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MILAN. — At 66, Hollywood superstar Sharon Stone has done it all but it wasn’t always this good for her.
She still remembers the dark days.
Especially that day when artery ruptured, causing a bleed on her brain and a stroke.
She says she was given a 1% chance of survival and had to re-learn basics like walking and talking.
“When I was on the floor and couldn’t get an ambulance.
“When I went home [from hospital] and I read in People magazine that we wouldn’t know for 30 days if I was going to live or die.”
She goes on to list the challenges she has faced since, including financial troubles and a custody battle with her ex-husband Phil Bronstein over their adopted son Roan.
Stone explains she had not fully recognised she had come through it all.
“It’s been that long and it’s OK… it’s over… everybody made it to shore,” she says. Stone was propelled to superstardom by her performance in the 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct. It saw her branded a sex symbol, and she has spoken about being typecast as a result.
But she used her fame to raise large sums of money for philanthropic causes, including for research into HIV and Aids.
“I’m really proud that I took this idea that was made up in this movie — that I was really sexy — and used it to fight a disease where people were getting punished for their sexuality, because I was getting punished for mine,” she says.
Stone’s work on HIV and Aids earned her the 2013 Nobel Peace Summit Award — an accolade given by Nobel Peace Laureates that recognises cultural and entertainment figures who have contributed to social justice and peace.
Last year she was honoured as Global Citizen of the Year by the United Nations Correspondents Association.
After Basic Instinct, Stone went on to win a Golden Globe and receive an Oscar nomination for best actress in Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film Casino.
As well as her charity work, Stone has also been outspoken on politics, including her opposition to US President-elect Donald Trump.
“I see the world a little bit differently than a lot of my country. That doesn’t mean I’m not a patriot,” she says.
But she says she will “respect the office of the President… because that is what a democracy does”.
Now, however, she has begun a new chapter as a successful painter, exhibiting and selling her art around the world.
Her new focus on painting began during the pandemic. She works in a studio next to her home in Los Angeles.
Her artworks are bold and impressionistic, and — in her own words — “very large”. This, she explains, is partly because she was inspired by an aunt who painted murals on the walls of her house — and partly because she can’t see well enough to paint small.
She says she doesn’t envisage what the final creation will look like as she paints. “I’m just in it so deeply,” she says. “It’s so immersive. It’s just wonderful.” — BBC.
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