Who

Sarandon is an actress and activist. Until the rise of Brangelina, she and Tim Robbins comprised Hollywood's most insufferable power couple.

Backstory

Born Susan Abigail Tomlin, the New York native attended college in DC before following her young husband into the acting profession. She made her debut in the (perhaps prescient) role of an anti-war protestor in the 1970 film Joe. A number of small parts in mediocre movies followed, until she broke through as Janet in the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Hollywood cred came soon after—she was nominated for an Oscar for 1980's Atlantic City. Unfortunately her next picture, the 1983 vampire movie The Hunger, was a critical and commercial disaster, despite co-starring David Bowie and featuring lesbian scenes between Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve.

Five years later, Sarandon finally became a household name when she starred as a baseball groupie Annie Savoy in 1988's Bull Durham (as a bonus, she got together with Tim Robbins on the set). She had some acclaimed roles in the '90s, most notably in Thelma and Louise (1991) and an Oscar-winning turn in Dead Man Walking (1995), which Robbins directed. Of late, though, she's been more recognizable playing yuppie housewives in movies like Stepmom (1998), The Banger Sisters (2002), and Irresistible (2006). Among the movies she has due out in 2008 are The Colossus with Rachel Weisz, and Speed Racer, which co-stars Christina Ricci and is directed by Matrix creators Andy and Larry Wachowski.

Pet causes

Sarandon is currently known less for her acting than for being one of the most prominent limousine liberals in celebrity-land. In 1993, she generated a stir when she used an Oscar speech to speak out about the plight of HIV-positive Haitian immigrants interned at Guantanamo Bay. (One can only imagine what she thinks of Guantanamo now.) She's also taken every opportunity to enlighten her fellow citizens about hunger in Africa, oil in the Middle East, and homelessness in America—and all this before the Iraq war, which predictably caused her and Robbins to blow multiple gaskets.

Personal

For 15 years, Susan was married to Chris Sarandon; they divorced in 1979. She's been with Robbins for over a decade, although they've yet to marry. They have two sons together, Jack and Miles, and she also has a daughter, Eva Amurri, from her relationship in the '80s with Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri (Eva appeared with her mother in The Banger Sisters in 2002). Sarandon and Robbins have homes in Pound Ridge and Beverly Hills (they bought their Pound Ridge home for $1.675 million back in 1995) and currently live in an apartment in Chelsea. In 2007, the couple put down $3.5 million for a three-bedroom apartment at the forthcoming development One Madison Park, where their neighbors will include Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber.