Sharon Stone Biography

The daughter of working-class parents in a North Pennsylvania town, American actress Sharon Stone was both the recipient of a scholarship to Penn State’s Edinboro University and a winner of local beauty pageants.

Studying fine arts and creative writing, Stone began a successful modelling career in the late 1970s, becoming the face of Diet Coke, Revlon and Clairol.

Starting with a small role in Woody Allen’s ‘Stardust Memories’ in 1980, Stone took some time to escape "blonde-bimbo" typecasting.

Her break arrived in 1990, when she starred opposite Arnold Swarzenegger in ‘Total Recall’. However, it was her role in ‘Basic Instinct’, two years later, that truly made her a star.

In the 1992 film, Stone played a bisexual nymphet and alleged serial killer, and caused outrage with her infamous ‘no-knickers’ police interrogation scene.

However, she soon found herself typecast, with films such as ‘Slivers’ and ‘The Specialist’ mining her erotic reputation, and not much else.

It was not until 1995, and Stone’s role in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Casino’, that she began to be recognised for her acting skills alone. She won an Oscar-nomination, as well as a Golden Globe, for the role.

Subsequent outings including the futuristic western ‘The Quick and the Dead’, the remake ‘Diabolique’ and ‘Last Dance’, but all were relative box-office flops.

Whilst gaining an enviable reputation for off-screen glamour and opinionated wit, her screen career was not in great shape. Voicing the animated feature ‘Antz’ was a good move, but films such as ‘The Mighty’ and ‘Sphere’, while warmly received, were further popular failures.

In 1999, she appeared in a remake of ‘Gloria’, which received the worst reviews of her career, from which she has still to bounce back, despite stronger showings in ‘The Muse’, and, opposite Jeff Bridges, in ‘Simpatico’.