She’s wholesome; she’s exuberant; she’s ordinary, but she’s not. Sandra Bullock is an all-American girl whose regular good looks belie unusual talent, and an exotic upbringing.
Born to a voice coach dad and opera singer mom, Bullock spent her early years touring Europe and appearing in operatic child roles and children’s choruses. She left the stage behind, though, working to fit in with her U.S. high school peers by taking on the “role” of sunny cheerleader, but returned to drama in university, and ultimately left even that for a New York acting career. The parts didn’t come right away -- Bullock spent three years bartending and waitressing -- but the off-Broadway production No Time Flat eventually came her way, and good reviews got her an agent.
She was cast in the film Hangmen (1987), but a television career came next for the 25 year old actor, beginning with the 1989 movie Bionic Showdown: The Six-Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. Bullock moved to Los Angeles, and took a starring role in the NBC series Working Girl. She went on to the TV movies Religion Inc./A Fool and His Money (1989), The Preppie Murder (1989), Jackie Collins’ Lucky Chances (1990), and the feature films Who Shot Patakango (1990), Who Do I Gotta Kill (1992), When the Party’s Over (1992), Love Potion No. 9 (1992), The Vanishing (1993), The Thing Called Love (1993), Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), Demolition Man (1993), and Me and the Mob (1994).
In 1994, the brunette Bullock was cast (over producers’ clamourings for yet another blonde bombshell) in the runaway blockbuster Speed.
