Working Girl - Sandra Bullock
This article describes the career of Sandra Bullock '86. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: "Working Girl," ECU Report, Spring/Summer 1990, Volume 21, No. 3.
A Los Angeles visit with a friend turned out lucky for struggling New York actress Sandra Bullock, a 1986 graduate of ECU's drama department.
After hearing that NBC sitcom Working Girl was looking for a new leading lady, Bullock decided to give it a try
It took eight auditions, but Bullock won the part. She plays Tess McGill, a secretary from Staten Island who becomes a junior executive in Manhattan. Melanie Griffith won an Oscar nomination for her movie portrayal of Tess.
The spring replacement series premiered in April to mixed reviews, and NBC is deciding whether or not it will be picked up this fall.
"Right now I can't do anything," Bullock said. "If the show gets picked up, we have to go right into the studio. If the show doesn't go well, I'll take a break and concentrate on stage and film projects."
Was it too much, too fast, too soon? "Maybe just a little," Bullock said. "But I don't think it's anything I can't handle. I'd been in New York for three-and-a-half years and did all the struggling."
Bullock's decision to enroll at ECU was made just as quickly. "It all happened in about a week," she said. "My friend had an extra application."
The daughter of a German opera singer and a voice coach from Alabama, Bullock never regretted choosing ECU over a performing arts school since a traditional college experience -- football games, fraternity parties and the like -- was what she was after.
"At ECU I could go through everything a kid should go through in college," she said. "Some of my best memories are of East Carolina."
Bullock was active in theater as a student, appearing in ECU Playhouse productions of Peter Pan, Stage Door and The Three Sister.
"She has a kind of tomboy quality," said associate professor Donald H. Biehn. "And she was always refreshingly herself. So many times students at a young age try to imitate other actors and actresses. But she relied on her own sense of reality and her own sense of truth. She allowed herself to be herself, which is a very hard thing."
Edgar Loessin, chairman of the theater arts department, also remembers Bullock fondly. "She has tremendous energy and definitely has talent," he said. "She's one of those people that the camera loves.
"I know she loves the stage, and she's very strong on stage. She has a real presence," he added. "But she's on a roll now and ought to stick with film for the time being."
