Sharon Vonne Stone was born on March 10, 1958, to Irish-American parents in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Her strict father was a factory worker and her mother a homemaker. She was the second of four children (she has two brothers and one sister), and extremely bright, entering the State University of Pennsylvania at the age of 15. Her IQ is 154, and she was told at an early age that she would fare very well as an attorney. Her first love, however, was the black and white cinema of bygone eras. She loved Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and was mesmerized by their celluloid magic. As a child, she put on theatrical productions in the family’s two-car garage before an audience of neighbors seated at a picnic table. At the age of 17, she entered the Miss Pennsylvania beauty contest and won. She soon became a successful Ford model appearing in both commercials and print ads.
She moved to New York in 1977 and made her film debut in Woody Allen’s “Stardust Memories” (1980). Her first speaking part came in 1981 in Wes Craven’s film, “Deadly Blessing.” Her big break came in “Total Recall” (1990) with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and she also posed nude for “Playboy Magazine” at this time. The role that shot her to stardom came in 1992 when she portrayed a murderous novelist named Catherine Tramell opposite Michael Douglas in “Basic Instinct.” The role earned her a Golden Globe nomination for “Best Actress.” After a few more roles that were mostly unrewarding for her, she hit it big in 1995 as the beautiful but drug-crazed wife of Robert di Niro in “Casino.” For her performance, she received her very first Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.
Sharon Stone has been married several times and with her last husband, newspaperman Phil Bronstein, adopted a little boy named Roan Joseph in 2000. His first name is Celtic for “seal” and his middle name is a tribute to her father. She has had her share of medical problems, suffering from both asthma and diabetes. Her work is top notch and she remains one of the finest actresses of this era, not to mention one of the most beautiful.
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