Holly Hunter
Born	(1958-03-20) March 20, 1958 (age 54) Conyers, Georgia, U.S.
Occupation	Actress / Producer
Years active	1981–present
Spouse	Janusz Kamiński (1995–2001)
Partner	Gordon MacDonald (2001–present; 2 children)

Holly Hunter (born March 20, 1958) is an American actress. Hunter starred in The Piano for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for Oscars for her roles in Broadcast News, The Firm, and Thirteen. Hunter has also won two Emmy Awards with seven nominations and has won a Golden Globe Award with another six nominations.

Early life and career[link]

Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, the daughter of Opal Marguerite (née Catledge), a housewife, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a farmer and sporting-goods manufacturer's representative.^[1] Hunter earned a degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and for a while performed in the theatre scene there, playing ingenue roles at City Theatre, then named the City Players.^[2] She eventually moved to New York City and roomed with fellow actress Frances McDormand. Hunter, in 2008, described living in The Bronx "at the end of the D [subway] train, just off 205th Street, on Bainbridge Avenue and Hull Avenue. It was very Irish, and then you could go just a few blocks away and hit major Italian".^[3] A chance encounter with playwright Beth Henley, when the two were trapped alone in an elevator, led to Hunter's being cast in Henley's plays Crimes of the Heart (succeeding Mary Beth Hurt on Broadway), and Off-Broadway's The Miss Firecracker Contest. "It was like the beginning of 1982. It was on 49th Street between Broadway and Eighth [Avenue] [...] on the south side of the street", Hunter recalled in an interview. "[We were trapped] 10 minutes; not long. We actually had a nice conversation. It was just the two of us".^[3]

Stage and film[link]

Hunter at the 2010 Metropolitan Opera opening night of Das Rheingold.

Hunter made her screen debut in the 1981 horror movie The Burning. After moving to Los Angeles in 1982, Hunter appeared in TV movies before being cast in a supporting role in 1984's Swing Shift. That year, she had her first collaboration with the writing-directing-producing team of brothers Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, in Blood Simple, making an uncredited appearance as a voice on an answering-machine recording. More film and television work followed until 1987, when thanks to a starring role in the Coens' Raising Arizona and her Academy Award-nominated turn in Broadcast News, Hunter became a critically acclaimed star. She went on to the screen adaptation of Henley's Miss Firecracker; Steven Spielberg's Always, a romantic drama with Richard Dreyfuss; and the made-for-TV 1989 docudrama about the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.

Following her second collaboration with Dreyfuss, in Once Around, Hunter garnered critical attention for her work in two 1993 films, resulting in her being nominated for two Academy Awards the same year: Hunter's performance in The Firm won her a nomination as Best Supporting Actress, while her portrayal of a mute Scottish woman entangled in an adulterous affair with Harvey Keitel in Jane Campion's The Piano won her the Best Actress award.

Hunter went on to appear in films such as the comedy-drama Home for the Holidays and the thriller Copycat. She also appreared in David Cronenberg's Crash and as a sardonic angel in A Life Less Ordinary. The following year, she played a recently divorced New Yorker in Richard LaGravenese's Living Out Loud; starring alongside Danny DeVito, Queen Latifah, and Martin Donovan. Hunter rounded out the 1990s with a minor role in the independent drama Jesus' Son and as a housekeeper torn between a grieving widower and his son in Kiefer Sutherland's drama Woman Wanted.

Emmy Award in 1989

Following a supporting role in the Coens' O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Hunter took top billing in the same year's television movie Harlan County War, an account of labor struggles among Kentucky coal-mine workers. Hunter would continue her small screen streak with a role in When Billie Beat Bobby, playing tennis pro Billie Jean King in the fact-based story of King's famed exhibition match with Bobby Riggs; and as narrator of Eco Challenge New Zealand before returning to film work with a minor role in the 2002 drama Moonlight Mile. The following year found Hunter in the redemption drama Levity. Also in 2003, Hunter had a supporting role in the film Thirteen for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.

In 2004, Hunter starred alongside Brittany Murphy in the romantic satire Little Black Book, and the same year lent her voice to the animated film The Incredibles as the voice of Helen Parr, a.k.a. the superheroine Elastigirl. In 2005, Hunter starred alongside Robin Williams in the black comedy-drama The Big White.

Hunter became an executive producer, and helped develop a starring vehicle for herself with the TNT cable-network drama Saving Grace, which premiered in July 2007. For her acting, she received a Golden Globe Award nomination, two Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and an Emmy Award nomination. On May 30, 2008, Hunter received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2009, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award.^[4]

Personal life[link]

Holly Hunter was married to cinematographer Janusz Kamiński^[5] from 1995 until 2001.^{[citation needed]}

Hunter has been in a relationship with British actor Gordon MacDonald.^[6] In January 2006, Hunter's publicist announced that Hunter had given birth to the couple's twin boys.^[6]

In a 2009 interview, Hunter said to TV Guide that she does not discuss her children with the media.^[7]

Hunter is deaf in one ear, which sometimes leads to complications at work and some scenes have to be altered from the script for her to use her healthy ear.^[8]

Filmography[link]

Television[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Holly Hunter

• Holly Hunter at the Internet Movie Database
• Holly Hunter at the Internet Broadway Database
• Holly Hunter at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• "What people don't know about Holly" (Interview), The Guardian, 22 November 2003

Susan Sarandon
Sarandon at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	Susan Abigail Tomalin (1946-10-04) October 4, 1946 (age 65) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1969–present
Spouse	Chris Sarandon (1967–1979)
Partner	Tim Robbins (1988–2009)
Children	3

Susan Sarandon (born Susan Abigail Tomalin;^[1] October 4, 1946) is an American actress. She has worked in movies and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her work. She is also noted for her social and political activism for a variety of liberal causes.

Early life[link]

Sarandon was born Susan Abigail Tomalin in New York City to a Roman Catholic family.^[2] She is the eldest of nine children of Lenora Marie (née Criscione) and Phillip Leslie Tomalin, who worked as an advertising executive, television producer, and nightclub singer during the big band era.^[2][3][4] Her father was of English, Irish, and Welsh ancestry, his English ancestors being from Hackney in London. On her mother's side, she is of Italian descent, with ancestors from the regions of Tuscany and Sicily.^[2][5][6] Sarandon attended Roman Catholic schools.^{[citation needed]} She grew up in Edison, New Jersey,^[7][8] where she graduated from Edison High School in 1964.^[9][10] She then attended The Catholic University of America, from 1964 to 1968,^[11] where she began dating actor Chris Sarandon whom she married in 1967.

Career[link]

In 1969, Sarandon went to a casting call for the motion picture Joe, with her then-husband Chris Sarandon. Although he did not get a part, she was cast in a major role of a disaffected teen who disappears into the seedy underworld.^{[clarification needed]} (The film was released in 1970). Between the years 1970 and 1972, Sarandon played Patrice Kahlman on the short-lived soap opera A World Apart, and on Search for Tomorrow, in the role of Sarah Fairbanks. She appeared in Fleur bleue (The Apprentice) (1971) and also appeared in Lady Liberty (1971), by Mario Monicelli, opposite Sophia Loren.

In 1974, Sarandon co-starred in The Front Page with the comedy duo Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and Lovin' Molly with Anthony Perkins. She appeared in the cult favorite musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). That same year, she starred in The Great Waldo Pepper, opposite Robert Redford. In 1978, Sarandon played the mother of a child prostitute, who was played by Brooke Shields, in Pretty Baby.

Susan Sarandon's hand and foot prints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Sarandon played one of the leads in the 1987 dark comedy/fantasy film The Witches of Eastwick, opposite Jack Nicholson. Sarandon starred in the 1988 film Bull Durham, which became a huge commercial and critical success. In 1989, she co-starred with Marlon Brando in A Dry White Season. In 1990 she starred in the film White Palace with James Spader.

Sarandon has received five Academy Award nominations, for best actress, in Atlantic City (1980), Thelma & Louise (1991), Lorenzo's Oil (1992) and The Client (1994). In 1995, she won the award for her performance in Dead Man Walking.^{[citation needed]}.

In 1994, Sarandon was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award.^[12]

Additional performances in film include Little Women (1994, Compromising Positions, Stepmom (1998), Anywhere but Here (1999), Cradle Will Rock (1999), The Banger Sisters (2002), Shall We Dance (2004), Alfie (2004), Romance & Cigarettes (2005), Elizabethtown (2005) and Enchanted (2007).

Sarandon has appeared in two episodes of The Simpsons, once as herself ("Bart Has Two Mommies") and another as a ballet teacher, "Homer vs. Patty and Selma". She has made appearances on comedies such as Friends, Malcolm in the Middle, Mad TV, Saturday Night Live, Chappelle's Show, 30 Rock, and Rescue Me.^{[citation needed]}

Sarandon has contributed the narration to some two dozen documentary films, many of which dealt with social and political issues;^{[citation needed]} in addition, she has served as the presenter on many installments of the PBS documentary series, Independent Lens. In 1999-2000, she hosted and presented Mythos, a series of lectures by the late American mythology professor Joseph Campbell.^[13] Sarandon also participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival that is dedicated to screening films made for children between the ages of 3 and 18.^[14]

Sarandon joined the cast of the adaptation of The Lovely Bones, opposite Rachel Weisz, and appeared with her daughter, Eva Amurri, in Middle of Nowhere; both of the films were filmed in 2007.^[15][16]

In June 2010, Sarandon joined the cast of the new HBO pilot episode The Miraculous Year. She will play^[when?] the role of Patty Atwood, a Broadway director/choreographer.^[17]

In 2012, Sarandon's audiobook performance of Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding was released at Audible.com.^[18]

Personal life[link]

In 1964, Sarandon began dating actor Chris Sarandon while both were in college, and the couple married on September 16, 1967.^[19] Following their separation in 1978, Sarandon gave an interview to Cosmopolitan magazine, in which she stated "I no longer believe in marriage."^[20] They divorced in 1979 and she retained Sarandon as her stage name.^[21]

In the late 1970s, Sarandon had a two-year relationship with director Louis Malle, who directed her in Pretty Baby and Atlantic City.^[19]

In the mid-1980s, Sarandon dated Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri, with whom she had a daughter on March 15, 1985, actress Eva Amurri.^[21]

From 1988 to 2009, Sarandon was in a relationship with actor Tim Robbins, whom she met while they were filming Bull Durham. They have two sons — Jack Henry (born 1989) and Miles Guthrie (born 1992).^[21][22]

In 2006, Sarandon and ten of her relatives (including her then-partner Tim Robbins and her son Miles) travelled to Wales to trace her family's Welsh genealogy. Their journey was documented by the BBC Wales programme, Coming Home: Susan Sarandon.^[6] Much of the same research and content was also featured in the American version of Who Do You Think You Are?. In 2006, she also received the "Ragusani nel mondo" prize, since she had recently discovered her Sicilian roots, in Ragusa, Italy.^[23]

Sarandon is the co-owner of New York table tennis club SPiN.^[24][25]

Activism[link]

Sarandon is noted for her active support of progressive and left-liberal political causes, ranging from donations made to organizations such as EMILY's List,^[26] to participating in a 1983 delegation to Nicaragua sponsored by MADRE, an organization that promotes "social, environmental and economic justice."^[27] Sarandon has also expressed support for various human rights causes that are similar philosophically to ideas found among the Christian left.^[28]

In 1995, Sarandon was one of many Hollywood actors, directors and writers who were interviewed for the documentary The Celluloid Closet, which looked at how Hollywood films have depicted homosexuality. In 1999, she was appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In that capacity, she has actively supported the organization's global advocacy, as well as the work of the Canadian UNICEF Committee.

Sarandon in April 2007

During the 2000 election, Sarandon supported Ralph Nader's run for President, serving as a co-chair of the National Steering Committee of Nader 2000.^[29]

During the 2004 election campaign, she withheld support for Nader's bid, being among several "Nader 2000 Leaders" who signed a petition that urged voters to vote for Democratic Party candidate John Kerry.^[30] After the 2004 election, Sarandon called for US elections to be monitored by international entities.^[31]

Sarandon and Robbins both took an early stance against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with Sarandon stating that she was firmly against the concept of the war as a pre-emptive strike.^[32] Prior to a 2003 protest sponsored by the United for Peace and Justice coalition, she said that many Americans "do not want to risk their children or the children of Iraq".^[33] Sarandon was one of the first to appear in a series of political ads sponsored by TrueMajority, an organization established by Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream founder Ben Cohen.^[34][35] Also in 2003, Sarandon appeared in a "Love is Love is Love" commercial, which promoted the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals.

In 2004, Sarandon served on the advisory committee for the group 2004 Racism Watch.^[36] She hosted a section of the Live 8 concert in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2005. In 2006, she was one of eight women selected to carry in the Olympic flag at the Opening Ceremony of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games, in Turin, Italy.

Along with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, Sarandon took part in a 2006 Mother's Day protest, which was sponsored by Code Pink;^[37] she has expressed interest in portraying Sheehan in a film.^[38] In January 2007, she appeared with Robbins and Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally in Washington, D.C. in support of a Congressional measure to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.^[39]

In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Sarandon and Tim Robbins campaigned^[40] for John Edwards in the New Hampshire communities of Hampton,^[41] Bedford and Dover.^[42] When asked at We Vote '08 Kickoff Party "What would Jesus do this primary season", Sarandon said, "I think Jesus would be very supportive of John Edwards."^[43]

On March 12, 2011, Sarandon spoke before a crowd in Madison, Wisconsin during a protest of Governor Scott Walker and his "Budget Repair Bill".^[44]

On September 27, 2011, Sarandon spoke to reporters and other interested parties at the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City.^[45][46]

After using the term "Nazi" in describing Pope Benedict XVI on October 15, 2011, she drew umbrage not only from Roman Catholic authorities,^[47] but also the Anti-Defamation League, which called on Sarandon to apologize.^[48]

Recognition[link]

In 2006, Sarandon received the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award.^[49] She was honored for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, an advocate for victims of hunger and HIV/AIDS and a spokesperson for Heifer International.

In 2010, Sarandon was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.^[50]

Filmography[link]