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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 11, 1993                   TAG: 9301110003
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 5   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: From wire reports
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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THE PEOPLE COLUMN

Susan Sarandon says her image as a sex symbol always has amazed her.

"It's so funny that I can hardly talk about it without laughing," the 46-year-old actress said. "But it's always been there. Playboy has been asking me to do a nude layout for 20 years.

"And they haven't stopped asking, even after the birth of my third child. "Maybe I'll do it when I'm 80."

Not that she hasn't had sexy roles. She was a prostitute in "Pretty Baby," shimmied in lingerie in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," made love to Burt Lancaster in "Atlantic City" and taught fledgling baseball players about curves of all kinds in "Bull Durham."

In her latest film, "Lorenzo's Oil," Sarandon plays Michaela Odone, the real-life woman who defied doctors to find a cure for her gravely ill son.

Frank Sinatra received the Palm Springs International Film Festival's Golden Palm Award at a dinner attended by many of the crooner's show business friends. "Whoever put this all together - it's absolutely thrilling. I loved every minute of my life in show business. Every minute," Sinatra said Saturday.

Last year's honoree, actor Jimmy Stewart, presented the award. "Folks all over applaud you for being such a special man," he told Sinatra. Among the 700 people attending the gala were Robert Wagner, Jill St. John and former Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono.

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