The beloved role Cher stole from Susan Sarandon: “Muscled her way into that part”
In the mid-1980s, Susan Sarandon was living in Rome, safe in the knowledge that she had booked the lead part in a big-budget dark fantasy comedy. At that time, despite starring in The Rocky Horror Picture Show in ’75 and being nominated for an Academy Award for Atlantic City in ’81, Sarandon was still not quite a bankable leading lady. She was sure this role as a sexy sculptress named Alex was her ticket to the big time, though.
Imagine her surprise, then, when she flew from Italy to Los Angeles to begin shooting The Witches of Eastwick in the summer of ’86, only to discover she wasn’t playing Alex anymore. Instead, Cher had joined the production and seemingly used her fame and influence to insist on playing the lead, even though director George Miller didn’t think she was suited to the role. Sarandon soon found herself shuffled over to the supporting role of Jane Spofford, a mousy woman who played the cello.
Now, aside from the obvious blow to her ego of being ejected from a lead role by someone more famous, there were two other problems with Sarandon being cast as Jane. Firstly, she claimed she was told that Warner Bros would take legal action against her if she refused to play the part, admitting to Page Six in 2020, “They said they would sue me if I left, so I didn’t have much choice!” Secondly, she’d never picked up a cello before in her life, and had very little time to learn how to play one to be convincing on camera.
Michael Cristofer, the movie’s screenwriter, backed up Sarandon’s version of events by claiming, “Cher sort of muscled her way into that part.” More salaciously, though, Sarandon claimed Cher’s previous history with Jon Peters, one of the film’s producers, provided extra leverage in securing her the part. “That’s Jon,” she nodded. “[He] and Cher had a past liaison or something, so that was another element.”
In truth, it’s up for debate whether or not the iconic pop star and Oscar-winning actor truly used her feminine wiles to get what she wanted out of The Witches of Eastwick. However, what is undeniable is that Sarandon had every right to be upset that the role she’d put so much stock in had been taken away from her without so much as a heads-up. It wouldn’t have been surprising in the least if she’d been angry and frustrated, and perhaps held it against Cher during filming.
Happily, though, this was never the case, and no feud developed between the stars. Instead, they got along like a house on fire, and Cher even loaned Sarandon a special wig and dress for a pivotal scene in which she is seduced by Jack Nicholson’s oily, brimstone-scented Daryl Van Horne. “Thank God for Cher giving me her wig and her clothing, because that gold dress was Cher’s,” Sarandon smiled to Vanity Fair. “The wig was Cher’s. That helped me figure out my character because my character didn’t even go to the end of the script when I got it. So, thank you, Cher!”
Interestingly, co-star Michelle Pfeiffer formed a close bond with Sarandon and Cher, too. The shoot wasn’t exactly a cakewalk, as it was fraught with tensions between Peters and Miller, who quit the film twice in protest at Peters’ aggressive antics, which included hurling chairs in fury. However, the three women decided to stick together, instead of turning on each other, thanks to all the tension in the air. As Sarandon put it, “There were a lot of reasons why we could not have gotten along, and everybody took a higher road.”
