‘I NEVER WANTED TO GET MARRIED’
Susan Sarandon’s love-life has been as remarkable as her 50-year movie career
Thelma & Louise icon Susan Sarandon’s star-studded romantic life is nothing short of legendary and the star counts some of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors among her paramours.
But last week, the 75-year-old New Yorker confessed she has a number of regrets when she looks back on her past loves and her biggest involves one of music’s most famous stars – David Bowie – and the last phone call he made her.
“I was fortunate enough to be closer to him right before he died, the last couple of months. He did find me again. We talked to each other and said some things that needed to be said,” says the actress.
Susan explains that she wasn’t mentally present for their final conversation because at the time she was in Greece, working to highlight the humanitarian refugee crisis happening there.
“I wasn’t sleeping so I took a pretty strong sleep aid. And I had a dream that David had called me and we’d had a conversation. Then later I thought, ‘Did he actually call me?’ And I went to my phone and he had. I have no recollection of what that conversation was,” she said. “He died a week later. It’s all so frustrating.”
A friend adds, “The fact he called her on his deathbed is a testament to Susan. She’s a muse for all these guys.”
The pair had a sizzling romance in 1982 while they filmed The Hunger but it had ended because David wanted children and, because of having operations for endometriosis, Susan had been told she couldn’t have any.
But the medical advice she’d been given turned out to be wrong – Susan would go on to have three children, Jack, 32, and Miles, 29, with actor Tim Robbins, and her daughter with Italian film director Franco Amurri, Eva, 36, who is filming with her mum in new TV show Monarch.
However, she avoided marriage after a reluctant attempt at married life with her college boyfriend Chris Sarandon, while attending the Catholic University of America.
CREATIVE MUSE
“I never wanted to get married,” she said earlier this year. “I was in college at 17. I decided to get married and only because we would’ve gotten kicked out of school. So we agreed that we would decide every year whether or not to renew.”
After seven years, the couple decided to part ways and finally divorced in 1979.
When she wasn’t with her long-term partners, Susan was seen on the arms of men like Richard Gere and Sean Penn.
“Susan always attracted creative types,” says the friend. “Musicians, actors, writers. She’s incredibly empathetic, so she gets into their heads and sparks their creativity. She’s left a lot of broken hearts behind, but she stays friends with all her exes because it’s usually her who leaves, and always on her terms. Her refusal to get married was
‘She gets into their heads and sparks their creativity’
a big reason she and Tim [Robbins] didn’t make it. He wanted the security of marriage.”
In 2010, Susan started what friends call “a very distant and open” romance with a film director almost half her age, Jonathan Bricklin, now 44.
HAPPILY SINGLE
“He was great and let her be her,” explains an insider. “It surprised everyone it lasted as long as it did, but since then she’s shied away from being attached to anyone.” Susan now remains steadfastly single – but a friend says it’s not by design. “She always liked those ‘tortured artist’ type of guys and there are plenty of those in the industry, but she’s had a number of dates recently that have left her very disillusioned,” says the insider. “She’s tired of being someone else’s muse, especially given she was once a muse for the late, great Bowie and no one else could ever live up to that.” Susan isn’t bothered by being single and says she is “busy as hell and with lots of wonderful friends and grandchildren”.
But when she does find a special someone, Susan says there are three non-negotiables.
“For me, it’s all about connection, curiosity and passion.”