Sandra Bullock

Sandra Annette Bullock, IPA: ˈbʊlək (born July 26, 1964) is a Screen Actors Guild Award-winning and two-time Golden Globe Award-nominated American-German actor. She came to fame in the 1990s, after roles in successful films such as Speed and While You Were Sleeping. She has since established her career as a well-known leading Hollywood actress, with films such as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House and 2004's Crash, which received critical acclaim. In 2007 she was ranked as the 14th richest female celebrity with an estimated fortune of $85 million.

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, 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, dating for a while. Some notable celebrity friends include Heather Burns and Hugh Grant.

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, 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, 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.

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, 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.

On April 22, 2007, a woman was lying outside James and 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. 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, Bullock won a three-year restraining order against the woman. Valentine pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated assault and stalking.

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 by a drunken driver. There were no injuries.

On a brighter note, it was revealed in January 2009 that, fulfilling a rumoured life-long fantasy for Bullock, she and husband Jesse James were awarded temporary full-time custody of his daughter Sunny, following her mother's (adult film star, Janine Lindemulder) sentencing to 6 months in prison, for income tax evasion. It is rumoured that Bullock already has a close relationship with James' 6-year-old daughter.