My Funny Valentine 2: Susan Sarandon and The Spanish Steps

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         "Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble,
        Ancient footprints are everywhere.
      You can almost think that you're seein' double
   On a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs."

  

By Daily Mail Foreign Service


Last updated at 8:24 AM on 13th February 2012.


It is the widest staircase in Europe, as well as one of Italy's leading attractions.


But the Spanish Steps now has a rather more unusual claim to fame – it is, apparently, the site where actress Susan Sarandon conceived her daughter.


The Thelma and Louise star shocked an audience in New York with the intimate details, telling them she had had trouble conceiving – until she visited the 300-year-old steps in 1984 with her then boyfriend, Franco Amurri.

S.S. -- Lesser Days



'If anyone out there's having trouble getting pregnant, go to Italy,' she said. 


'Have a summer and don't worry about it and eat and drink and ... ****, and you'll probably get pregnant. And that's what happened with Eva on the Spanish Steps.'

 Miss Sarandon's daughter, Eva Amurri, now 26, is a model and actress.


Miss Sarandon, 65, was with film director Mr Amurri for more than a year after the end of her relationship with director Louis Malle.


The actress also revealed that as a young woman she had been diagnosed with severe endometriosis, a common cause of infertility.


When actor Alan Cumming questioned what she said, Sarandon replied: 'On the Spanish Steps? That's where Eva was conceived, on the Spanish Steps?'

S.S. -- Better Days.



The Spanish Steps in Rome is the widest staircase in Europe and more than 300 years old and one of Rome's leading attractions.


Three years after her daughter was born actor Tim Robbins became her long term partner until they split in 2009.


Sarandon spoke about her pregnancy during a conversation with The Good Wife star Alan Cumming.

 

Susan Sarandon with Padma Lakshmi (left) in New York together last week. 



Both women were diagnosed with endometriosis, a common cause of infertility

The Scottish born actor plans to hold a monthly talk with his celebrity friends at an event called Lucid Conversations.


Speaking about her diagnosis, Miss Sarandon said: 'I had been put in the hospital and they said I had very severe endometriosis, which is a condition that a lot of women have. 

Blogging research teaches you unusual facts such as Susan Sarandon's devotion to ping-pong.




'It's one of these not diagnosed conditions that can be quite, quite devastating. Actually, Padma Lakshmi had it.'


Lakshmi, host of Top Chef and former girlfriend of Salman Rushdie, was unable to conceive for a number of years before falling pregnant in 2010 with her daughter Krishna


Details of the talk between Sarandon and Cumming were reported on a blog post on the Huffington Post.


Sarandon and her 26-year-old daughter appear together in an advert for the Neiman Marcus store.





        "Got to hurry on back to my hotel room,
      Where I've got me a date with Botticelli's niece.
    She promised that she'd be right there with me
  When I paint my masterpiece." 

From the top



NOTE:  


I, for one, found this article regarding the "now it can be told" circumstances surrounding the conception of Susan Sarandon's  26-year old daughter offensive, unnecessary, stupid and vulgar.  Ms. Sarandon, a fine actress who has long behaved  brashly and expressed her self-appointed "conscience of this-and-any-other conceivable generation" opinions loudly and annoyingly, tells a lurid, depressing and disgusting tale (how would you have enjoyed encountering Sarandon and her imamorato in flagrante delicto on your way back to your hotel after dinner?), irritatingly and I'm sure illegally dragging Francesco de Sanctis' profoundly beautiful 1723-25 Spanish Steps (the Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti) into the equation.  


Sarandon's advice to take the summer off to travel to Italy in order to "eat and drink and ... ****" falls squarely into the celebrity-entitled "nice work if you can get it" department.  It reminds me of every wealthy boldface talking head on television pretending to be part of the 99% and ignorantly, self-importantly and coldly opining about other people's unemployment and hard luck until the camera panned away or a commercial break struck.  (This happened frequently during the recent coverage of the Occupy New York demonstration in Zuccotti Square.)  When movie stars open their mouths, one is usually sadly reminded of their mysterious talent for speaking words written by other people and sounding intelligent, moving gracefully, hitting marks and staying in frame, while behaving like preachy unfeeling ignoramuses in most other contexts.  (I'm talking to you, Matt Damon.)


All that being said, I'm genuinely pleased for Susan Sarandon and Padma Lakshmi that they overcame their problems with endomitriosis and infertility and were able to have children.


Acting is a weird trick.  In the long view, it's quite unimportant (unlike, for instance Harry Houdini's tricks, which were actually magic.)  Discretion is and always will be the better part of valor.


(When I Paint My Masterpiece lyric by Bob Dylan.)