Jennifer Aniston has signed on for a new movie! Okay, I’m making that sound like it just happened, but I guess she’s been planning to do this film for a while, but there was just a casting shake-up. Aniston will be starring in an adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s bestseller The Switch. Right now the cast includes John Hawkes and Isla Fisher, but Dennis Quaid and Ty Burrell have just left the project, and they were replaced by Will Forte and Tim Robbins. Tim Robbins will be playing Jennifer’s husband!

Spoilers for the plot of the film below:

I’m a fan of Elmore Leonard’s writing, but the man is crazy prolific and I haven’t even scratched the surface of his oeuvre, so I’m not familiar with The Switch at all. Apparently, the book was a sort-of prequel to Rum Punch (which was adapted for the screen as Jackie Brown). The book doesn’t feature Jackie Brown herself, so probably NO PAM GRIER, which is sad. In typical Leonard fashion, the plot revolves around a criminal duo kidnapping the wife of a shady real estate developer. The wife is Aniston, the husband is Tim Robbins, and the criminal duo will be played by…? I’m not sure. Will Forte plays a character adjacent to the crime. According to Us Weekly, “The husband decides it’s a good way to get rid of his wife, and refuses to pay the ransom. But his wife then teams up with the kidnappers to get all of his money.”

So, there you go. You don’t even have to see it now! I actually think this is a great career move for Aniston – Elmore Leonard’s books generally make great screenplays, and Leonard has that wry, dark humor and violence that he balances with great plots. It will be a nice change for Jennifer to do an ensemble film based on a beloved book… although I’m pretty sure the plot is very much like that great Danny DeVito-Bette Midler movie, Ruthless People. Right?!

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

I started out wanting to write about this new Tim Robbins interview because it’s the first big one I’ve seen with Tim talking about his split from Susan Sarandon – which was announced late last year, although they had broken up months before hand. His comments on the breakup seem pretty typical to me – blah, blah, “mid-life crisis” et cetera. But then Tim totally goes off on feeling like a slave because Hollywood makes him feel like he isn’t “free” to espouse his liberal political views. Here’s more from the interview:

The actor and director Tim Robbins, who recently split from his long-term partner Susan Sarandon, has revealed how a “midlife crisis” forced him to re-evaluate his life.

The Oscar-winning star of The Shawshank Redemption and Mystic River said that the collpase of a film project made him appreciate how little time he had left and made him think about what he wanted to achieve before he died.

The crisis happened two years ago, just a matter of months before Robbins and Sarandon split up. Robbins and Sarandon, who is 12 years his senior, separated last year after a 23-year relationship that was considered to be one of Hollywood’s most enduring partnerships. The couple never married but have two sons together.

Interviewed on Radio 4′s Desert island Discs, Robbins said his midlife crisis happened during the “insanity” which followed the collapse of his film project.

“I asked myself the question, “What is it that will make you happy? What is it you have not done that you will regret not doing? A midlife crisis – I think we all go through something, it’s inevitable, it’s unavoidable. You’re staring some kind of frightening thing down. It’s when you pass 40, inherently we double our age when we think about life. At 40 you can imagine 80. You start thinking about how many years you’ve got left, and you start thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’”

Robbins said that the experience encouraged him to write an album of songs which he is set to release later this year.

He said: “I was thinking about calling it ‘The Mid-life crisis Album’, but then I thought that’s not going to sell any copies. Then I thought, ‘How about Songs of Love and Misery?’”

In the programme, which is broadcast today, Kirsty Young, the presenter, asked Robbins if he still hoped to find love “post midlife crisis”, to which he replied: “Let’s hope it’s out there”.

Robbins, an outspoken political activist, also spoke of his disappointment at the growing “slavery” of Hollywood stars to the entertainment industry, where he said actors were increasingly afraid of the risks in speaking out on social and political issues.

He said: “That’s unfortunate. It didn’t use to be that way. I don’t believe you are free if you are measured and careful in what you say because you feel that will make you richer or more famous. I think there’s a slavery in that.”

Robbins also described how the industry attempted to ostracise him and Sarandon following the 1993 Oscars ceremony, where the couple sparked controversy by appearing on stage and demanding that President Clinton shut down an internment camp for HIV-positive Haitian refugees in Cuba.

“I did notice a lot of averted eyes,” he said. “Nobody wanted to look at you. They tried to ban us for a long time, but within two years we were back because we were nominated.”

Robbins told Young that he took up acting as a teenager “out of precociousness and a desperate need to get women’s attention” and also spoke of the cut-throat nature of the Hollywood film industry.

He said: “You’re only ever as good as your last box office receipt. In fact, you might have a really good Friday when the movie does very well, so you better go out Friday and Saturday nights, because by Monday, you’re yesterday’s news.”

Robbins’s choice of music for his desert island included Let’s Get it On by Marvin Gaye, Sinnerman by Nina Simone and In Your Mind by Johnny Cash. His luxury was a surfboard and his chosen book was a book of matches.

[From The Telegraph]

You know what? I’m pretty liberal politically, and I’m here to say that Tim gives liberals a douchey name. Tim’s problem isn’t that it’s “slavery” that he can’t say any liberal political belief he wants – his problem is that not everyone agrees with him and not everyone thinks he’s some kind of liberal savant. His problem is that other people are exercising their free speech by calling him a douche for exercising his free speech. His problem is that when he talks about politics, everyone – including most liberals – roll their eyes. And it’s not “slavery” for God’s sake! Is Tim turning into some kind Kristen Stewart-esque douchey hyperbole machine? Tim feels like he won’t be hired for certain jobs because of his vocal political beliefs – how is that slavery? Do producers keep Tim in chains and whip him when he swoons over Ralph Nader? Ugh.

Tim on March 7, 2010. Credit: WENN.

This is kind of a non-story, but I have heard whispers about it before, so why not? So there have been rumors floating around about Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon’s split for months now – they started just days after they announced their split around Christmas. Most of the rumors revolved around Susan allegedly boning a young Ping-Pong entrepreneur (seriously) named Jonathan Bricklin. But some sources have been muttering that Tim was cheating too – and one of the names that frequently comes up is Meg Ryan.

I don’t think Tim has ever denied the affair rumors, either speaking for himself or using his rep. But Tim has made very few (if any) public statements post-split. I can’t even remember one! But Meg Ryan got her rep to issue a denial:

Tim Robbins and Meg Ryan have been repeatedly spotted looking cozy together in LA, despite denying an affair. They were twice seen together last week at his Actors’ Gang nonprofit theater group in Culver City.

Robbins and Ryan recently denied reports that they had a long-term secret affair that ended his two-decade relationship with Susan Sarandon as “absolutely false.”

When we asked if Robbins and Ryan had started a relationship since his split with Sarandon, her rep told us, “Meg and Tim have been great friends for many years and remain so.”

[From Page Six]

Quite honestly, I wouldn’t doubt an affair (or several affairs) from Tim, but I do doubt this about Meg Ryan. I do think they’re just friends. Plus, Meg has been allegedly dating a series of inappropriately hot guys, like Julian McMahon. If you had the choice between Tim and Julian, who would you choose?

Here are some recent photos of Meg looking less jacked, but still damaged from whatever she was doing to her face. Nicole Kidman, take note:

Susan Sarandon kept pretty quiet after her split with long-time partner Tim Robbins became public in December. Even though she was still promoting The Lovely Bones, she really didn’t do many interviews and she never really gave any reasons publicly for their split. Neither did Tim, for that matter. However, just days after their split became public, many sites (including ours) ran with the rumor that Susan was already bangin’ a 31-year-old dude named Jonathan Bricklin. You see, Susan is an investor in a Ping-Pong club that Bricklin co-owns or operates or something. And they had been seen together several times, usually looking flirty or friendly. The rumors are still floating around, by the way. And Susan and Jonathan are still turning up at the same places at the same times (spooky!).

Anyway, Susan has a new interview in Entertainment Weekly and she’s not doing much to dispel those cougar rumors. Which, by the way, she loves it when you call her a cougar. And she also describes her life post-Tim Robbins as “exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.” Interesting!

In the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, Susan Sarandon talks about life since splitting with her partner of two decades, Tim Robbins. When asked how things have changed for the 63-year-old Oscar winner since they parted ways, Sarandon said, “I did a movie a long time ago where I had to fly in a glider. You get towed up in the air by a plane, and it’s loud and annoying. And at some point you pull the cord and you’re suddenly floating, and in your mind it makes absolutely no sense. But it’s exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. That’s where I am now.”

When asked if she’s dating anyone now (Sarandon’s been linked in the gossip columns to one of the partners in her New York ping pong club, SPiN, 31-year-old Jonathan Bricklin), she shut down the line of questioning with a playful “no comment”.

But, she added: “It’s a long time to not be dating and then go back into it. I certainly love the idea of being in love, and I love the idea of companionship. Whatever happens next in terms of romance and partners, I don’t know. But it’s exhilarating and terrifying. I think the point is just keep moving, and to just say yes to life.”

The actress also says she doesn’t mind being called a cougar one bit. “No, I love that!”

[From Entertainment Weekly]

Yeah, I think she and Bricklin are going at it. She’s probably got a few other young dudes on the side too. Because that’s just the way Susan rolls. You know what I’m finding bizarre, though? We really haven’t heard anything about Tim since the split became public. I’m starting to wonder and worry about him. Do you think there’s something else going on with him?

Susan on an Italian talk show on February 27, 2010. Credit: WENN.

This week’s Star Magazine has what I found to be a pretty disturbing article that claims that Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins were having an affair while Robbins was still with his longterm partner, Susan Sarandon. Sarandon, 63, has of course moved on to a much younger guy, Jonathan Bricklin, 31, while we haven’t heard much about Robbins’ activities post split. If Star Magazine is to be believed, and they usually aren’t, Robbins has been carrying on with former romcom sweetheart Meg Ryan for years. I’m hoping this story is based on a photo of Robbins and Ryan sitting next to each other while answering phones at the telethon for Haiti. The two starred together in the 1994 movie I.Q. and are likely to have been friends for a long time.

Did Tim Robbins’ secret affair with Meg Ryan help doom his two-decade partnership with Susan Sarandon?…

Star can reveal that behind Susan’s back, Tim, 51, had been quietly hooking up with… Meg [Ryan] off and on for years! “Tim is thrilled that he doesn’t have to sneak around anymore,” says a source. “He’s making it more serious with Meg. He’s even been staying at her L.A. home, on occasion, for months now.”

Still, he and Meg, 48… are in no rush to go public. “Meg worries she’ll be seen as a homewrecker,” says the source. “She’s wanted to keep the relationship under wraps for as long as possible!”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, February 15, 2010]

If more reputable outlets carry this story it might gain some weight. As it is, I’m thinking that Star is hedging their bets by claiming that Meg and Tim are trying to keep their alleged romance under wraps. Plus if that was the case, why did they sit next to each other at the telethon then? It just doesn’t add up. Meg has a history of hooking up with her co-stars though: Dennis Quaid in the early 90s, Russell Crowe in 2000. It’s possible she had something going with Robbins in 1994, which was about six years after Robbins got together with Sarandon and during Ryan’s marriage to Quaid. Maybe the two have had a torch for each other for years. Or maybe Tim and Meg are together now and the relationship grew naturally from friendship and didn’t begin until after Robbins and Sarandon broke up. With Star, you never know if a story is accurate, partially true or just wishful thinking.

The photos below are from 2001.

It sure was a shock to learn, just before Christmas, that Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins were breaking up. Since their very brief announcement, the rumor mill has been running wild. A new article by a reporter from The Daily Beast, who has a long history of not-so-pleasant run-ins with the couple, suggests that the split may have been caused by Susan and Tim’s differences of opinion on political issues. Specifically, the report claims that Robbins has been quietly donating campaign money to Republicans (gasp!) while Susan has gone even further to the left. According to this report, even Susan’s own mom was surprised by the breakup.

It was their low-key, under-the-radar, one might even say boring approach to life in the big city that apparently allowed them to separate in the summer with zero publicity. Lenora Tomalin, Susan’s 86-year-old mother, says she was “shocked” when her daughter called last week to tell her about the split a day before the news broke. “It was perfect timing because the press couldn’t do much with it, because of Christmas and all the other news that would be in the forefront,” Tomalin told me over the Christmas weekend.

She recently saw Susan and Tim at a family wedding in New Jersey and says everything seemed normal. “My daughter was a little concerned about my hearing about it otherwise. It has affected me a lot, I’m still dealing with it,” Tomalin told me. “The way she was talking, it was very amicable. Tim is still in the picture because of the kids. I think they’re handling it beautifully. There’s no recrimination of any kind.”

Tomalin roundly dismissed published speculation that the 63-year-old Sarandon has taken up with 31-year-old Jonathan Bricklin, a business partner and co-investor in the Manhattan ping-pong club Spin. “Gracious, no!” Tomalin said, adding that she met Bricklin recently when he and Susan gave her a tour of the establishment. “He’s a gem. He has nothing to do with her other than as a business partner… If she was [seeing Bricklin romantically], Susan would be upfront about it.”

Tomalin added: “I’m fond of Tim even though I had that blowup with him years ago.”

That was back in early 2003, when I was writing The Washington Post’s Reliable Source column and Tomalin gave me an interview in which she identified herself as a staunch Republican and described the tension her political differences had caused between herself, Susan, and Tim. After the item appeared, Tim called her to angrily upbraid her for airing dirty laundry. She said she was devastated. Weeks later, when I ran into Robbins at a party in Los Angeles, he was still steamed—profanely putting me on notice that if I ever wrote about his family again, he would “find” and “hurt” me. Months later, he was still telling anyone who’d listen—like a lunchtime crowd at Washington’s National Press Club—that I am “a sadistic creep who writes, or rather, scratches, his column with his fingers in the dirt.”When it came to politics, Robbins and Sarandon tended to espouse and admonish rather than try to persuade. Either you were enlightened or just weren’t—either ideologically chaste or downright corrupt. “I am not, was not, a big Clinton fan,” Robbins told me back in 2002. “I hear he was a liberal. I hear people described as liberals all the time that I don’t tend to agree with. I think the rise of the Southern Democrats and the Democratic Leadership Council has pushed the definition of what’s a liberal farther and farther to the right.”

…Loyal Dems would undoubtedly be gobsmacked to learn that, if Federal Election Commission records are to be believed, Robbins has not only donated regularly to Democratic candidates over the past 18 years, he also has written checks to conservative Republicans. In the 2006 election cycle, according to public records, the actor gave $5,000 to 10 Republican candidates for the House and Senate—including, most shocking of all, Minnesota’s resident wingnut, Rep. Michele Bachmann. Why such largesse to the enemy? Former GOP congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, who lost in 2006 despite Robbins’ $500 donation, was baffled and surprised when I reached him over the weekend. “Maybe because I covered the Durham Bulls as a sports broadcaster in the late 1970s and early ’80s? Maybe because I used to frequently rent Bob Roberts back in the ’90s?” Hayworth wondered, mentioning two of Robbins’ starring vehicles. “All I can say is, ‘Thank you!’ I hope he enjoyed the Christmas card.” My efforts to reach Robbins to hear his explanation were unavailing, alas.

[From The Daily Beast]

But other sources are saying that the couple’s breakup was due to Susan’s flourishing relationship with a business partner who is 30 years her junior. Jonathan Bricklin, 31, is reportedly getting “touchy feely” with Sarandon, even though her rep, Jonathan’s rep, and Susan’s mom are all denying it.

Susan Sarandon and long-time lover Tim Robbins announced their split two days before Christmas, with their rep issuing a statement saying they “separated over the summer” and “no further comments will be made.”

Since then Sarandon, 63, has denied she is in a relationship with ping-pong club owner Jonathan Bricklin, 31, as has his rep.

But an inside source close to Bricklin tells Fox411.com that the two are spending a lot of quality time together.

“The way they touch each other, greet each other and spend so much time together, they are far more than friends,” said the source. “They are very comfortable with each other, very touchy-feely. You don’t touch a friend the way Jonathan and Susan do.”

The source, who has seen the two together since Sarandon and Robbins announced their split, added that “Susan looks great…. She’s been extremely busy over the holidays with her kids, the new club and Jonathan. She meets him at the club all the time in the middle of the day.”

The club in question is a new NYC ping-pong club called SPiN, in which they have both reportedly invested money.

Yes, we’ll say it again, a ping-pong club. (Only in New York…)

Anyway, the couple even apparently spent part of the New Year’s holiday together.

“Susan is always around [SPiN], she enjoys being with Jonathan, and they were together over the New Year last week,” said the insider.

While some eyes may widen at the couple’s 32-year age difference, the insider says the two look great together.

“She may be 63, but she is glowing. She hardly wears makeup and she still looks phenomenal,” the pal blabs. “Susan is too gorgeous to be single!”

The source adds that the May-November relationship wasn’t what ended the Sarandon/Robbins romance.

“[Sarandon and Robbins] have been separated for some time,” said the insider. “It was definitely not a rash decision, and Susan and Tim are very protective of all their children, especially their two boys.”

[From Fox News/Hollywood 411]

For a couple like Susan and Tim, who have long been very vocal and passionate about their political views, it makes sense that a change of opinion might be a deal-breaker. It’s too bad, because there are a lot of couples with differing political views who somehow find a way to make it work – look at Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. Maybe it was a combination of the two? Either way, I doubt that Tim or Susan are ever going to comment about it. But at least they are taking the high road and not talking smack about each other.

Forgive me. After I got over the shock of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins’ split (which was announced late Wednesday), some of my first thoughts/guesses were that Tim Robbins might have some young piece on the side. I thought that because this seems to be the year for men dumping their partners for younger, grosser girls. But, as it turns out, it might be Susan Sarandon who has the young piece on the side. Is it any different if it is Susan and not Tim? I have no idea.

So, Page Six was one of the first to run with this particular rumor (and seriously, this is all rumors and suppositions at this point). It involves Susan and a 31-year-old hipster named Jonathan Bricklin. Now, some of you might be like “Dude, how do you know this guy is a hipster?” Trust me. First, his hair. Second, he runs Spin, a ping-pong club in the Flatiron District of Manhattan. That was actually how Susan and Jonathan met – she’s an investor in the ping-pong club, Spin. Here’s what Page Six says:

Sarandon was recently rumored to be involved with 31-year-old Jonathan Bricklin, a partner in Spin, the Flatiron District pingpong club Sarandon invested in. Before opening Spin in September, Bricklin was known for hosting Naked Ping Pong, an occasional party at a TriBeCa loft attended by models, hipsters, and celebs as diverse as 50 Cent and Salman Rushdie.

Reached for comment earlier this month, Bricklin denied to Page Six that he and Sarandon were anything but professional, calling her his “friend and business partner.”

[From Page Six]

Yeah, a “business partner” in your pants. The Observer also ran a profile earlier this year about Bricklin, his partners, and Spin. The Observer claims that Susan and Bricklin met in April 2008, when she came to one of their ping-pong parties and “she ended up hiring the boys to make a tribute video for boyfriend Tim Robbins’ 50th birthday.” Here’s Gawker’s summary, with added unnamed sources!

What caused the breakup? A theory: Sarandon wanted to pursue ping pong entrepreneur Jonathan Bricklin.

A source tells us Sarandon, 63, is now in a relationship with the 31 year-old Bricklin. Which, first of all: Holy sh-t. Second of all: This suggests Sarandon’s investment in Bricklin’s Ping Pong social club, Spin, was not only motivated by her professed love of the game.

Bricklin is a filmmaker whose latest (first?) film is a documentary about his father, the founder of Subaru of America. He’s also one of three principals in Spin, which opened this September in the Flatiron and offers unlimited ping pong playing and hobnobbery for a modest $100/month membership fee. (Filmmakers Franck Raharinsoy and Bill Mack are the other two founders.)

If the rumor is true, the unlikely couple’s relationship was probably sparked by their mutual appreciation for thwacking a little plastic ball across a net. According to the Observer, Sarandon and Bricklin first met in 2007 at one of the celebrity-studded “Naked Ping Pong” parties Bricklin and his two filmmaking buddies hosted in their Tribeca loft. (Alas, no actual nudity was involved.)

Sarandon then hired the trio to make a video for Robbins’ 50th birthday. (Whoops!) According to our source, “The rest is history.”

A quick trip down Google lane finds Bricklin to be a cuddly hipster Ping Pong nerd, haplessly forehanding his way into the pages of Vogue, the Times and New York Social Diary. In 2008, he tried out for the Beijing Olympics in what must have been a joke.

His level of play was described by USA Today as “marginally better than some pickup pingpong match in a college dorm rec room.” (He lost in the first round, 4 sets to nil.)

We’ll see if Sarandon and Bricklin are spotted playing any heated doubles matches in the near future.

[From Gawker]

This is totally throwing me for a loop. Would Susan Sarandon really dump Tim Robbins just to break off a piece of this Bricklin guy? That seems… out of character, yes? I mean, I get that she’s a cougar and she loves young guys, but would she really dump her partner of 23 years for this? Here’s video of Bricklin being interviewed about Spin and stuff. Okay… he’s kind of hot when he talks. And he has pretty eyes. He seems a little full of himself though.

That’s it. Cancel Christmas. There is no more love in the world. That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from this announcement – Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins are done! Susan’s representative alerted People Magazine in a brief statement just minutes ago. What. The. F-ck?!? Oh, and they broke up over the summer, too!

One of Hollywood’s most enduring relationships has ended – Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have broken up after more than two decades together, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

“Actress Susan Sarandon and her partner of 23 years, actor Tim Robbins have announced that they separated over the summer,” her rep Teal Cannaday tells PEOPLE in a statement. “No further comments will be made.”

[From People Magazine]

I seriously cannot believe this, but I have to admit, I had a split second thought of “oh, that makes sense.” Only because they haven’t been photographed for a while together, and Susan has been making all of her red carpet appearances for The Lovely Bones either solo, or with her goofy, hunky son Jack.

Jesus. They’ve been together 23 years! They have two sons together too – Jack, who is 20 years old, and Miles, who is 17 years old. So, at least they don’t have little kids, but I’m sure the boys (and Eva Amurri) are devastated.

They were my mom’s generation’s Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Sort of. You know what I mean! They were held up as an example of a couple who were making it work in the long haul. I’m seriously floored.

UPDATE BY KAISER: Hey, I’ve noticed that some of of you are talking about blind items that might be about this couple, and I found one from this time last year, via Blind Gossip/D-Listed: “Which acting couple with a bit of an age gap between them is having trouble acting like their home life is going well? One discovered that other had briefly cheated on them, and they have been struggling to work through that betrayal out of the public eye. To make matters worse, there is now the added stress of a child in trouble, as they recently discovered that one of their kids has a drinking problem.” Damn, I hope that’s not them. I don’t want to think of Tim as a douchey cheater, but I feel like there might be another shoe to drop.

Actor Tim Robbins was involved in a high profile voting snafu on November 4th when he was turned away from his regular polling place and told he wasn’t on the rolls and would have to cast a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots only count when a voter’s eligibility is proven, and Robbins himself said that they’re inadequate on an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher two weeks before the election. Robbins is an outspoken Democrat and wasn’t about to let his chance to vote for Obama get away. The cops were called after he made a fuss when his polling place turned him away and he marched down to the Board of Elections to prove his eligibility. After four hours, Robbins was granted a court order and he went back and voted.

The NY City Board of Elections was not happy that Robbins brought attention to the fact that he claimed he was unfairly turned away from voting, so they issued a statement to the media saying he just didn’t go to the right place to vote. Robbins says that’s not true, though, and he did go to the place where he was assured he could vote, where he’s voted for a decade. He’s also understandably pissed that his home address was included in that message sent out to the media and is now available onlline, threatening his family’s safety. The letter is worded well and sounds polite at first but the sarcasm is easy to hear:

Dear Mr. Soumas:

I would like to publicly apologize for being such a dim-witted dilettante on Election Day. I was under the naïve assumption that I could vote where I voted in the last two elections. Your thoughtful letter pointed out that if I had voted in the recent primary election in September I would have discovered that I was no longer registered in the polling place I have voted in since 2004. Considering your position at the Board of Elections and your deep respect for the democratic process I must assume that my local 14th St. poll worker, Betty J. Williamson’s assertion that my name was on the active voter rolls for the primary in September of this year was erroneous and that she must be as confused and wrongheaded as I am. If Ms. Williamson saw my name in the book in September that would mean that you are lying. Certainly you wouldn’t lie about a thing like that. That is unbecoming of a man of your bureaucratic stature. And why would anyone in the Board of Elections be eliminating legitimate voters from the rolls in late September and October of 2008? That’s just crazy and un-democratic.

I should also apologize for the misguided actions of Justice Paul G. Feinman in issuing a court order on Election Day allowing me to vote on 14th St. He apparently thought that a printed out record from your own Board of Elections computer verifying my polling place as 14th St was justification for issuing the court order. If he had only thought to contact you, you could have helped him understand the logic and wisdom of eliminating my name from the book on 14th St. where I have always voted and leaving my name registered at a place I have never voted.

I must also thank you for sending your letter not to me but to all the major newspapers in the New York area and across the internet. I understand it was your way of clearing up this matter and for that I am grateful. I am particularly appreciative of your sending a copy of my voter registration card with my home address and driver’s license number to all the newspapers and, by extension, to millions across the internet. What celebrity dilettante wouldn’t want his private information made public? What kind of snob gets angry that his family’s safety might be compromised? It comes with the territory, right? I was thinking of returning that favor by publishing your home address in this letter but then I thought that maybe one of the thousands of New Yorkers that were taken off the voter rolls in the last two months might not understand what a patriotic upstanding man you are and might show up at your doorstep with the misguided assumption that you are a petty vindictive corrupt scumbag.

Tim Robbins
New Yorker since 1961
Voter since 1976

P.S. If anyone reading this letter had a similar experience on Election Day it can and should be reported at 866ourvote.org.

[From Huffington Post]

If Robbins was confused by the change to his voting place, a lot of other NY residents probably were too. Not everyone votes in the primaries and it’s unfair to act like it’s their fault if they didn’t get the memo back then. Maybe the Board of Elections earnestly changed the polling places for a lot of people thinking it would help avoid long lines on election day. They should be ashamed that they printed his address and phone number though. Robbins and partner Susan Sarandon are both high profile celebrities and they have teenage kids that could be in danger now that this news is out.

Tim Robbins is shown playing hockey on 10/27/08. He is wearing a shirt that says “Hockey Dads for Obama.” Credit: WENN

Oscar winning actor Tim Robbins, 49, was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday. On hand to help him accept the honor were his partner of 20 years, Susan Sarandon, 62, and his two children with Sarandon, Jack Henry, 19, and Miles Guthrie, 16. Sarandon’s lovely daughter Eva Amurri, 23, from her relationship with director Franco Amurri, was also at the ceremony. Robbin’s friend, actor Jack Black, 39, was also there to help him accept the honor. Robbins is 6′ 5″ tall while Black is a little short of 5′ 10″ tall. Black joked that he literally looked up to Robbins from a young age.

Tim Robbins is known in Hollywood as an Academy Award-winning actor, director, activist and hockey fanatic. On Friday, he added comedian to his repertoire while getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“I used to take the bus from here to Burbank to go to work,” he recalled. “When the bus was late, I would walk up and down and throw my cigarettes down. Now I have the honor of having this done to my star.”

Guests at the ceremony included Robbins’ longtime partner, Susan Sarandon, as well as relatively diminutive actor Jack Black, who said he has known the tall, lanky Robbins for 25 years.

“I literally looked up to him,” Black joked. “I actually became his stalker because I wanted to be part of his world.”

Robbins was nominated for a best-director Oscar in 1996 for “Dead Man Walking,” a movie he co-wrote about the death penalty. Sarandon’s role in it won the Oscar for best actress.

“I am so pleased to be a part of his life, and I want to present Tim’s best production — our three kids,” Sarandon said.

Born in West Covina, Calif., and raised in New York City, Robbins came from a family of entertainers. His father, Gil Robbins, played with the folk group The Highwaymen in the 1960s.

[From AP via Google.com]

A longtime baseball and hockey fan, Robbins is often spotted playing hockey in NY city with his two teenage sons. Congratulations to Robbins and we look forward to many more years of seeing his talent on the big screen.

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