Additional Information on Susan Sarandon

Additional Information on Susan Sarandon

Overview


* In the early 1980s, Sarandon had a sexual relationship with singer David Bowie.

* In the mid-1980s, Susan Sarandon and film director Franco Amurri had a relationship that produced a daughter, Eva.

* After splitting apart from her longtime companion Tim Robbins in 2009, Sarandon in 2010 began dating 33-year-old Jonathan Bricklin, the son of billionaire Malcolm Bricklin. The couple subsequently separated, but then reunited in 2015.

* On Mother’s Day 2006, Sarandon and antiwar activist Cindy Sheehantogether took part in an antiwar protest which was organized by Code Pink.

* In January 2007, Sarandon participated in an antiwar demonstration in Washington, DC to protest the Bush Administration’s planned “surge” of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq.

* During a Hamptons International Film Festival interview in October 2011, Sarandon discussed her 1995 film Dead Man Walking, which was based on the anti-death-penalty book by Sister Helen Prejean, a copy of which Sarandon had sent to the late Pope John Paul II. In an effort to clarify that the recipient of the book was in fact John Paul — and not his successor, Benedict XVI — Sarandon said: “The last one, not this Nazi one we have now.” When the interviewer gently reprimanded Sarandon, the actress repeated her remark. (Sarandon was referring to the fact that Benedict had been a member of the Hitler Youth as a child, but only because he was forced to join.)

* In 2013 Sarandon signed a letter of support for inmates who were engaged in a hunger strike over the allegedly substandard conditions in the security housing unit (for solitary confinement) at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison in California. The strikers were demanding cleaner facilities, better food, and easier access to the prison library. Prison officials claimed that the hunger strike had “nothing to do with conditions and everything to do with gang leaders wanting to get into the general population so they can more readily conduct their gang business.”

* In the spring of 2015, while in the midst of creating a documentary film about a poor North Carolina teenager who was undergoing a gender transition, Sarandon scoffed at the notion that the political atmosphere in Hollywood is liberal. Claiming that “Hollywood is not political,” she cited Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger as two former movie stars who subsequently became politically influential, “and you don’t get any more right-wing than them.” Sarandon also dismissed the idea that conservatives in Hollywood were at a disadvantage: “Why, because there’s a lot of transgender people in powerful positions?” she said sardonically.

* On September 6, 2015, Sarandon participated in an event memorializing her close friend, the late counterculture icon Timothy Leary (1920-96), who was known for advocating the use of psychedelic drugs like LSD, and for promoting the maxim “turn on, tune in, drop out” in the 1960s. The memorial event took place at “Burning Man,” an annual week-long festival held in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, where participants promote such values as “radical inclusion,” “radical self-expression,” “radical self-reliance,” and “communal effort.” In the tribute to Leary, Sarandon—who was one of a handful of people who had been given some of the ashes from Leary’s cremated body shortly after his death—led a procession in which she carried those ashes into a temporary church that had recently been erected as an art installation. The festivities concluded with the ceremonial burning of the church, with Leary’s ashes therein. “I think he’d be so happy,” Sarandon said of Leary. “I think he would have loved the chaos [of Burning Man]. He would have loved it. And all these people honoring him with LSD.”

* Over the years, Sarandon has made campaign contributions to numerous political candidates, all Democrats. Recipients of her donations have included Tammy BaldwinBarbara BoxerTom HarkinHillary ClintonElizabeth WarrenBill Richardson, Bill Bradley, Howard Dean, Tammy Duckworth, John EdwardsAl Franken, Harvey Gantt, Kirsten GillibrandTed KennedyBarbara LeeGwen MooreRalph NaderBarack ObamaCharles RangelBernie SandersKen Salazar, and Patty Murray.

* Sarandon also has given money to such organizations as America Coming TogetherEMILY’s ListMoveOn Political Action, Progressive Majority, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Green Party of the United States, and Progressive Voters of America.

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