Susan Sarandon isn’t known as a “period piece” actress, but she’s nonetheless done a number of frock flicks — or at least, films with historical settings. Let’s run them down!
Allie Calhoun in F. Scott Fitzgerald and ‘the Last of the Belles’ (1974)
A fictionalized TV movie about the author’s experience meeting his future wife, Zelda, in 1919 Alabama.
Younger Deborah Franklin in The Lives of Benjamin Franklin (1974)
A TV miniseries that filmed four plays about Benjamin Franklin, who was involved with Deborah on and off — she eventually became his common-law wife.
Peggy Grant in The Front Page (1974)
A black comedy about a newspaper, set in the 1920s or 30s.
Mary Pepper in The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
“After WW1, an ex-pilot takes up barn-storming and chance-meets a former German ace fighter pilot with whom he co-stars in Hollywood war movies depicting aerial dog-fights,” per IMDB.
Catherine Douglas in The Other Side of Midnight (1977)
An adaptation of a super shlocky novel set after World War II, in which “A Greek tycoon’s mistress tries to track down and find her ex-World War II lover,” per IMDB. I feel like I read this when I was a preteen?
Hattie in Pretty Baby (1978)
A preteen (Brooke Shields) is a prostitute in 1917 New Orleans. I’d kind of like to watch this for the visuals, but then I don’t love the idea of supporting a film that caused Shields a lot of trauma.
Livilla in A.D. (1985)
A TV miniseries about the disciplines of Jesus Christ after his death, as well as events in Rome during the same period.
Edda Mussolini Ciano in Mussolini and I (1985)
A TV movie about the Italian fascist leader; Sarandon plays his daughter.
Col. Margaret Ann Jessup in Women of Valor (1986)
A TV movie about US army nurses captured by Japanese forces in the Philippines.
Mrs. March in Little Women (1994)
Sarandon gives the best Marmee performance in any adaptation, hands down.
Celimene in Illuminata (1998)
A turn-of-the-century Italian theater troop drama. Sarandon plays the diva.
Margherita Sarfatti in Cradle Will Rock (1999)
A group of left-wing activists put on a play in 1930s Depression America. I remember this was great, but nothing more specific!
Alice Neel in Joe Gould’s Secret (2000)
“Around 1940, The New Yorker staff writer Joe Mitchell meets Joe Gould, a Greenwich Village character, who is writing a voluminous Oral History of the World, a record of twenty thousand conversations he’s overheard,” per IMDB.
Doris Duke in Bernard and Doris (2006)
Based on the real-life experiences of heiress Doris Duke and her relationship with her gay butler, to whom she left her fortune.
Florence Aadland in The Last of Robin Hood (2013)
The final days of actor Errol Flynn. Aadland was an actress who had a relationship with Flynn.
Gladys Mortenson in The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe (2015)
Sarandon plays Marilyn Monroe’s mentally ill mother in this two-part TV miniseries biopic, which I just recently watched. It’s good, and Sarandon’s performance is sad!
Bette Davis in Feud (2017)
Sarandon was justifiably nominated for a Golden Globe and Emmy for her standout performance as Bette Davis, feuding and filming with Joan Crawford.
What’s your favorite Susan Sarandon historical role?
I had the great good fortune to see her on Broadway once in an existential comedy called Exit the King. Geoffrey Rush also starred, alongside Lauren Ambrose, William Sadler, and Andrea Martin (who completely stole the show). Hilarious. :)
“Pretty Baby” is actually an interesting film… tho’ I haven’t seen it in ages I remember it being not what I thought it would be from all the sensational news coverage it got when it came out. It’s wildly atmospheric. I remember it being kinda distant and non-judgmental… like a Hitchcock or Kubrick film where they appear to just observe things coolly but are actually subtly commenting on it.
And… from Wiki: “Shields maintained in later years that she “did not experience any distress or humiliation” while filming her nude scenes in the film. What she does remember was trying not to look as if “I’d just sucked on a lemon” before her on-screen kiss with 29-year-old Keith Carradine (“Keith was so kind,” she writes) and being soundly slapped – on-screen and for real – by Susan Sarandon.”
And
“ Susan Sarandon, who was cast as Violet’s mother, commented on Shields’s casting in the role: “Brooke lived a life that was very similar [to that of her character]… You know… The closest thing to a child prostitute (sexualy exploited child) would be a child actor-model, in this day and age. Brooke was already an incredibly mature kid and I don’t think it’s any secret that she was… asked to grow up very quickly.”
Plus
“ Screenwriter Polly Platt stated that Malle insisted on continuous rehearsals throughout the shoot, which frustrated much of the cast and crew. Platt described Shields’s mother, Teri, as “obstreprous” on the set, and claimed she was arrested by police for driving while intoxicated with her daughter in the car, as well as for punching a police officer in the face.”
So it’s seems Brooke’s mother was a bigger problem than the film.
“The Other Side of Midnight”… Hahaha 🤣. By friend Larry was reading it and he’d read aloud parts of the awful sleazy thing and we laughed and laughed. The film is awful (what the attraction to the guy everyone is lusting for I’ll never know) and at the very end when Sarandon turns around had us howling in the theater.
Cradle Will Rock. So many great New York based stage trained actors. History repeating itself around government, censorship and art. Well worth a rewatch now. If only for Tenacious D.
Oh dear! As of a few years ago, that circular settee in the shot from Pretty Baby was still in The Columns Hotel along with press clippings about the movie. In this pictures I was more intrigued by Sarandon’s male costars than by her or her costumes. Beau Bridges looks like a baby in the Benjamin Franklin stills; Robert Redford and Ian McShane look sooo hot, as per usual. I was holding out hope for a pic with Ralph Fiennes (re Bernard and Doris). Back to the woman of the hour: Susan Sarandon is a such a talented actress. Of the films featured here, I’ve seen Illuminata and The Last Days of Robin Hood. Illuminata was a weird and lovely art film. The Last Days of Robin Hood was both weird and DEEPLY disturbing.
Ah, I thought that looked like a Bridge Brother. I find the shot itself kind of hilarious: getting all swoony across a quilt as one did in the Colonies? And I agree that Sarandon was a superb Mrs. March–inspiring and energetic and quite funny at times, the way activist mothers tend to be. (Speaking of motherhood, a favorite Sarandon quote: she recently talked about the importance of letting your kids be who they are, but decades ago she also mentioned letting your kids see who you are.)
I will always love her take as Marmee in Little Women.
I thought Florence Aadland’s daughter Beverly was the one who had the affair with Errol Flynn.
Yes, supposedly began when Beverly was 12 years old! Florence Aadland wrote a book about the affair, ‘The Big Love’. For more cringey coincidence, Beverly Aadland and Cheryl Crane were in juvie hall together.
I’m intrigued to notice that Ms. Sarandon has played a character who pops up in I, CLAVDIUS (Now I’m wondering what her take on Livia Drusilla might look like) but am not surprised to see her wealth of late nineteenth/early twentieth century credits: something about her face just fits that era so neatly.