Susan Sarandon's Real Name: Susan Abigail Tomalin

Quick answer: Susan Sarandon was born Susan Abigail Tomalin on October 4, 1946, in New York City. Sarandon is the surname of her first husband, actor Chris Sarandon. She kept it after their 1979 divorce. She won the best actress Oscar for Dead Man Walking (1995) and starred in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Bull Durham, and Thelma & Louise (Library of Congress; Britannica).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files her as "Sarandon, Susan, 1946-." One citation reads "Susan Sarandon; Susan Abigail Sarandon; née Tomalin," and the record lists "Tomalin, Susan" as a variant. Another LOC citation spells her maiden name "Tomaling." That form also appears as a variant, but Britannica and the main citation use Tomalin. LOC gives her birth as October 4, 1946, in New York City.

Britannica says she was born Susan Tomalin into a large Roman Catholic family. At the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., she met fellow student Chris Sarandon, and they married in 1967. She earned a drama degree in 1968. They divorced in 1979, but she chose to keep Sarandon as her surname. She worked as a model and took small film and TV roles, including on the soap opera A World Apart.

Career highlights

In 1975 she played the ingenue Janet Weiss in the cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show and starred opposite Robert Redford in The Great Waldo Pepper. Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978) and Atlantic City (1981) brought wider attention, and the latter earned her first Oscar nomination. Bull Durham (1988) made her a star and introduced her to Tim Robbins, her partner for decades.

More Oscar nominations followed for Thelma & Louise (1991), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), and The Client (1994). She won for playing Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking, which Robbins wrote and directed. Later films include Igby Goes Down (2002), Enchanted (2007) as the evil queen, The Lovely Bones (2009), Cloud Atlas (2012), and Ride the Eagle (2021). On television she played Doris Duke in HBO's Bernard and Doris (2006) and Bette Davis in Feud: Bette and Joan (2017), and she had a recurring role on Ray Donovan.

Britannica calls her one of Hollywood's most vocal advocates of liberal causes. She has three children: Eva Amurri, from her relationship with director Franco Amurri, and Jack Henry and Miles Robbins.

Name notes for searchers

Tomalin is her maiden name, and Abigail is her middle name. Sarandon is her married name from her first marriage, which she kept professionally after the divorce. LOC also records a "Tomaling" spelling from one source, but Tomalin is the standard form.