by Ted Sherman

Created on: March 18, 2010

What went on in the mind of Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock? How could such a brilliant, supremely talented, self-confident woman ever stoop to marry such an obvious creep? Is there some twisted fantasy in the minds of Sandra and other intelligent actresses that makes them want to link up with a low-life guy who looks dashing and dangerous?

Inevitably, after a few starry weeks of passion, the guy proves to be just plain, down-and-dirty dangerous. Is it some kind of inane Rudolph Valentino fantasy Hollywood has been perpetuating since the days of silent films, and it seemingly infects those actresses when they're very young and vulnerable. In Sandra Bullock's case, it wasn't the desert sheik on the white horse, but a Hell's Angel Marlon Brando wannabe on a rusty 'cycle.

Sandra just breezed into a relationship with this guy, knowing full well about his sleazy past, including marriage to a porn actress and still caught in the middle of a child custody battle. If the history of the relationship as reported by the media is true, this guy was cheating on his wife with Sandra long before the divorce. Another fantasy Hollywood women stars seem to have is that when bad boy cheaters fall into their arms and beds, the newly-reformed bad boy would never even consider cheating on them. Actually, according to press reports, while Sandra was away acting in "The Blind Side", her Academy Award movie last year, he was already blind-siding her with another woman. 

It's obvious that Sandra is not a student of Hollywood's cheating husband history. There's a long and sordid tradition of famous Hollywood women movie stars who rejected decent and honorable men. They prefer to marry or shack-up with bums who eventually cheat on them and empty their bank accounts. Some sadder examples include actresses Doris Day, Judy Garland, Janet Leigh, Debbie Reynolds and Rosalind Russell.

The story of Debbie Reynold's marriages are examples Sandra could have benefited from studying the outcomes. Debbie, still a great entertainer as she approaches her 80s, married Eddie Fisher while still very young. He was the most popular boy singer of the time and she was just emerging as a movie star on her own, singing and dancing in several hit movies, including the classic, "Singin' in the Rain".

Hollywood fan magazines went nuts with stories and photos of the loving couple at home, and later with their two adorable babies. Actually, Fisher's cheating didn't involve money, but he chose to abandon Debbie very publicly and disgracefully with the era's sexiest actress, Elizabeth Taylor. Several years later, Debbie married a guy who owned a string of shoe stores. Then, when his business was failing, he stole money from Debbie to avoid bankruptcy.

In those days, the actresses didn't quite reach down into the depths of slime to find cheating husbands as Sandra has, but the results were the same. Of course, Sandra's experience isn't the last sad ending of a marriage for a famous movie star.  As long as the Valentino-Brando fantasy continues to be extolled in Hollywood, there will be sleazy guys out there anxious and willing to take advantage of them.

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