Since her last great love passed away, Sandra Bullock has maintained a low social profile and stayed away from the acting scene. This Friday, the Oscar winner turns 60 with a quite complete film career, enjoying motherhood and reflecting on her life.
The star of the 15 million dollars per movie is known for being extremely discreet. She rarely attends premieres, it is practically impossible to see her at the chicest events of the season, and she avoids all those industry gatherings where people go to promote themselves and make contacts. Considered one of the queens of comedy, she prefers to spend time at home with her adopted children, Laila (15) and Louis (14), who also stay away from the spotlight.
Born in the United States, she spent part of her childhood and adolescence between Germany and Austria as her father was a Pentagon official. After returning to the United States, she studied drama in New York with Professor Sanford Meisner, who had trained Joan Woodward and Robert Duvall. To make ends meet, she worked as a waitress in a bar where she was attempted to be violated on several occasions.
Her first role in Hollywood was in Love Potion No. 9 (1992) and she got it because the director claimed she resembled Julia Roberts (56). During filming, she fell in love with Tate Donovan (60), whom she "chased like a dog," she revealed in Vanity Fair. In another interview with Barbara Walters, she confessed that "he brought out everything good, bad, and repressed in me." After separating in 1994, she had a brief romance with American football player Troy Aikman (57). The next on the list was sound technician Don Padilla, with whom she didn't last a year.
After the release of Speed (1994), where she forged a close friendship with Keanu Reeves, who will also turn 60 in early September, she became a star. She became part of the 'A List', the prestigious list of the highest-paid actors starting from 15 million dollars per movie. Her first relationship with a star was with Matthew McConaughey (54), whom she met while filming A Time to Kill (1996) and was with for two years. Cameras followed them everywhere because they were the couple of the moment, but everything faded away because the actor felt it was too soon to start a family. With her work in Miss Congeniality (2000), she proved that in the realm of comedy, few colleagues surpassed her. At that time, she was dating Bob Schneider (60), an indie rocker with whom she discreetly dated.
Once again, during the filming of Murder by Numbers (2002), she met one of Hollywood's kings today, Ryan Gosling (43), with whom she dated until 2023. The age difference was not an issue as he was 21 and she was 37. "I live my life at a manic pace, and he has taught me to ignore everything that is not important," she would later confide.
The whirlwind of the industry practically prevented her from enjoying her relationships, but in 2005, she took a step forward and formalized her engagement to Jesse James (55), the founder of West Coast Choppers, whom she married in 2005. They began the process of adopting Louis, but rumors of infidelity on the part of the businessman ruined their love life. Over time, Jesse revealed that he had not been faithful. "Yes, I have been unfaithful to my wife, I took responsibility and apologized," he told the Daily News, but there was nothing left to do. Ten days after winning the Oscar for The Blind Side, the divorce proceedings began.
Subsequently, in 2014, it was said that she had started flirting with another box office actor, Chris Evans 'Captain America' (43), when he himself admitted that since he was a kid Bullock had been his crush. Almost from the beginning, she followed her mother's advice: "Make your own way. You don't need a man to get where you want to go. Earn your own money, build your own career, and then, if you meet a great guy, you'll meet him on a good level."
The best was yet to come when at her son's fifth birthday party, the actress decided to hire a photographer to immortalize the event. The professional was Bryan Randall, whom she ended up falling madly in love with. For three years, they kept their relationship a secret until they confirmed it at the official premiere of her movie Ocean's 8 (2018).
The relationship between Bryan and Sandra's children - the photographer had a daughter named Skyler from a previous relationship - was as tender as it was beautiful. At one point, the actress confessed to the press that "for the kids, he is number one and I am number two, but I understand because he is more fun and has better treats." Sandra did not want to make too many movies as she preferred to focus on her family and various philanthropic activities. She is one of the most generous stars in Hollywood, and every time she has made a donation, it has been in private. But over time, it was revealed that she had donated one million dollars to the Red Cross after the 9/11 attacks and another million after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010.
Sandra and Bryan never thought about getting married. The stability of their relationship suffered a blow when the photographer was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which he fought for three years. Unfortunately, the fatal outcome came last August when Bryan passed away at the age of 57.