Sandra Bullock: Recent News

Dec 27, 2011

Sandra Bullock: Why I Returned to Acting After Split

Dec 20, 2011

Sandra Bullock's Family Holiday Tradition: Smuggling Sausages

Dec 19, 2011

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Review

Dec 16, 2011

Sandra Bullock Goes Glam Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Premiere

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Sandra Bullock: Snapshot

Name: Sandra Bullock
Date of Birth: July 26, 1964
Birth Place: Arlington, Va.

Sandra Bullock propelled her way to stardom with 1994's action hit Speed, but it was her romantic comedy resume (While You Were Sleeping, Hope Floats) and grace under fire that made her America's Sweetheart.

Proving her business savvy, the movie star built her own production company, under which she starred and produced some of her biggest box office hits (hello, Miss Congeniality!). In her 40s, Bullock just got even better: she married motorcycle tycoon Jesse James; shattered box office records with 2009's The Proposal and The Blind Side; and won her first Academy Award for Best Actress.

But days after her Oscar victory, Bullock's husband of five years apologized for having an affair, leading to the end of their marriage – and the beginning of Bullock's new life as mom to adopted son Louis.

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Sandra Bullock: Video

Time Machine

See the birthday girl go from ingenue with a need for Speed to America's Oscar-winning sweetheart

(00:52)

Sandra Bullock: Five Fun Facts

As a kid, Sandra Bullock played a beggar in one of her mother's operas, but almost upstaged the lead. "What they did was throw up these chocolates...like a bravo," she told Vogue, "and I hit the ground, crawling."
As a struggling actress, Sandra Bullock served drinks to pay the rent. "I learned a lot of accents as a bartender," she told the AP. "A lot of girls came in looking for rich husbands. I learned to imitate them."
Sandra Bullock's role in the 1995 hit romantic comedy, While You Were Sleeping, was originally meant for Demi Moore.
Costar and friend Hugh Grant called Sandra Bullock's 16-years-younger boyfriend Ryan Gosling, "The Child": "I'd do the sound of a baby crying," he said, "and she'd know who I meant."
While filming 2002's Murder By Numbers, Sandra Bullock brought a Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist to help the cast and crew cope with stress.

Sandra Bullock: Biography

1970s: Imported from Germany
John (a government administrator and voice coach) and Helga (a German opera singer) shuttle their teenage daughters, Sandra and Gesine, between Europe and the Washington, D.C. area. "I landed back in the United States hitting puberty, not looking like an American kid," she tells PEOPLE in 2007 of her time in Arlington, Va. "And everything in junior high's about how you look. It was hell."
1988: Bionic Debut
New York Magazine theatre critic John Simon singles out Bullock for her Off-Broadway performance as a Southern belle in No Time Flat. The review helps her land an agent, and soon after she makes her TV acting debut as a crippled girl-turned-bionic woman in NBC's Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman with Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner (left).
1992: November 13
Finding Love At Work
After starring in the short-lived NBC sitcom version of Working Girl, Bullock stars as a nerdy psychobiologist in Love Potion No. 9. While filming, she falls for costar Tate Donovan (right), who she dates for more than three years. "The person who needed me most was always the person I was attracted to," Bullock tells PEOPLE of the split. "My priorities were him first, me second."