The toyboy 30 years her junior who helped Susan Sarandon heal her broken heart

  • 66-year-old Hollywood veteran has found love with Jonathan Bricklin, 36
  • Private couple of three-years have no plans to marry and won't even say they are 'dating'
  • Actress split from partner of 23 years, Tim Robbins, father to their two sons and daughter from previous relationship in 2009

By Rebecca Hardy

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New Love: Susan Sarandon with 'collaborator' and boyfriend of three years Jonathan Bricklin

New Love: Susan Sarandon with 'collaborator' and boyfriend of three years Jonathan Bricklin

Susan Sarandon doesn’t think she’ll ever marry again. ‘I can’t see the circumstances under which I would,’ she says.

Which rather puts the kibosh on stories that the 66-year-old film star is about to wed her boyfriend, Jonathan Bricklin. 

They’ve been ‘collaborating’ (Susan doesn’t like the word ‘dating’) for three years, since she became 36-year-old Bricklin’s business partner in a New York nightclub.

And yes, that’s 36, a full three decades younger than Susan.

Not, I suspect, that she gives a jot about the age thing. Susan is the sort of woman who runs full-pelt at life and to hell with what other people think. 

Four years ago, she was thought to be blissfully happy with her partner of 23 years Tim Robbins, father to their two sons Jack, 24, and Miles, 21, as well as Eva, 28, her daughter from an earlier relationship. 

Then out of the blue Tim, 54, went through what he’s called ‘a midlife crisis’ and  ‘insanity’.

Within months, one of Hollywood’s most enduring couples had separated. ‘I didn’t think it would ever happen,’ Susan confessed.

‘You need your girlfriends. You need to take long walks until you’re exhausted and no longer crying out and you hold on until a new dawn.’

She now has the letters ‘A’, ‘N’, ‘D’ tattooed like a hangman’s noose around her wrist. 

‘It stands for “A new dawn, a new day”,’ she says. ‘I got it when I was doing Lovely Bones [the 2009 movie co-starring Rachel Weisz and based upon Alice Sebold’s bestselling novel, which Susan made the year Tim left.]

I wrote out A, N, D and copied it. So around my wrist, almost like a rope, the letters are sort of connected but spread apart. It’s a reminder that if you can hang onto the dawn, you have a chance to forgive and be forgiven and start anew. You move on.’

Which is about as bright as new dawns can be, but wasn’t it scary all this moving on stuff at an age many of us are only too happy to stay put? 

‘Yes, definitely,’ she says. ‘Exciting and simultaneously terrifying because there are certain comforts you take for granted in long-term relationships.

 

'Even though in my business I meet lots of people, you think of yourself differently when you’re on the market than when you’re not. So, yes, I’d be lying if I said it was an easy transition.’

Her children also found their new family situation difficult. ‘You know how your kids think you came into existence when they did?

'When I started having more freedom and going out more, they were a little concerned,’ she says.

‘One said: “I’m not sure who you are any more.” I said: “I’m the person I was before you came along.”’

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Separated: The 66-year-old actress said she needed support from her girlfriends to cope with her separation from partner Tim Robbins

Susan Sarandon pictured with daughter Eva Amurri Martino. The veteran actress walked her daughter down the aisle witgh partner Tim Robbins on her wedding day 18 months ago. Ms Sarandon said it was a 'lovely and serene' day

Family portrait: Susan Sarandon pictured with daughter Eva Amurri Martino. The veteran actress walked her daughter down the aisle with partner Tim Robbins on her wedding day 18 months ago. Ms Sarandon said it was a 'lovely and serene' day

Susan Sarandon says she has kept her trim figure in shape at SPiN, the ping-pong club she founded

Defying gravity: Susan Sarandon says she has kept her trim figure in shape at SPiN, the ping-pong club she founded

The actress is crazy about her kids. Eva was conceived when Susan was knocking 40 and briefly involved with director Franco Amurri. 

The relationship was never intended to last and friends told her she was bonkers when she decided to have the baby.

But Susan, an outspoken activist who was banned from presenting awards at the Oscars after highlighting the plight of HIV-positive Haitians at the 1993 ceremony, doesn’t give two hoots what other people think. Thank goodness.

‘I’d had endometriosis and was told I wasn’t able to have kids. It didn’t bother me because the people I dated weren’t necessarily great father models. At the time I got pregnant, I didn’t know her father very well. 

‘A lot of people told me I was crazy because I was pretty much going to be a single mother, but I just knew I’d got to the point in my career where it wasn’t that challenging,’ she says.

‘Although I wasn’t looking specifically for that challenge because, as the eldest of nine children, I wasn’t naive about what it would entail, I was becoming more hands-on politically because I was looking for some kind of meaning. 

‘So this child came to me and I thought: “This is not in any way planned, but why not?” I just felt it was against all odds. I thought this must be meant to be and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.’

Today, Eva is grown up and an actress herself. Eighteen months ago, she got married. And Tim, the man she had known as Dad, played a full part at her wedding. ‘It was quite a love bubble,’ says Susan.

‘Tim was there, and her biological father was there with his two younger children. Everyone wanted to make her day go as smoothly as possible. Tim and I held hands and both of us walked her down the aisle. It was quite serene and lovely.

‘Any time you go through a transition, as long as everyone remembers to have the best interests of your children at heart, it forces you to perhaps behave better than you would. Tim’s been a great father and was very generous in his wedding speech to her biological father — who hasn’t been there that much — and to me. 

‘I was very proud of him. Her brothers really rose to the occasion, too. It ended up being everything she wanted and more.’

This wedding is relevant to the reason we’re here. Susan is co-starring in new comedy The Big Wedding in a cast that includes Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton.

Which is how I know this ‘collaboration’ with her partner, who founded SPiN, the New York nightclub with 17 ping-pong tables that started a global craze, is keeping her in shape. 

The movie, directed by Justin Zackham, opens with her knockout legs wrapped around De Niro’s head.

Why? Well, De Niro appears as divorcee Don Griffin and Susan as his live-in lover Bebe McBride, who are engaging in a bit of afternoon rumpy-pumpy when they’re interrupted by the ex-wife, Ellie (Keaton), arriving for their daughter’s wedding.

Susan Sarandon starred in The Lovely Bones with actress Saoirse Ronan in the year that partner Tim Robbins left her. She had a tatoo which stands for: 'A new dawn, a new day' during filming to lift her spirits

In character: Susan Sarandon starred in The Lovely Bones with actress Saoirse Ronan in the year that partner Tim Robbins left her. She had a tatoo which stands for: 'A new dawn, a new day' during filming to lift her spirits

Sarandon's latest film, The Big Wedding, stars Robin Williams, Robert de Niro and Diane Keaton. The opening scene shows Sarandon's knockout legs wrapped around De Niro¿s head.

Starry cast: Sarandon's latest film, The Big Wedding, stars Robin Williams, Robert de Niro and Diane Keaton. The opening scene shows Sarandon's knockout legs wrapped around De Niro's head

The movie is a laugh-out-loud romantic comedy, but it’s Susan’s legs that fascinate me. Gym-slim. Cellulite-free. Fantastic legs, Susan. She giggles: ‘Thanks.’ 

Fantastic acting, too. There’s a stirring scene at a family dinner when Susan’s character is forced to watch from the sidelines as happier moments from her lover’s marriage are remembered. 

‘I’m glad you caught that moment,’ she says. ‘I found it quite easy to feel that sense of being left out and how hard it can be sometimes to be generous to another person’s good memories when they exclude you.

‘The kind of movies I like the most that are the hardest to do are films that are funny but have surprising moments like that in them. That’s what life is like — those unguarded moments when something stirs you.

'There are many times I’ve felt excluded. I’m fairly shy, so I don’t even like going to parties. It’s very hard for me to infiltrate large groups of people.

'That’s what makes me so comfortable with other outsiders.’

Susan was raised a Roman Catholic in New Jersey and says she’s lived much of her life ‘close to the dark side’, knowing she could ‘so easily be depressed or have a hard life’. She began questioning things when still in ankle socks and has never stopped.

‘From the beginning I had so many questions,’ she says. ‘I didn’t buy the Catholic concept of Original Sin. I got kicked out of class in the third grade because they said: “The only way you’re married is in the Catholic church.” I said: “Well, how are Joseph and Mary married, then?”’

After school, she attended the Catholic University of America, where she met actor Chris Sarandon, whom she married when she was 21.

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Hollywood regulars: Susan Sarandon (left) poses with ex-partner of 23-years Tim Robbins and, as a family with sons Miles and Jack in 2004. The actress had been told she may not be able to conceive because of her endometriosis

Sarandon is the co-owner and founder of New York table tennis club SPiN

Enjoying life: Sarandon is the co-owner and founder of New York table tennis club SPiN

A year later, her husband auditioned for the film Joe, a psychological drama, and Susan accompanied him. He failed to land a part, but she was cast as a teen junkie.

Her career blossomed, with roles in The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975 and Atlantic City in 1980, for which she was Oscar-nominated  for Best Actress.

However, her marriage didn’t fare so well and she and Chris separated in 1978. It was, she says: ‘The loss of an ideal. I thought love conquered everything.’

When she fell in love with Tim, following various love affairs, including one with French director Louis Malle and Eva’s dad, she decided that if they didn’t marry ‘they wouldn’t take each other for granted’.

For the best part of 23 happy years, it worked. Susan’s career flourished with further Best Actress Oscar nominations for her performances in Thelma And Louise, Lorenzo’s Oil, The Client and finally a win in 1995 for Dead Man Walking.

Her statuette stood next to Tim’s Best Supporting Actor award in the guest loo, which the kids called ‘the famous bathroom’. 

‘I had my third child at 45, so I was a late mother,’ she says. ‘As such, it was perfect for me because I wasn’t really interested in my career at that stage. I thought raising my children was a lot more interesting. I continued to work but threw myself very hands-on into raising my family. I pretty much stayed with them unless the film was to be shot in New York [where Susan continues to live].

‘I got it down to a science. I found a list the other day of the things I needed to take on location — what kind of nappies to get, to make sure there was no glass around and that they’d got Cheerios. It became part of the way I worked because I took my kids with me all the time.

‘Now I’ve been doing a lot more work. It’s been fun to get back into the swing of things. It didn’t have as much to do with Tim and I splitting as to do with the fact my kids are now older and don’t need me in the same way they did when they were younger. I don’t feel I completely have an empty nest because I’m enjoying it a lot.’

Which takes us back to the ping-pong partner. Let’s cut all this  ‘collaboration’ stuff, do you have a boyfriend? 

‘I do,’ she giggles. ‘But I’m very superstitious about discussing those things.’ So how do things stand with Tim, who, since his ‘insanity’, has dyed his hair orange and been photographed ‘collaborating’ with a woman closer to Susan’s daughter’s age than his own? 

‘Now, I look at him and I look at me and everyone seems to be in really good shape. I think we’ve all got through it. Knock on wood.’

The Big Wedding is in cinemas from next Wednesday.

The comments below have not been moderated.

I'm 69 and wouldn't even dream of looking at someone 15 years my junior let alone 30-odd! *shudder* That is too gross....sorry. It can only be the money or he's got a mother complex. I considered Ms. Sarandon to have more savvy than that... :(

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I'm 69 and wouldn't even dream of looking at someone 15 years my junior let alone 30-odd! *shudder* That is too gross....sorry. It can only be the money or he's got a mother complex. I considered Ms. Sarandon to have more savvy than that... :(

Click to rate     Rating   (0)

Hes got a thing for Grannies and their Money. Ditch the Creep, its unnatural .

Click to rate     Rating   5

I stopped at "collaborating".

Click to rate     Rating   2

Such a huge age difference is somewhat disgusting regardless of what gender is the elder.

Click to rate     Rating   7

Through affair after affair, she still insists on keeping Chris Sarandon's name. Wonder how he feels about that?

Click to rate     Rating   6

Wealthy women can also buy their younger men. I don't understand why it's an issue, men have been doing the same for thousands of years. Probably because it is the norm since women had no access to wealth unless they married well. Even the ones who were born in a wealthy background were given nothing as the estate and assets had to be inherited by their brother(s). I don't think that was fair, on the contrary families should split everything equally or even assist daughters even more as women are not equal to men. Men have more opportunities and rights than women. Men take everything for granted, women have to fight tooth and nail though in all fairness, I'm not talking about the ones who do it with other means if you get my drift. And please don't start with the boring feministic propaganda because I never cared about them or what they are all about.

Click to rate     Rating   8

He's gorgeous. I want one.

Click to rate     Rating   6

Wonder what his dysfunction is that he has to n ail someone who could be his grandma. When he grows up or comes to, he'll be absolutely horrified at himself.

Click to rate     Rating   6

Toyboy? Toybabe.

Click to rate     Rating   7
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