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How Sharon Stone Lived Twice

A well-done sexual picture is worth a thousand words for the entertainment industry like the story of Sharon Stone based on sex, lies and a videotape.

By Nadya Chishty-Mujahid | May 2021

Although they are not necessarily Scandinavian, certain Hollywood starlets display the type of frosty Nordic looks that lend themselves to truly beautiful screen photography. Three names that come to mind are Grace Kelly, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Sharon Stone. Their chiseled features, excellent but sensual figures and hypnotic light eyes make them commanding and lovely screen presences regardless of the role concerned. Think Pfeiffer in Dangerous Liaisons and Kelly in The Swan. And Stone in the now notorious Basic Instinct.

Small wonder then that in her brutally honest and riveting memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, Sharon Stone has described how she has almost consistently had to battle her way through the patriarchal screen industry that, for better or for worse, regarded her as a sex object and femme fatale par excellence. Jaded members of humanity might cynically roll their eyes and state that in a multi-million dollar industry a producer or director wanting to make screen profits will push an actress to her limits in unconscionable ways and Stone should hence have become used to it. A case in point is Nicole Kidman who did hundreds of scene retakes before Stanley Kubrick professed himself satisfied with her performance in the orgiastic, but brilliant, Eyes Wide Shut.

Moreover, a well-done sexual picture is worth a thousand words for the entertainment industry, and no one who has viewed it can ever forget the scene in Basic Instinct where Catherine Trammell (played capably by Stone) uncrosses her legs during an investigational examination into homicide and displays an undeniably alluring vulva. Stone claims that this move was made without her consent, although in her memoir she grimly notes that film producers coerced her into sleeping with co-stars in order to produce better chemistry on set. Again, it can be argued that forcing an actress to turn into a prostitute for the purposes of film success is a grossly unethical move, but Stone’s experiences were hardly unique, neither the first nor the last insofar as the psycho-sexual harassment of women actresses is concerned.

But the memoir also reveals that Stone is essentially a survivor. Hardened by a working-class childhood in Pennsylvania, she had to cope in her early years with being molested by her grandfather, unbeknownst to her parents. In addition to screen industry harassment, she had to cope with severe miscarriages (occasionally while making a film) but grit her teeth and moved forward in spite of the trauma. Again, small wonder that she ended up suffering (most likely due to years of mental tension) from a life-threatening brain hemorrhage twenty years ago. This episode opens her memoir, and shows that she is nothing if not gutsy. She narrowly survived a major car accident once by having the presence of mind to drive into a tree rather than into water. She credits her stunt double from Basic Instinct for providing her with the driving skills that came in blessedly handy. Indeed, she led the life of a tomboy in her early years and was far from the delectable screen femme fatale that she turned into later. It is to her credit that she took psycho-sexual bullying in her stride, her focus never deviating from making the most of her acting ambitions.

michelleAlways intensely guarded about the privacy of her personal life, Stone once told a journalist that while she would grant her an interview, the writer was not to include more than one single detail about her home—the detail chosen was that she had a basketball hoop in her driveway. Family has always been important to Stone and the memoir touchingly notes how they rallied round her during her time of health crisis. Social causes moved her; her horrific stay in an African hospital while miscarrying compelled her to engage in sincere AIDS activism since most of the people suffering around her were seriously ill HIV patients. Again, it is a credit to her indomitable spirt that her own traumas made her more empathetic towards the trials and tribulations of others. She could easily have gone the other way and shut herself off from caring completely, but she chose not to.

Lest one assume that Stone lacks the ability to relax and let her hair down, let us not forget her hilarious portrayal of a writer’s muse in the comedy, The Muse. A particularly memorable scene is where she makes the writer put her up at a swanky hotel then sobs down the line at him because the hotel cannot prepare a Waldorf salad for her on demand! A woman of spirit and resilience she was a more multi-faceted actress than many give her credit for being. Had she been younger she could have easily played former swimming champion, Princess Charlene of Monaco onscreen, and done a much more true-to-life job than the relatively plain Nicole Kidman did as Princess Grace. Having come full circle to the late princess, one can end by quoting a comment she once made to the young Diana Spencer, while the late royal was still engaged. A comment that could have applied at any point to Sharon Stone’s own life: ‘Don’t worry, dear, it’ll only get worse.’

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