Susan Sarandon (b. October 4, 1946)
In the Opening Ceremonies for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, actress Susan Sarandon represented the U.S., carrying in the Olympic flag along with Sophia Loren and six other female activists or athletes. She looked great, as even Falstafian columnist George Will once noted, putting her on a list of 10 Things He Would Take to Another Planet. (Her response: "I'm happy Mr. Will's body isn't as conservative as his head.")
In an interview about Light Sleeper, in which she played a cocaine dealer, Sarandon told Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times (8/30/92), "Cocaine didn't interest me. Not at all. I'm way way back in the early pot, and mushrooms, organic, not all these chemical things that split you and do horrible things. They're too antisocial...The only thing political about [Light Sleeper] is that usually in the films and news, drugs are always connected with people of color. You never see rich, white, upwardly mobile people. In this movie, that's who I, the drug queen, sell to."
On film, Sarandon smokes pot with (and without) Kevin Costner in Bull Durham, wherein she muses about philosophy and literature, and concludes, "This world is made for those who aren't cursed with self-awareness." She's seen in The Witches of Eastwick, based on the John Updike novel, in which pot smoking takes place with the devilish Jack Nicholson. In Stepmom with Julia Roberts, Sarandon's character uses medical marijuana to treat cancer.
Inducted among 15 other personalities into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in May 2010, Sarandon noted that New Jersey was the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights and does not have the death penalty. She added: "We’ve legalized marijuana recently. Medical marijuana, but the rest will come." If you live in California, you may have received a "robo call" from Sarandon in support of Proposition 19 that year. Sarandon and former partner Tim Robbins appeared at the 2000 Shadow Convention in support of the Drug Policy Alliance.
After bringing up marijuana with Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart, Andy Cohen of Bravo's "Watch What Happens Live!" also got Sarandon talking about pot. The actress recently told AARP Magazine (Feb/Mar 2014) that, "I would much rather my kids smoke weed than drink, except that it's illegal." She then launched "into a discourse about cartels, victimless crimes and mandatory minimum drug laws that overcrowd our prisons." She is also active in other human rights campaigns.