What Happened to Sharon Stone?

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Sharon Stone.Image via Wikimedia Commons

The Rise to Fame

Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress. Known for primarily playing femmes fatales and women of mystery in film and television, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1990s. Her accolades include a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a nomination for an Academy Award. She was named Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2005 (Commander in 2021).

After modeling in television commercials and print advertisements, Stone made her film debut as an extra in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980) and played her first speaking part in Wes Craven's Deadly Blessing (1981). In the 1980s, she appeared in such films as Irreconcilable Differences (1984), King Solomon's Mines (1985), Action Jackson (1988), and Above the Law (1988). She had a breakthrough with her part in Paul Verhoeven's science fiction film Total Recall (1990), before rising to international recognition when she portrayed Catherine Tramell in Verhoeven's erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992), for which she earned her first Golden Globe Award nomination.

Stone's performance as a trophy wife in Martin Scorsese's crime drama Casino (1995) earned her a Golden Globe Award along with a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other notable films include Sliver (1993), The Specialist (1994), The Quick and the Dead (1995), Catwoman (2004), Broken Flowers (2005), Alpha Dog (2006), Bobby (2006), Fading Gigolo (2013), The Disaster Artist (2017), Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019), and The Laundromat (2019).

The Peak Years

On television, Stone has featured in the ABC miniseries War and Remembrance (1987), the HBO television film If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000), Steven Soderbergh's Mosaic (2017) and Ryan Murphy's Ratched (2020). She made guest appearances in The Practice (2004) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2010), winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for the former.

Early life

Sharon Vonne Stone was born on March 10, 1958, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, to Methodist parents Dorothy Marie (née Lawson), an accountant, and Joseph William Stone II, a tool and die manufacturer and former factory worker. She has three siblings. She is mostly of Scots-Irish and English descent. She has some Irish ancestry. In a 2013 interview with Conan O'Brien, she stated that her Irish ancestors arrived in the United States during the Great Famine. She has a reported IQ of 154. Stone was considered academically gifted as a child and entered the second grade when she was five years old. Stone said that she and her sister were both sexually abused as children by their maternal grandfather, in an interview to The New York Times in March 2021, while promoting her memoir The Beauty of Living Twice. At 14, her neck was badly injured while breaking a horse when the animal bucked as it charged toward a washing line.

What Changed

She graduated from Saegertown High School in Saegertown, Pennsylvania, in 1975. Stone was admitted to Edinboro State College on a creative writing scholarship at age 15, but quit college and moved to New York City to become a fashion model. Inspired by Hillary Clinton, in 2016 Stone went back to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania to complete her degree.

Modeling and early screen appearances (1976-1989)

While attending Edinboro State College, Stone won the title of Miss Crawford County, Pennsylvania, and in 1976, was a candidate for Miss Pennsylvania. One of the pageant judges told her to quit college and move to New York City to become a fashion model. Stone left Meadville and moved in with an aunt in New Jersey, and by 1977, she had been signed by Ford Modeling Agency in New York City. She soon moved to Europe, living for a year in Milan and then in Paris. While living there, she decided to quit modeling and pursue acting. "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. At 20, Stone was cast for a brief role in Allen's dramedy Stardust Memories (1980) and had a speaking part a year later in the horror film Deadly Blessing (1981).

French director Claude Lelouch cast Stone in the musical epic Les Uns et les Autres (1982), starring James Caan, but she was on screen for two minutes and did not appear in the credits. She secured guest-spots on the television series Silver Spoons (1982), Bay City Blues (1983), Remington Steele (1983), Magnum, P.I. (1984), and T. J. Hooker (1985); played a starlet who breaks up the marriage of a successful director and his screenwriter wife in the drama Irreconcilable Differences (1984), opposite Ryan O'Neal, Shelley Long and a young Drew Barrymore; and starred as a resourceful woman teaming up with a fortune hunter (played by Richard Chamberlain) in the action-centered King Solomon's Mines (1985) and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986), a light, comedic take on the Indiana Jones film series, which were poorly received by critics and audiences. In his review for King Solomon's Mines, Walter Goodman of The New York Times considered that Stone was "up to date as a spunky, sexy, smart-talking heroine with an effective right hook" but felt that the story was "lost in the effects". For her performance in Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, she received her first Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actress.

Where Sharon Stone Is Now

Stone obtained the role of Janice Henry in the ABC miniseries War and Remembrance (1987), the sequel to the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War, based on the 1978 novel of the same name written by Herman Wouk. Through the remainder of the 1980s, she appeared as a reporter in the comedy Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), an attractive but mysterious woman with a hidden agenda in the thriller Cold Steel (1987), the wife of an ex-CIA agent in the crime film Above the Law (1988) and the ill-fated wife of a successful businessman in the action film Action Jackson (1988).

Breakthrough and Basic Instinct (1990-1992)

In Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall (1990), a science fiction action film opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stone played the seemingly loving wife of a construction worker. The film received favorable reviews and made $261.2 million worldwide, giving Stone's career a major boost, leading to her being cast in five feature films released throughout 1991. She played what Roger Ebert described as the "bad girl" in the romantic comedy He Said, She Said, a sexually repressed woman in the psychological thriller Scissors, a wealthy blonde in the crime drama Diary of a Hitman, a provocative young photojournalist in the thriller Year of the Gun and the agent and former lover of a writer in the neo-noir Where Sleeping Dogs Lie.

Legacy

In another Verhoeven film, the erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992), she took on the role that made her a star, playing Catherine Tramell, a brilliant bisexual novelist and alleged serial killer. Several actresses at the time turned down the role, mostly because of the nudity required.

Critical response towards Basic Instinct was mixed, but Stone received critical acclaim for her "star-making performance"; Peter Travers of Rolling Stone remarked that "Verhoeven's cinematic wet dream delivers the goods, especially when Sharon Stone struts on with enough come-on carnality to singe the screen," and observed of the actress' portrayal: "Stone, a former model, is a knockout; she even got a rise out of Ah-nold in Verhoeven's Total Recall. But being the bright spot in too many dull movies (He Said, She Said; Irreconcilable Differences) stalled her career. Though Basic Instinct establishes Stone as a bombshell for the 1990s, it also shows she can nail a laugh or shade an emotion with equal aplomb." Australian critic Shannon J. Harvey of The Sunday Times called the film "one of the best films of the early 1990s, doing more for female empowerment than any feminist rally. Stone – in her star-making performance – is as hot and sexy as she is ice-pick cold." For the part, Stone earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, four MTV Movie Awards nominations, and a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst New Star for her "tribute to Theodore Cleaver". The film also became one of the most financially successful productions of the 1990s, grossing US$352.9 million worldwide.

Leading lady status (1993-1999)

In 1993, Stone played a femme fatale in the erotic thriller Sliver, based on Ira Levin's eponymous novel about the mysterious occurrences in a privately owned New York City high-rise apartment building. The film was heavily panned by critics and earned Stone a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actress but became a commercial success, grossing US$116.3 million at the international box office. She also made a cameo appearance in the action film Last Action Hero (1993), reuniting with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1994, Stone appeared as the wife of an architect opposite Richard Gere in the drama Intersection, and as a woman who entices a bomb expert she is involved with into destroying the criminal gang that killed her family, alongside Sylvester Stallone, in the action thriller The Specialist. While Intersection found limited success, The Specialist made US$170.3 million worldwide. For her work in both films, she won a Golden Raspberry Award and a Stinkers Bad Movie Award for Worst Actress, but was nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Female for The Specialist.

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