Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington County, Virginia, the
daughter of Helga D. Meyer, a German opera singer who died of cancer on April
4, 2000, and John W. Bullock, a Pentagon contractor, executive and part-time
vocal coach from Alabama. Bullock's maternal grandfather was a rocket scientist
from Nuremberg. Bullock lived in Nuremberg, Germany until age twelve, where
she sang in the opera's children's choir at the Staatstheater Nürnberg.
She frequently traveled with her mother on her opera tours, and lived in Germany
and other parts of Europe for much of her childhood. Bullock studied ballet
and vocal arts as a child, taking small parts in her mother's opera productions.
Sandra Bullock attended Washington-Lee High School where she was a
cheerleader, participated in high school theater productions and dated a football
player. She graduated in 1982 and enrolled in East Carolina University in Greenville,
North Carolina. During this time she worked as a waitress at a restaurant. She
left school during her senior year (Spring 1986), three credits short of graduating,
to pursue an acting career. She went to Manhattan to try to get auditions and
supported herself with a variety of odd jobs (bartender, cocktail waitress,
coat checker).
Sandra Bullock later completed her coursework and was awarded
a bachelor's degree from East Carolina University. She is fluent in German.
When appearing on German TV shows, she prefers to speak English (the TV hosts
speak German though).
While in New York, Sandra Bullock took acting classes at The Neighborhood
Playhouse. She appeared in several student films and later landed a role in
an Off-Broadway play No Time Flat. Director Alan J. Levi was impressed by Sandra Bullock's
performance and offered her a part in the made-for-TV movie Bionic Showdown:
The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989). After filming the movie,
Bullock stayed in Los Angeles, California, and was cast in a series of small
roles in several independent films as well as in the lead role of the short-lived
NBC television version of the film Working Girl (1990). She appeared in several
films such as Love Potion No. 9 (1992), The Thing Called Love (1993) and Fire
on the Amazon (where she agreed to appear topless if the camera did not show
that much, she covered herself with duct tape which apparently was somewhat
painful to take off).
One of Sandra Bullock's first notable movie appearances was in Demolition
Man (1993), which led to her breakthrough performance in Speed the following
year. She became a high-level movie star in the late 1990s, carrying a string
of successes, including While You Were Sleeping (she replaced actress Demi Moore,
who was originally scheduled to star), Miss Congeniality and Two Weeks Notice.
Sandra Bullock received 11 million dollars for Speed 2 and 17.5 million dollars for
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous.
Sandra Bullock has been selected as one of People magazine's 50 Most
Beautiful People in the World in 1996 and 1999, and has also been ranked #58
in Empire magazine's Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time list. She was presented
with the 2002 Raul Julia Award for Excellence for her efforts, as the executive
producer of the sitcom The George Lopez Show, in helping expand career openings
for Hispanic talent in the media and entertainment industry.
In 2004, Sandra Bullock had a supporting role in the film Crash. She
received positive reviews for her performance, with some critics suggesting
that it was the best performance of her career. Bullock later appeared in The
Lake House, a romantic drama also starring her Speed co-star, Keanu Reeves;
it was released on June 16, 2006. Because their film characters are separated
throughout the film (due to the plot revolving around time travel), Sandra Bullock
and Reeves were only on set together for two weeks during filming. The same
year, Sandra Bullock appeared in Infamous, playing author Harper Lee. Bullock also
stars in Premonition with Julian McMahon, which was released in March of 2007.
Sandra Bullock received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March
24, 2005. In January 2007, Bullock was named the 14th richest woman in entertainment
by Forbes, with a net worth of $85 million.
Sandra Bullock runs her own production company, Fortis Films; her
sister, Gesine Bullock-Prado, is president of the company and her father, John
Bullock, is its CEO. She was an executive producer of George Lopez, The network
canned the sitcom in May, though not before it clinched a lucrative syndication
deal that banked Sandra Bullock some $10 million. She also made sporadic "cameo"
appearances in the show as "Accident Amy," a factory worker prone
to accidents in the workplace. Sandra Bullock tried to produce a film based on F.X.
Toole's short story Million-Dollar Baby, but couldn't interest studios in a
female boxing drama. The story was eventually made as the Oscar-winning film
Million Dollar Baby (2004).Sandra Bullock's Fortis Films will produce her next movie,
All About Steve. In the meantime, she tends to her Austin restaurant, Bess Bistro,
and its first merchandising tie-in, a line of organic candles.
Sandra Bullock was once engaged to actor Tate Donovan whom she met
while filming Love Potion No. 9. Their relationship lasted four years. She had
previously dated football player Troy Aikman, blues guitarist Guy Forsythe,
Steve Buscemi, Austin musician Bob Schneider (for two years) and film co-stars,
Ryan Gosling and Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey and Bullock met each other
while filming A Time to Kill and became friends. They dated for a while. Some
notable celebrity friends include Heather Burns and Hugh Grant.
Sandra Bullock married motorcycle builder and Monster Garage host
Jesse James on July 16, 2005; they met when Bullock arranged for her ten-year-old
godson to meet James as a Christmas present. On her husband and her marriage,
Bullock has commented:
So basically through a courtship of letters... I learned about
a human being. It was not something I wanted, needed, or looked for, but because
he was a stronger person than I was, spiritually and on a tolerance level, I
was lucky enough that he educated me... I always thought of marriage as a death
sentence, that there'd be a ball and chain, and you'd be told, 'You need to
stop doing these things and become a good little wife.' Now people say 'Oh my
God you're going to have sex with one person the rest of your life!' I hope
I have sex with him for the rest of my life - because I like it!
On December 20, 2000, Sandra Bullock survived the crash of a chartered
business jet at Jackson Hole Airport. The aircraft hit a snowbank instead of
the runway, resulting in both the nose gear and nose cone being ripped off,
the right wing partially separated from the aircraft and the left wing bent
back. When the September 11, 2001 attacks occurred, Sandra Bullock was staying at the
Soho Grand hotel, twelve blocks from the World Trade Center. She saw the attacks
from her hotel bedroom window and went to a nearby hospital to offer help. As
all phone lines in New York City were down, she spent the rest of the day using
her Palm Pilot to send e-mails on behalf of patients wanting to contact their
families.
Sandra Bullock has twice donated $1 million to the American Red Cross,
first to its Liberty Disaster Relief Fund and four years later in response to
the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis.
In October 2004, Sandra Bullock won a multimillion dollar judgment
against Benny Daneshjou, the builder of her Lake Austin Texas mansion; the jury
ruled the house was uninhabitable. It has since been torn down and rebuilt,
and her Porsche 911 Turbo replaced by a Toyota Prius. Bullock also owns a house
on Tybee Island, Georgia, which is a few miles from Savannah, Georgia. After
four years of preparation, Bullock's first restaurant, Bess, opened in November
2006 in Austin, Texas.
Although she loves horses, she is allergic to them. She has
a scar on her head which she received when she fell into a lake and cut her
head on a rock.
On April 22, 2007, a woman was lying outside James and Sandra Bullock's
Southern California home in Orange County. When James confronted the woman,
she ran inside her 2004 silver Mercedes and tried to run him over 3 to 4 times.
James had broken his leg during the many attempts to be run over. The woman
is said to be an obsessed fan of Sandra Bullock. The woman, Marcia Diana Valentine,
was arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon. She was released
after posting $25,000 bail. A court hearing was scheduled for May 22.
