Sharon Stone

Sharon Stone (birthname: Sharon Vonne Stone) is one of her generation’s iconic sex symbol movie stars, most memorably associated with intelligent, wily femme fatales. Stone made her first mark in supporting roles in Wes Craven’s slasher movie, Deadly Blessing (1981); the Nancy Meyers/Charles Shyer comedy-drama, Irreconcilable Differences (1984), co-starring Ryan O’Neal, Shelley Long, and Drew Barrymore; in a co-starring role with Richard Chamberlain in the J. Lee Thompson-directed version of H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1985) and its sequel, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986); in another sequel, Warner Bros.’ comedy hit, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987); opposite stars Steven Seagal and Pam Grier in the Andrew Davis-directed Above the Law (1988); and in the Joel Silver-produced cop movie, Action Jackson (1988), with Carl Weathers and Craig T. Nelson.

Stone’s early breakthrough arrived when she was cast by filmmaker Paul Verhoeven to play opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall (1990), grossing a strong $261.4 million return for Carolco Pictures/Tri-Star Pictures, followed by Stone getting her first starring role in director-writer Frank De Felitta’s psychological thriller, Scissors (1991).

Sharon Stone gained movie-star status by reuniting with director Paul Verhoeven as co-star with Michael Douglas of the blockbuster erotic thriller, Basic Instinct (1992), grossing $353 million (on $49 million costs). Stone solidified her status as the leading face of the erotic thriller when she starred in the Philip Noyce-directed version of Ira Levin’s book, Sliver (1993), with William Baldwin and Tom Berenger, eventually turning a profit for Paramount Pictures.

Stone then co-starred with Sylvester Stallone in producer Jerry Weintraub’s Warner Bros. action movie, The Specialist (1994), with James Woods, Rob Steiger, and Eric Roberts under Luis Llosa’s direction. Stone became one of the first female stars (and co-producer) of a revisionist Western with the Sam Raimi-directed The Quick and the Dead (1995), co-starring Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lance Henriksen, and Gary Sinise, and released to poor box office by Sony Pictures Releasing.

Sharon Stone delivered her most dazzling performance in Martin Scorsese’s Vegas-based masterpiece, Casino (1995), earning Stone her first Oscar nomination and co-starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Don Rickles, Kevin Pollak, and James Woods, eliciting good box office ($116 million globally) and exultant reviews. Stone returned to psychological thriller mode as star opposite Isabelle Adjani in Warner Bros.’ pale remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic, Diabolique (1996), with Chazz Palminteri, Kathy Bates, Spalding Gray, and Allen Garfield.

Stone joined the voice cast for her first animated movie, DreamWorks Animation’s debut feature, Antz (1998), with Woody Allen, Dan Aykroyd, Anne Bancroft, Jane Curtin, Danny Glover, Gene Hackman, Jennifer Lopez, Paul Mazursky, Sylvester Stallone, and Christopher Walken, and then Stone starred in her second sci-fi movie, Sphere (1998), co-starring Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Peter Coyote, and Liev Schreiber, but losing money for Warner Bros. Stone earned a Golden Globe supporting actress nomination for her performance in Miramax Films’ coming-of-age The Mighty (1998), with Gena Rowlands, Gillian Anderson, Harry Dean Stanton, Kieran Culkin, and James Gandolfini, under Peter Chelsom’s direction.

Sharon Stone was picked by director-writer-star Albert Brooks as one of his co-stars in his comedy, The Muse (1999), with Andie MacDowell and Jeff Bridges, with original music by Elton John, and released by October Films. Stone starred under Sidney Lumet’s direction in his solid but money-losing remake of John Cassavetes’ Gloria (1999), with George C. Scott, Jeremy Northam, and Cathy Moriarty, and then Stone co-starred with Dennis Quaid, Stephen Dorff, Juliette Lewis, Kristen Stewart and Christopher Plummer in producer-director Mike Figgis’ thriller, Cold Creek Manor (2003), for Disney/Touchstone Pictures.

Stone appeared in Warner Bros.’ widely lambasted DC Comics superhero movie, Catwoman (2004), starring Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Lambert Wilson, and Frances Conroy, which Stone followed up with one of her few American indie movies, director-writer Jim Jarmusch’s comedy-drama, Broken Flowers (2005), with Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Conroy, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, Julie Delpy, and Chloë Sevigny, and which won the Grand Prix in the official competition of the Cannes film festival before its $47 million gross for Focus Features. Stone revived her role as serial killer novelist Catherine in the badly received sequel, Basic Instinct 2 (2006), with David Morrissey, Charlotte Rampling, and David Thewlis under Michael Caton-Jones’ direction for MGM.

Sharon Stone continued a busy year with a supporting role in director-writer Nick Cassavetes’ ensemble crime movie, Alpha Dog (2006), co-starring Ben Foster, Shawn Hatosy, Emile Hirsch, Bruce Willis, Justin Timberlake, and Anton Yelchin, and premiering at the Sundance film festival before a good $32 million release by Universal Pictures. Stone then jumped into another ensemble movie, director-writer-actor Emilio Estevez’s political biopic, Bobby (2006), about the events leading up to the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, with Harry Belafonte, Nick Cannon, Laurence Fishburne, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, and Elijah Wood, and released to poor business by MGM/Weinstein Company.

Stone was a major supporting actor in the biopic of porn star Linda Lovelace, Lovelace (2013), starring Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Hank Azaria, Adam Brody, Bobby Cannavale, James Franco, Debi Mazar, Chris Noth, Chloë Sevigny, and Juno Temple, under Rob Epstein’s and Jeffrey Friedman’s co-direction, and which premiered at the Sundance film festival. Stone was cast by director/writer/star John Turturro in his indie comedy, Fading Gigolo (2013), starring Woody Allen, Vanessa Paradis, Liev Schreiber, and Sofia Vergara, and which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and released by Millennium Entertainment.

Sharon Stone made her presence felt in director/producer/co-star James Franco’s striking, acclaimed biopic comedy, The Disaster Artist (2017), with Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, and Jackie Weaver, and Oscar-nominated for best-adapted screenplay after premiering at the South by Southwest film festival and a good $30 million A24/Warner Bros. release. Stone made one of her strangest film appearances as herself in the fascinating concert movie by Martin Scorsese about a rollicking Bob Dylan concert tour, Rolling Thunder Revue (2019), in which Stone claims incorrectly that she had a flirtation with Bob Dylan when she was 19 (she was 17 at the time of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue).

Stone was picked for a supporting role in the Steven Soderbergh-directed comedy-drama about “The Panama Papers,” The Laundromat (2019), starring Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Jeffrey Wright, Robert Patrick, and David Schwimmer, and which premiered at the Venice film festival before a limited theatrical release before a streaming premiere by Netflix. Stone has been a producer on director-writer Justin Arana’s documentary, My Name Is Water (2014) and director-writer Susan Walter’s comedy-drama, All I Wish (2017), co-starring Stone, Tony Goldwyn, Famke Janssen, and Ellen Burstyn.

Sharon Stone has been an executive producer on several movies, beginning with filmmaker Larry Clark’s bold film about skateboarders, Wassup Rockers (2005); writer-director Ryan Eslinger’s drama, When a Man Falls (2007); co-writer-director Patrick Sisam’s comedy-drama, The Year of Getting to Know Us (2008), with Jimmy Fallon, Stone, Tom Arnold, Lucy Liu; co-writer/director Emmanuel Itier’s documentary, The Invocation (2010), narrated by Stone; the Gabriela Tagliavini-directed U.S./Mexico border drama, Border Run (2012), co-starring Billy Zane and Stone; Itier’s documentary, Femme (2013); the contemporary Western, Running Wild (2017), co-starring Stone and Tommy Flanagan; the Oliver McGarvey-directed documentary, Romantic Road (2017); Itier’s documentary, The Cure (2018), with Stone and Mark Wahlberg; and Itier’s documentary, We the People (2018), with Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deepak Chopra, and Jacques Attali.