Happy Birthday Sharon Stone

Sharon Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She first achieved international recognition for her performance in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct.

Sharon, born in Meadville, Pennsylvania, was the second of four children. She is the daughter of Dorothy (Lawson), an accountant and homemaker, and Joseph Stone, a tool and die manufacturer.

Sharon graduated in 1975 from Saegertown High School in Pennsylvania.

Sharon won the title of Miss Crawford County in Meadville where one of the judges said she should quit school and move to New York City to become a fashion model.

In 1977 she left Meadville, moving in with an aunt in New Jersey. And within four days of her arrival, she was signed by Ford Modeling Agency in New York. After that she spent a few years modeling and appeared in TV commercials for Burger King, Clairol and Maybelline.

Sharon then decided to quit modeling and become an actress. While auditioning, she met Michelle Pfeiffer, who recognised her from the pageant she competed in, and the two became friends.

Sharon was cast for a brief but memorable role in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and then she appeared a year later in the horror movie Deadly Blessing (1981).

When French director Claude Lelouch saw Sharon in Stardust Memories, he was so impressed that he cast her in Les Uns et Les Autres (1982) starring James Caan. She was on screen for a mere two minutes and her name wasn't even mentioned in the credits.

Next came Irreconcilable Differences (1984), starring Ryan O'Neal, Shelley Long, and a young Drew Barrymore. Sharon played a starlet who breaks up the marriage of a successful director and his screenwriter wife. The highlight of Stone's performance was when her cocaine-addict character plays Scarlett O'Hara in a musical pitched as a remake of Gone with the Wind.

Through the rest of the 1980s she appeared in Action Jackson (1988), King Solomon's Mines (1985) and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1987).

She was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Actress for her performance in Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold.

She also played the wife of Steven Seagal in Above the Law (1988).

Also in 1988, Stone took over the role of Janice Henry for the filming of the miniseries War and Remembrance.

Her appearance in Total Recall (1990) with Arnold Schwarzenegger gave Stone's career a jolt. To coincide with the movie's release, she posed nude for Playboy, showing off the muscles she developed in preparation for the movie (she lifted weights and learned Tae Kwon Do).

In 1999, she was rated among the 25 sexiest stars of the century by Playboy.

The role that made her a star was that of Catherine Tramell, a brilliant, bisexual serial killer, in Basic Instinct (1992).

In November 1995, Sharon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6925 Hollywood Blvd. That same year, Empire chose her as one of the 100 sexiest stars in film history. In October 1997, she was ranked among the top 100 movie stars of all time by Empire.

In 1995, she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Dramatic Motion Picture for her role as "Ginger" in Martin Scorsese's Casino opposite Robert De Niro. She also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the role.

Sharon starred opposite actress Ellen DeGeneres in the 2001 HBO movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, in which she played a lesbian trying to start a family.

In 2003, she appeared in three episodes from the eighth season of The Practice. For her performances, she received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.

Stone attempted a return to the mainstream with a role in the film Catwoman (2004); however, the film was a critical and commercial flop.

After years of litigation, Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction was released on March 31, 2006. A reason for a long delay in releasing the film was reportedly Stone's dispute with the filmmakers over the nudity in the movie; she wanted more, while they wanted less.

She appeared in the drama Alpha Dog opposite Bruce Willis, playing Olivia Mazursky, the mother of a real-life murder victim. Stone wore a fatsuit for the role.

In February 2007, Stone found her role as a clinically depressed woman in her latest film, When a Man Falls in the Forest, uplifting, as it challenged what she called "Prozac society."

In December 2006, she co hosted the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway together with Anjelica Huston. The concert was in honour of the Nobel Peace Prize winners Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank.

In 2007, she appeared in a television commercial demonstrating the symptoms of a stroke.

Sharon lives in Beverly Hills, California, and owns a ranch in New Zealand. In March 2006, she traveled to Israel to promote peace in the Middle East through a press conference with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres.