Sandra Annette Bullock (pronounced /ˈbʊlək/; born July 26, 1964) is an American actress who rose to fame in the 1990s, after roles in successful films such as Speed and While You Were Sleeping. She has since established her career with films such as Miss Congeniality and Crash, which received critical acclaim. In 2007, she was ranked as the 14th richest female celebrity with an estimated fortune of $85 million. In 2009, Bullock starred in the most financially successful films of her career, The Proposal and The Blind Side. Bullock was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, and the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy in The Blind Side.
Early life:Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, Virginia, the daughter of Helga D. Meyer (1942–2000), a German opera singer and voice teacher, and John W. Bullock (born 1925), a voice coach and executive from Alabama. Bullock's maternal grandfather was a rocket scientist from Nuremberg, Germany. Bullock lived in Nuremberg 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. She is fluent in German. Bullock studied ballet and vocal arts as a child, taking small parts in her mother's opera productions. Bullock has a sister, Gesine Bullock-Prado (born 1970).
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. She left East Carolina during her senior year in the spring of 1986, only three credits short of graduating, to pursue an acting career. She moved to Manhattan to pursue auditions and supported herself with a variety of odd jobs (bartender, cocktail waitress, coat checker, etc.)
Bullock later completed her coursework at East Carolina University.
Personal life
Relationships:
Bullock was once engaged to actor Tate Donovan, whom she met while filming Love Potion No. 9; their relationship lasted four years. She previously dated football player Troy Aikman, Austin musician Bob Schneider (for two years), and actors Matthew McConaughey and Ryan Gosling.
Bullock married motorcycle builder and Monster Garage host Jesse James on July 16, 2005. They had first met when Bullock arranged for her ten-year-old godson to meet James as a Christmas present.
In November 2009, Bullock and James entered into a custody battle with James' second ex-wife, former porn star Janine Lindemulder, with whom James had a child. Bullock and James subsequently won full legal custody of James' five year old daughter. Bullock has no children of her own.
In March 2010, a scandal arose when several women claimed to have had affairs with James during his marriage to Bullock. Bullock cancelled European promotional appearances for The Blind Side citing "unforeseen personal reasons". On March 18, 2010, James responded to the rumors of infidelity by issuing a public apology to Bullock. He stated, "The vast majority of the allegations reported are untrue and unfounded" and "Beyond that, I will not dignify these private matters with any further public comment." James declared that "There is only one person to blame for this whole situation, and that is me", and asked that his wife and children one day "find it in their hearts to forgive me" for their current "pain and embarrassment". James’s publicist subsequently announced on March 30, 2010 that James had checked into a rehab facility "to deal with personal issues" and "save his marriage" to Bullock.
Vehicular accidents:
On December 20, 2000, 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 separating from the aircraft, and the left wing being bent back.
On April 18, 2008, while Bullock was in Massachusetts shooting the film The Proposal, she and her husband were in an SUV that was hit head-on (driver's side offset) at moderate speed by a drunken driver. Vehicle damage was not catastrophic and there were no injuries.
Legal matters:
In October 2004, Bullock was once again in the news as she won a multimillion-dollar judgment against Benny Daneshjou, the builder of her Lake Austin, Texas home; the jury ruled the house was uninhabitable. It has since been torn down and rebuilt. Bullock also owns a house on Tybee Island, which is a few miles from Savannah, Georgia. In 2009, she purchased a home in the historic Garden District neighborhood of New Orleans.
On April 22, 2007, a woman was lying outside James's and Bullock's Southern California home in Orange County. When James confronted the woman, she ran to her 2004 silver Mercedes, got behind the wheel, and tried to run James over. The woman is said to be an obsessed fan of Sandra Bullock. The woman, Marcia Diana Valentine, was arrested on investigation of assault with a deadly weapon. In May 2007, Bullock won a three-year restraining order against the woman. Valentine pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated assault and stalking.
Charity work:
Bullock has been a public supporter of the American Red Cross, twice donating $1 million, first to its Liberty Disaster Relief Fund and four years later in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis. In 2010, she donated $1 million to relief efforts in Haiti following the Haiti earthquake.
No comments:
Post a Comment