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Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actress, producer, and former fashion model. She came to international attention for her performance in the 1992 Hollywood blockbuster film Basic Instinct. She was nominated for an Academy Award, for best actress for her role in Casino and won a Golden Globe for her role in Casino and has won an Emmy Award. Sharon Stone proved that brains (an IQ of 154) were certainly no impediment to forging a career in the entertainment industry, especially when capitalizing on naturally blonde good looks as a fetching piece of "eye candy" in movies both good and bad. The former beauty pageant contestant and Ford model made her film debut with a non-speaking part as a beautiful woman fleetingly glimpsed from a moving train in Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories" (1980) and then survived more than a decade of mostly mediocre parts to claw her way to stardom. A journalist's dream, she is one of the best interviews in Hollywood, talking smart, tough and funny (she once described former beau Dwight Yoakam as less appealing than a "dirt sandwich"), and bringing back an old-fashioned, high-octane glamour to her role as a "movie star.” Despite demonstrating considerable range as an actor, Stone has shown her true genius to be self-invention, creating a persona to rival that of stars like Joan Crawford and Betty Davis from a more style-conscious, bygone era. Stone was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The second of four children, she is the daughter of Dorothy (née Lawson), an accountant and homemaker, and Joseph Stone, a tool and die manufacturer. She has Irish ancestry, with roots in Galway. As a teen, she worked at a McDonald's restaurant. When she was a young woman her IQ was tested at 154 points. After skipping a grade in school, she was involuntarily transferred from Saegertown High School to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, enrolling at the age of fifteen years. She returned for a visit to her college in March 2007 for academic purposes, and there to her surprise she received an honorary doctorate from former university president Frank Pogue. Stone won the title of Miss Crawford County in Meadville. One of the pageant judges said she should quit school and move to New York to become a fashion model. When her mother heard this, she agreed, and, in 1977 Stone left Meadville, moving in with an aunt in New Jersey. Within four days of her arrival in New Jersey, she was signed by Ford Modeling Agency in New York. It was at this time that her name was linked with Peter Glaze, of BBC TV's Crackerjack fame. After signing with Ford, Stone spent a few years modeling, and appeared in TV commercials for Burger King, Clairol and Maybelline, but she did not enjoy her work. The high points for Stone through the 1980s were few, though she did attract notice as Ryan O'Neal's conniving actress girlfriend in "Irreconcilable Differences" (1984) and as Robert Mitchum's daughter-in-law in the much-watched ABC miniseries "War and Remembrance" (1988). Mostly, she persevered as a stereotypical blonde in lackluster films like Wes Craven's "Deadly Blessing" (1981, whose saving grace was meeting best friend Mimi Craven, the director's ex-wife), "King Solomon's Mines" (1985) and its sequel "Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold" (1987), "Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol" (1987) and a remake of "Blood and Sand" (1989, in a role that had done considerably more for Rita Hayworth). She didn't fare any better on the small screen either, including a regular role as the wife of a bed-wetting baseball pitcher in the short-lived "Bay City Blues" (NBC, 1983). While living in Europe she decided to quit modeling and become an actress. "So I packed my bags, moved back to New York, and stood in line to be an extra in a Woody Allen movie," she later recalled. While auditioning, she met Michelle Pfeiffer, recognized her from the pageant she competed in, and the two began a friendship that lasts to this day. Stone was cast for a brief but memorable role in Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and then had a speaking part a year later in the horror movie Deadly Blessing (1981). When French director Claude Lelouch saw Stone in Stardust Memories he was so impressed that he cast her in Les Uns et Les Autres (1982), starring James Caan. She was only on screen for two minutes and did not appear in the credits. Her next role was in Irreconcilable Differences (1984), starring Ryan O'Neal, Shelley Long, and a young Drew Barrymore. Stone plays a starlet who breaks up the marriage of a successful director and his screenwriter wife. The story was based on the real-life experience of director Peter Bogdanovich, his set designer wife Polly Platt and Cybill Shepherd, who as a young actress had starred in Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971). The highlight of Stone's performance is when her cocaine-addict character plays Scarlett O'Hara in a musical pitched as a remake of Gone with the Wind. Through the rest of the 1980s she appeared in Action Jackson (1988), King Solomon's Mines (1985) and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1987). She also played the wife of Steven Seagal's character in Above the Law (1988). She appeared in an episode of Magnum, P.I., titled "Echoes of the Mind", where she played a love interest of Thomas Magnum (1984). Stone's first real break came playing Arnold Schwarzenegger's kick-boxing secret agent "wife" in Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi actioner "Total Recall" (1990). After five more forgettable thrillers and comedies, she finally achieved the proverbial "overnight" success as a voracious bisexual crime writer in Verhoeven's controversial and popular erotic thriller "Basic Instinct" (1992), written by Joe Ezsterhas. Her panties-less, leg-crossing scene brought Stone much notoriety but has haunted her ever since. Though she really didn't want to do "Sliver" (1993), another sizzling sex melodrama written by Ezsterhas which did middling business stateside and smashing box office overseas, she couldn't find any other part she liked better, so she made the mistake of retreating into the much more familiar and conventionally sympathetic role as the victim of a psychotic voyeur. Trying to escape the sex-bomb trap, she begged for the frigid wife role (they offered her much more to play the girlfriend) in "Intersection" (1994) and scored great reviews despite its limited success. Her appearance in Total Recall (1990) with Arnold Schwarzenegger gave Stone's career a much-needed jolt. To coincide with the movie's release, she posed nude for Playboy magazine, showing off the buff body she developed in preparation for the movie (she pumped iron and learned Tae Kwon Do). In 1999, she was rated among the 25 sexiest stars of the century by Playboy. The role that made her a star was that of Catherine Tramell, a brilliant, bisexual serial killer in Basic Instinct (1992). Stone said she had to wait and actually turn down other offers for the mere prospect of playing Tramell. (The part reportedly was offered to 13 other actresses before being offered to her.) In the movie’s most notorious scene, Tramell is being questioned by the police and uncrosses her legs, revealing that she is not wearing anything beneath her dress. Stone claimed that, although she agreed to film the flashing scene with no panties, and although she and director Paul Verhoeven had discussed the scene from the beginning of production, she was unaware just how explicit the infamous shot would be. Despite having earlier claimed "it was so fun" watching the film for the first time with strangers she later said it was "so disrespectful, and so shocking, so I went into the booth and slapped him (Verhoeven) and left". Verhoeven denied these claims and said, "As much as I love her, I hate her too, especially after the lies she told the press about the shot between her legs, which was a straight lie". Following this film, she was listed by People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. In 1992, photographer George Hurrell took a series of photographs of Stone, Sherilyn Fenn, Julian Sands, Raquel Welch, Eric Roberts and Sean Penn. In these portraits he recreated his style of the 1930s, with the actors posing in costumes, hairstyle and makeup of the period. Stone's stardom was such that she received top billing over Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio when cast as a gunslinger for Sam Raimi's 1995 western The Quick and the Dead. In November 1995, Stone received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6925 Hollywood Blvd. That same year, Empire magazine chose her as one of the 100 sexiest stars in film history. In October 1997, she was ranked among the top 100 movie stars of all time by Empire. The now highly-paid, much-in-demand diva, boasting her own production company (Chaos) and a first-look deal with Miramax, filmed a remake of the noir classic "Diabolique" with Isabelle Adjani and Chazz Palminteri and played a death-row inmate whose lawyer (Rob Morrow) works to save her from execution in "Last Dance" (both 1996). The former (a pale imitation of the 1955 classic) was notable more for her battle with its producer over refusing to bare her flesh, while the latter, despite presenting a uniquely drab, unglamorous Stone, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, following so close on the heels of the previous year's "Dead Man Walking.” Protecting her hard-won stardom, Stone had became a clever manipulator of her public image, on heavy press days reportedly changing outfits between each interview and photo session, a practice unheard of since the days of Carole Lombard and Norma Shearer. Onscreen and off, she understood that her power resided in her unwillingness to relinquish her femaleness. In 1996, she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Dramatic Motion Picture for her role as "Ginger" in Martin Scorsese's Casino opposite Robert DeNiro. She also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the role. Having reached the age of 40, she intended to keep her clothes on, and her superstar clout led to the diversity she had craved in movies like "Antz,” the 1998 animated film which vocally reunited her with Woody Allen, "Sphere" (1998, cast as a biochemist in the lackluster Barry Levinson venture), "Gloria" (1999, a remake to unsettle John Cassavetes' final repose) and, terrifically, in "The Muse" (1999, playing the titular role to writer-director-star Albert Brooks, a Greek muse who lends her inspiration to Hollywood types, but not without turning their lives upside down with her demands). She appeared, in fine form, in a brief but pivotal appearance as the alcoholic wife of a horse breeder in the otherwise dismal "Simpatico" (also 1999). Although Stone would sometimes resurface in low-profile projects—including "Picking Up the Pieces" (2000), "Beautiful Joe" (2000) and in a charming turn opposite Ellen Degeneres in HBO's lesbian-themed "If These Walls Could Talk 2" (2000) but her 1998-2003 marriage to San Francisco Chronicle publisher Phil Bronstein kept her away from Hollywood—geographically and on film—for many years (and produced at least bizarre anecdote: the publisher was bitten on the foot by a komodo dragon at the Los Angeles Zoo during a birthday visit there arranged by Stone in 2001). Also in 2001, the actress suffered a brain aneurysm that nearly proved fatal. Stone starred opposite actress Ellen DeGeneres in the 2001 HBO movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, in which she played a lesbian trying to start a family. In 2003, she appeared in three episodes from the 8th season of The Practice as Sheila Carlisle. For her performances, she received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Stone gave one of her most campy and unsatisfying turns as the villainous model-cum-mogul Laurel Hadare opposite Halle Berry in the lackluster "Catwoman" (2004) on screen, while off-screen she was the subject of a courtroom battle after producers backed out of an alleged verbal $19.36 million agreement for her to star in a sequel to "Basic Instinct"she later settled, with part of deal including a planned sequel. After a brief appearance in the unsurprisingly rotten “Jiminy Glick in La La Wood” (2005), Stone played one of four ex-girlfriends tracked down by a man (Bill Murray) who received an anonymous letter from the mother of his unknown son in Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers” (2005). Stone attempted a return to the mainstream with a role in the film Catwoman (2004); however, the film was a critical and commercial flop. After years of litigation, Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction was released on March 31, 2006. After earning $3,200,000 in its debut weekend, the movie was declared a bomb. A reason for a long delay in releasing the film was reportedly Stone's dispute with the filmmakers over the nudity in the movie; she wanted more, while they wanted much much less. A group sex scene was cut in order to achieve an R rating from the MPAA for the U.S. release; the controversial scene remained in the U.K. version of the London-based film. Stone told an interviewer, "We are in a time of odd repression and if a popcorn movie allows us to create a platform for discussion, wouldn't that be great?" Stone has said that she would love to direct and act in a third Basic Instinct film. A subsequent film role came in the drama Alpha Dog opposite Bruce Willis, playing Olivia Mazursky, the mother of a real-life murder victim. Stone wore a fatsuit for the role. In February 2007, Stone found her role as a clinically depressed woman in her latest film, When a Man Falls in the Forest, strangely uplifting, as it challenged what she called "Prozac society". "It was a watershed experience," she said. "I think that we live in a... Prozac society where we're always told we're supposed to have this kind of equilibrium of emotion. We have all these assignments about how we're supposed to feel about something". The actress was hospitalized in late 2001 for a subarachnoid hemmorrhage, initially reported as a brain aneuryism, according to USA Today. In 2007, she appeared in a television commercial demonstrating the symptoms of a stroke. Stone lives in Beverly Hills, California, and owns a ranch in New Zealand. In March 2006, Stone traveled to Israel to promote peace in the Middle East through a press conference with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres. On January 28, 2005, Stone helped solicit pledges for $1 million in five minutes for mosquito nets in Tanzania, turning a panel on African poverty into an impromptu fund-raiser at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Many observers, including UNICEF, criticized her actions by claiming that Stone had reacted instinctively to the words of Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, because she had not done her research on the causes, consequences and methods of preventing malaria; if she had done so, she would have found out that most African governments already distribute free bed nets through public hospitals. Of the $1 million pledged, only $250,000 was actually raised. In order to fulfill the promise to send $1 million worth of bed nets to Tanzania, UNICEF contributed $750,000. This diverted funds from other UNICEF projects. According to prominent economist Xavier Sala-i-Martín, officials are largely unaware of what happened with the bed nets. Some were delivered to the local airport. These reportedly were stolen and later resurfaced as wedding dresses on the local black market. Stone hosted the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Concert. In April 2004, she was awarded the National Center for Lesbian Rights Spirit Award in San Francisco for her support and involvement with organizations that serve the lesbian, gay and HIV/AIDS community and performed Can't Get You Out of My Head with Kylie Minogue in Cannes for AIDS research. She was presented the award by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. It has been said that her parents raised her with feminist values. "My dad never raised me to believe that being a woman inhibited any of my choices or my possibilities to succeed. To be a feminist like Dad in that blue-collar, middle-class world is a big stand.". In the early 1990s, Stone became a member of the Church of Scientology. Stone remained with the religion until recently when she converted to Buddhism, after fellow actor Richard Gere introduced her to the Dalai Lama. She is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church. She married television producer Michael Greenburg in 1984 on the set of The Vegas Strip War, a TV movie he produced and she starred in, along with Rock Hudson and James Earl Jones. They separated three years later, and their divorce was finalized in 1990. She was engaged to producer Bill McDonald after they met on the film Sliver (1993). McDonald left his wife, Naomi Baca, for Stone. The tabloids initially labeled her a homewrecker, but their attention turned to Baca after she got involved with Basic Instinct screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who would leave his wife for her. Stone and McDonald would later end their engagement. On February 14, 1998, she married Phil Bronstein, executive editor of the San Francisco Examiner and later San Francisco Chronicle. Stone and Bronstein were divorced in January 2004, after he had suffered a severe heart attack. They have an adopted son named Roan Joseph Bronstein, born on May 22, 2000. She also adopted her second son, Laird Vonne Stone on May 7, 2005. On June 28, 2006, Stone adopted her third son, Quinn Kelly. In 2005, during a television interview for her movie Basic Instinct 2, Stone hinted an interest in bisexuality, stating "Middle age is an open-minded period". Stone has said that in the past she's "dated" girls. While filming Basic Instinct, her best girlfriend was there to hold her hand out of camera range during some of the scenes. And in a biography, Naked Instinct, author Frank Sanello details a sexual liaison with a woman in the bathroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel. In an interview on the Michael Parkinson talk show in England on March 18, 2006, she said she was "straight". However, in January 2008, she was quoted as saying, "Everybody is bisexual to an extent. Now men act like women and it's difficult to have a relationship because I like men in that old-fashioned way. I like masculinity and, in truth, only women do that now". It has been rumored that Stone has recently been dating Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson, host of The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. For many years it was believed that Sharon Stone was a member of Mensa, but in April 2002, she admitted she was not, and had never been, a member of the high-IQ society. Jim Blackmore of Mensa said, "It's delightful to finally see Ms. Stone admit that she's not and never has been a member of our society. But then she goes on to say, 'I went to a Mensa school.' Not so." Blackmore said that would not have been possible as there have been no Mensa schools since the early 1960s. |
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