Sharon Stone

Sharon Stone was born Sharon Vonne Stone on March 10, 1958 in Meadville, Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh. She is an American actress, model (height: 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)), and producer with ancestral roots in Galway, Ireland. She came to international attention for her performance in the 1992 blockbuster film Basic Instinct, which caused controversy for its erotic content. She was one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood in the 1990s, until she moved to San Francisco to live with her husband and raise their adopted son. When that marriage dissolved, Stone returned to Los Angeles and resumed her film career.

Early life and education

Stone was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania, USA, a farm town north of Pittsburgh, in which the number-one occupation is milking cows. The second of four children, she is the daughter of Joe and Dorothy Stone, who were blue collar workers. It has been said that her parents raised her with feminist values. "My dad never raised me to believe that being a woman inhibited any of my choices or my possibilities to succeed. To be a feminist like Dad in that blue-collar, middle-class world is a big stand," said Sharon.

Related Topics:
Meadville - Pennsylvania - USA - Pittsburgh - Feminist

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She was a smart and ambitious child. She has described herself as "a nerdy, ugly duckling who sat in the back of the closet with a flashlight and read. I was never a kid. I walked and talked at 10 months. I started school in the second grade when I was five, a real weird, academically driven kid, not at all interested in being social. Recess was a drag until I realized I didn't have to play, that I could lean up against a wall and read." Most of the kids disliked her because she was standoffish and didn't play children's games. One day on the playground she announced, "I am the new Marilyn Monroe." Her mother said "Sharon has been posing from the day she arrived. She came out posing."

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As a young woman, her IQ was tested and rated at a high level of 154 points. After skipping a grade in school, she was involuntarily transferred from Saegertown High to Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, enrolling at the young age of 15.

Related Topics:
Saegertown - Edinboro University

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Because she was very self-conscious of her looks, to the point that one biographer said she suffered from "a textbook case of dysmorphic body image, her uncle bribed her with $100 to enter a local beauty contest in order to improve her self-esteem. She entered the contest because she needed the money to help pay her college tuition. She lost the contest, but one of the judges encouraged her to enter the Miss Pennsylvania contest, which she declined. Instead, she entered the county contest and won the title of Miss Crawford County in Meadville. One of the pageant judges said she should quit school and move to New York to become a model. When her mother heard this, she agreed, and in 1977 Stone left Meadville, moving in with an aunt in New Jersey. Within four days of her arrival in New Jersey, she was signed by the elite Ford modeling agency in New York.

Related Topics:
Dysmorphic body image - Miss Pennsylvania - New York - 1977 - New Jersey - Ford modeling agency

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