Due to her roles in adult-themed movies such as Basic Instinct and Sliver, Sharon Stone has been described as a “tough-talking, no underwear, voyeuristic, cool as ice, sex symbol” with The Sunday Times describing Basic Instinct as “one of the 1990s finest productions, doing more for female empowerment than any feminist rally.”
But, despite being “as hot and sexy as she is ice-pick cold,” Sharon Stone is also a very talented actress, receiving critical acclaim for her performances on both the big and small screen.
Stone has also lived an interesting and at times controversial life, so without further ado, below are some facts you probably didn’t know about this legendary Hollywood star.
20. She was extremely academically gifted as a child
Born Sharon Vonne Stone on 10th March 1958, Sharon Stone was born to an accountant and a factory worker, and is of part Irish ancestry.
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She was very academically gifted as a child, and was enrolled in second grade when she was only five years old.
According to the actress, she was ‘like, 40 at birth’, and was advanced way beyond her years.
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‘When I wasn’t even a year old, I spoke, I was potty trained, I walked and talked. That was it’.
Stone explained that when she attended school she ‘drove everybody crazy’, as they realised she had ‘popped out as an adult’.
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19. She was a fashion model before she became an actress
Like many in the movie industry, Stone was set on a very different path before she embarked on an a career in acting.
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A beauty pageant judge told Stone to quit school and move to New York to become a fashion model, advice which led her to be signed by Ford Modeling Agency.
However, she later decided to quit modeling and become an actress, and she made her debut as an extra in Woody Allen’s 1980 comedy drama Stardust Memories.
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Even before her modelling career, Stone was always determined to provide for herself, and had a variety of part-time jobs as a teen.
This included a stint at her local MacDonalds where she served behind the counter.
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18. She posed nude for Playboy magazine
Stone has appeared on over 300 magazine covers over the years, and in July 1990 she bared all for Playboy magazine.
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The Playboy shoot coincided with the release of Total Recall, and the photos saw Stone showing off the muscles she had developed whilst preparing for the movie!
She has also been placed on Empire’s Sexiest Stars Of All Time list several times, as well as being placed at number 24 in Playboy’s Sexiest Stars of the Century.
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As a child, Stone once told her parents she wanted to be the new Marilyn Monroe. And it seems she kind of got her wish!
in 1992, she was voted People’s Most Beautiful Person, as well as being placed on a list of Most Interesting People.
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17. Total Recall was her career’s first real boost
Despite starring in a number of different movies, including Irreconcilable Differences in 1984, King Solomon’s Mines in 1985, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold in 1986 and Above the Law in 1988 (in which she played Steven Seagal’s wife), it was an over the top sci-fi classic that gave Stone’s career its first major boost.
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Released in 1990, Total Recall it was at the time one of the most expensive movies ever made, and in it Stone played Lori Quaid, the (seemingly) loving wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Douglas Quaid, who was later revealed to be an agent sent to monitor him.
Stone was dedicated to the role, and through herself into completely inhabiting her character.
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So much so in fact that Schwarzenegger personally complemented her on her performance, referring to her as ‘the female terminator’.
Stone performed many of her own stunts in the film, and as a result was crowned an honorary member of the Stuntwoman Association.
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16. She claims that Basic Instinct’s most revealing scene was shot without her consent
The scene in 1992’s Basic Instinct where Stone uncrosses and crosses her legs is one of the most infamous in movie history.
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However, in a 2006 interview, she claimed that the nudity was filmed without her knowledge and consent.
Stone said that that the movie’s director Paul Verhoeven asked her to remove her white underwear only because it was reflecting the light, reassuring her that only shadow would be visible.
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Stone has said that it wasn’t until she first saw the film in a screening room with a test audience that she realised that her leg crossing scene involved nudity.
On viewing the scene she slapped Verhoeven in the face and left the room, although the director has always strongly denied Stone’s claims, saying that she was fully aware of what would be involved.
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15. She really hated one of her co-stars
In a rather extreme case of off-screen hate, Stone and William Baldwin were at loggerheads right from the start of production on the 1993 erotic thriller Sliver.
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Reports suggested that the couple hated each other at first sight, and couldn’t even bear to be in the same room together.
It was also rumoured that Stone deliberately bit Baldwin’s tongue during filming of a kissing scene.
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The pair openly expressed their distain for one another, and would often request to be filmed separately wherever possible.
Baldwin even went so far as to tell a camera operator that Stone had ‘thin lips, okay breath’ after filming a kissing scene.
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14. She won two Golden Raspberry Worst Actress awards in two years
Stone won the Golden Raspberry’s Bad Actress award for two years in a row.
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The first was for the drama Intersection, which received universally negative reviews and flopped at the Box Office.
Her second Worst Actress award was for her performance alongside Sylvester Stallone in the action thriller The Specialist.
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Despite the movie also receiving shockingly bad reviews, it actually made $170 million worldwide.
However, it was only the next year Stone gave perhaps the greatest performance of her entire career…
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13. She has also been nominated for an Academy Award
Can you name the 1995 movie for which Stone won the Golden Globe award for Best Actress, and was also nominated for an Academy Award in the same category?
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It was Martin Scorcese’s brilliant crime epic Casino, in which Stone played former prostitute Ginger McKenna, who marries Robert De Niro’s Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein.
Stone only narrowly landed the part, as her character was originally set to be played by Madonna.
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Once again, there was tension behind the scenes, with Stone apparently taking a dislike to costar James Woods.
According to fellow cast members, she would encourage child star Erika Von Tagen to constantly annoy the actor in order to get a rise out of him.
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12. She appeared naked in a magazine at the age of 57
In 2015, when she was 57 years old, Stone posed naked for the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine.
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In an interview that featured in the same issue, Stone was quoted as saying ‘at a certain point you start asking yourself, what really is sexy?’.
‘It’s not just the elevation of your boobs, it’s being present and having fun and liking yourself enough to like the person that’s with you.’
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Stone’s perspective on her body and life in general changed after she underwent surgery to fix a ruptured artery.
‘I became more emotionally intelligent,’ Stone explained. ‘I chose to work very hard to open up other parts of my mind.’
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11. She has three adopted sons
In February 1998, Stone married her second husband Phil Bronstein, a newspaper editor, and they later adopted a baby boy called Roan.
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Sadly Stone and Bronstein divorced in 2004, but she adopted her second son Laird in 2005 and her third, Quinn, in 2006.
Stone and then-husband Bronstein had tried to conceive for several years, resulting in two heartbreaking miscarriages.
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However, Stone has stated that she always wanted to adopt, saying ‘even when I was young, I used to look up how to adopt.’
She currently lives with all of her three sons in West Hollywood, California.
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10. She was involved in a legal dispute
Being a famous movie star means the likelihood of you being rather well off is pretty high. And what to do with all this money?
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Hire someone to clean your house so you don’t have to, of course! However, letting a stranger into your home can often end up with dire consequences.
In 2000, Stone’s former housekeeper was sentenced o 16 months imprisonment after pleading no contest to taking items from Stone’s home.
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This included $20,000 worth of evening gowns, as well as jewellery and other valuables.
The ex-housekeeper was ordered to pay $50,000 in restitutions, and we’re willing to bet she didn’t receive a glowing reference either!
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9. She accidentally caused her husband to need surgery
Back in 2001, Stone and then-husband Phil Bronstein took a trip to Los Angeles zoo. Stone had arranged a private tour as a surprise Father’s Day gift for Bronstein.
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Apparently, it had been his lifelong dream to see an Indonesian lizard up close.
However, the day soon turned to disaster when Bronstein was viciously attacked by a Komodo dragon.
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The attack occurred after Bronstein had removed his white socks, leading zookeepers to speculate that the five foot long lizard may have mistaken the shoes for the white rats it usually ate.
The attack caused serious damage, and Bronstein was forced to undergo foot surgery.
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8. She has a surprisingly high IQ
We’ve already mentioned how Stone was ‘born an adult’. But we bet most adults would struggle to top her impressive IQ score.
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As an elementary grade student, Stone was one of seven students chosen to enter a gifted program.
This school year was the first time gifted student programs were offered to rural elementary schools in Northwest Pennsylvania.
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In order to qualify for the program, students were required to possess and IQ in the upper 3%.
Stone surpassed the 130 IQ threshold and scored over 150, placing her in the upper 0.5% of IQ scores.
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7. Her acting career was kick-started by Muhammad Ali
Stone first met Muhammad Ali when she was just seventeen. She was taking part in the Miss Pennsylvania pageant when Ali made an appearance and introduced himself.
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Ali then called Stone’s father and offered her a part in the film he was working on.
The late boxing champ predicted the young Stone was destined for stardom.
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Initially, Stone’s father was skeptical, but Ali soon won him around.
‘You can not hide that girl under a bushed basket,’ he argued. ‘Her light is too bright’.
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6. She’s dedicated to maintaining her appearance
Stone has been open in the media about her appearance, and the steps she takes to keep herself in prime physical condition.
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‘If I have to diet, I’m gonna diet,’ Stone explained. ‘If I have to work out, I’m gonna work out’.
‘If I have to sleep upside down like a bat so I don’t look like a basset hound, that’s what I’m gonna do’.
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Stone also admitted to giving up her guilty pleasure to preserve her youthful appearance.
‘I think, at a certain point, it’s better for women to not have any alcohol because it can make your face, breasts and midsection very bloated.’
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5. She raises money for charitable causes
In January 2005, Stone attended the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
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At the end of the debate on ‘funding the war on poverty’, she stood up and made a startling gesture.
The star pledged $10,000, and asked fellow attendees to join her.
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Within five minutes, the group had raised nearly $100,000, not quite meeting her target of one million.
The money would go directly to the Global Fund to Fight Aids and Malaria, and would contribute to buying bed nets to prevent deaths from Malaria in the developing world.
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4. She received a humanitarian award
In 2000, Stone starred in If These Walls Could Talk alongside Ellen DeGeneres.
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The pair play a couple who desperately want to raise a child together.
As a result of her appearance in the movie, she was awarded a Humanitarian award.
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This was presented by the Human Rights Campaign, a well funded organisation specialising in gay and lesbian rights.
Stone also supports various other charities, including AIDS awareness organisation amfAR.
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3. She’s been engaged three times
One of the best things about being a movie star must surely be being able to date other celebrities, right?Well, Stone has certainly made the most of her select, yet incredibly good looking, dating pool.
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Stars she has dated include Jack Nicholson, Rick Rox, Christopher Peters and his dad, Jon Peters (yikes!). At the ripe old age of 26, Stone embarked on her first marriage to Michael Greenburg after just a few months of dating.
The marriage didn’t last long, with the couple separating after just a few years of marriage.
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The couple separated just three years later, Stone was set to tie the knot for the second time.
However, plans fell through before the actress and her ex-fiance, Bill MacDonald, could make it official. Stone then married Phil Bronstein in 1998, before divorcing in 2003.
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2. She was meant to star in The Flintstones
We all hear about stars who miss out on some seriously sought after projects. However, it’s rare that the character they missed out on is actually named after.
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Stone was set to appear in The Flintstones as a character called, you guessed it, Sharon Stone.
However, the actress dropped out of the film to work on The Specialist instead.
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After her departure, the character was renamed Rosetta Stone, and the real Stone was replaced by Halle Berry.
Stone and Berry would go on to work together ten years later in Catwoman.
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1. She was snubbed by others in the film industry
Stone was thrust into the spotlight at early age, and with this came the many perils of show business.
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‘I’ve been at this so long that I knew everyone in the business before I became famous, and I didn’t have any value to many of them,’ Stone explained.
Stone explained that once she became famous, the people who were ‘coarse and rude’ to her before started to change their attitude.
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The people who would treat her as though they had never met before started to acknowledge her existence.
Stone described the moment she noticed their change in attitude, saying ‘now I’m fabulous, they’re fabulous and isn’t fabulous we’re chatting’.
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