. Complementing Sarandon's bold speech were red ribbons tacked onto both her and Robbins' outfits – unmistakable symbols of HIV-AIDS support and awareness. 

While Sarandon and Robbins' daring speech was met with applause from the audience, Oscars producer Gil Cates wasn't as pleased and reportedly lambasted the couple — as well as Richard Gere, who incidentally chose the same year to make the Oscars political. While Gere's speech got him blacklisted by the Academy for 20 years, Sarandon and Robbins were let off much easier with a more temporary ban. 

Susan Sarandon's motherhood journey was put under a microscope long before it even fully began. She was warned right off the bat as a young actor that having children would doom her career, which would anyway be at risk once she reached a certain age. "I was even told when I started out that 40 would be the end. And definitely don't say you have kids because then you're not very sexy," she revealed on "This Morning." Being the rule-breaker that she is, Sarandon did just that.

Sarandon has three kids — two of which she bore after 40: John Henry Robbins and Miles Robbins. Each pregnancy unfortunately invited judgment from people around her. But despite diving headfirst into motherhood, even briefly taking a break from work to focus on her children, Sarandon's work hardly suffered. Instead, in an irony that proved naysayers wrong, her acting career only propelled forward after she started a family in 1985, with milestone titles like "The Witches of Eastwick," "Thelma & Louise," and "Dead Man Walking" coming to define her filmography. 

In 2008, Brad Renfro joined an unfortunate league of actors we lost too young of drug overdoses. The celebrated child star — who debuted on the big screen alongside Susan Sarandon in the 1994 legal thriller "The Client" – was found dead in his apartment of an accidental heroin overdose. He was 25. The industry mourned Renfro's death, with Sarandon leading the outpouring of tributes. "It was obvious to everyone that he was the sweetest, most incredibly gifted young actor to come along for some time," she said in a statement provided to People. 

Renfro was only 11 when he headlined the star-studded cast of Joel Schumacher's film as Mark Sway, a young boy who inadvertently gets entangled in the mafia world. Although the film didn't win Renfro an Oscar nomination — unlike Sarandon, who marked her fourth Best Actress nod — it earned him widespread recognition and hard-launched his acting career, which came to include titles like "Tom and Huck," "The Cure," and "Sleepers." Sadly, Renfro's life behind the camera remained troubled by drug abuse, theft, and other run-ins with the law until the very end. 

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins stood out as one of Hollywood's most iconic unmarried partnerships for over two decades — until things came to a crashing end in 2009. The pair's love story, like that of so many other actor couples, began unfolding on the sets of their 1988 film "Bull Durham." Things moved fast from that point on and a year later, Sarandon and Robbins welcomed their first son together, and eventually a second one. They never married, with Sarandon relishing the room for agency inherent in their arrangement. "I like getting up knowing I am choosing to be with that person," she told The Guardian in 2006. 

Years after her breakup with Robbins, Sarandon candidly reviewed the tragic flaw that came with long-term relationships. "You just try to maintain the status quo, and that doesn't work because you can't control anything or anybody. You're fighting a losing battle," she admitted to The Guardian in 2014. Sarandon also reflected on the pressure points of dating another actor. That said, she has continued to share a friendship with Robbins. "You have kids ... you don't have any choice," she revealed in a 2024 interview with The Sunday Times – and she is apparently also open to collaborating with him professionally if a worthy project comes along.

Susan Sarandon's romantic history is strung together by an eclectic mix of flings, long-term partnerships, affairs (including one with David Bowie!), one marriage, and many other passions that evade classification. Full as it may seem, her love life is also laden with breakups — the most notable one in recent memory being the one with producer Jonathan Bricklin. 

Reports of Sarandon dating Bricklin, her business partner 31 years her junior, began surfacing around the time of her high-profile breakup with Tim Robbins in 2009. While the sensational suggestion that Sarandon ditched her longtime partner for Bricklin was dismissed as a rumor, the relationship was eventually confirmed, attracting endless judgment for Sarandon and Bricklin — liberally referred to in the media as the acting legend's "boy toy." 

Unfortunately, this relationship was not to be for Sarandon either, and she parted ways with Bricklin in 2015. "We had a six-year relationship that's gone through ups and downs," Bricklin later told Page Six, while declaring his everlasting love for Sarandon. The "Little Women" star, meanwhile, moved on in search of connections to fulfill her, also coming out about her flexible sexual orientation in the process. Her search ultimately, as she told The Sunday Times, is for "somebody who has curiosity, a sense of humour, intelligence and appetite for life." She continued, saying, "So God bless you if you manage to find somebody who fulfils any of those things, whether they're younger, whether they're older, whether they're female or male, whether they're gender-fluid, whatever. ... I think the big thing is finding someone with an open heart and open mind who's still curious."

In 2016, Susan Sarandon was confronted with the tragic death of her younger brother Terry Tomalin. A longtime editor at the Tampa Bay Times, 55-year-old Tomalin suffered a fatal heart attack when he was with his teen son at a swimming complex in St. Petersburg, California, where the two were taking a lifeguarding test. "A man who touched so many lives. Who dared us to dare. Whose core of honor and love above all else was so inspiring," Sarandon wrote in a moving post on Instagram, days after her brother's death. 

As the oldest of nine, Sarandon played a huge role in raising her brothers and sisters. "Being at the top, I had a lot of responsibility, which was a good thing, as I tended to be spacey and always daydreaming," the "Stepmom" star recalled for Time Out magazine. While Sarandon retrospectively came to view her early maturity as valuable training for her showbiz career, it also left an impact on her siblings, who were grateful for her hands-on presence as a "mother figure" around the house. Surely influenced by the family traditions he came from, Tomalin was widely remembered in his tributes as a family man through and through. 

Susan Sarandon's status as a Hollywood legend cannot be contested. But neither can her industry's clumsiness when it comes to giving actors like her a seamless transition in their acting careers as age catches up with them. While Sarandon is not one to wallow in self-pity — acknowledging to The Guardian that she still manages roles outside of "witches and b*tches" – one look at her filmography is evidence enough of the decline in her star power. Sarandon has remained active across mediums, dabbling in comedy movies like "The Gutter" and "The Fabulous Four" and television dramas like "Monarch," but her recent work is no match for the golden run she enjoyed at the movies during the 1980s and '90s. 

Her trajectory could be pinned down to a poor choice of scripts, but it wouldn't be a far stretch to consider the ageist tendencies of show business, as we rarely see women over 50 in Hollywood films. According to Sarandon, who touched on the issue at Australia's short film festival Tropfest in 2018, the "corporate takeover of making films" was responsible for fostering the three-pronged issue of sexism, racism, and ageism in Hollywood. "This is where you get casting by how many followers you have on Instagram." 

Age has not been the only limit to Susan Sarandon's scope of work in Hollywood. According to the politically forthcoming star, her outspokenness about global issues hasn't fared well for her career in showbiz, where neutrality has long been considered a safer bet. Sarandon's impression stems from certain remarks she made in 2023 about the Israel-Palestine conflict at a rally in New York City, relating people's fear of publicizing their Jewish identity with "what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence." 

While she later apologized for the phrasing of her pro-Palestine remarks, the damage was apparently done. "I was dropped by my agency, my projects were pulled," she told The Sunday Times a year later, expressing uncertainty over whether or not she will ever be offered a big Hollywood film in the future. "I've been used as an example of what not to do if you want to continue to work." Even so, she is hardly hesitant to reiterate her vision for the world, summarized succinctly by the Beatles in the 1960s: "The love you take is equal to the love you make."