Jet Li Profile

Li Lianjie (born April 26, 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese martial artist, actor, Wushu champion, and international film star. After three years of intensive training with Wu Bin , Li won his first national championship for the Beijing Wushu Team. After retiring at age 17, he went on to win great acclaim in China as an actor making his debut with the film Shaolin Temple (1982). He went on to star in many critically acclaimed martial arts epic films, most notably the Once Upon a Time in China series, in which he portrayed folk hero Wong Fei Hung. His first role in a Hollywood film was as a villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), but his first Hollywood film leading role was in Romeo Must Die (2000). He has gone on to star in many Hollywood action films, most recently starring beside Jackie Chan in The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), and as the titular villain in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) opposite Brendan Fraser.

Early life & career as an athlete

Li was born Li Lianjie in Beijing, People's Republic of China. His father died when he was two. Li participated in the sport of wushu in the non-sparring event. He began his wushu on the Beijing Wushu Team, an athletic group organized to perform martial arts forms during the All China Games. As a member of the team, he received wushu training and went on to win fifteen gold medals and one silver medal in Chinese wushu championships:

• 1974: Youth National Athletic Hi Competition: broadsword form gold medal, optional empty-hand form gold medal, all-round gold medal;

• 1975: Third Chinese Wushu Championships: long fist form gold medal, spear form silver medal

• 1977: National Wushu Competition: long-fist form gold medal, broadsword form gold medal

• 1978: National Wushu Competition: long-fist form gold medal, optional empty-hand form gold medal, broadsword form gold medal, all-round gold medal;

• 1979: Fourth Chinese Wushu Championships: long-fist form gold medal, optional empty-hand form gold medal, broadsword form gold medal, sparring form gold medal, all-round gold medal.

All his optional empty-hand form medals were won with a form called fanzi yingzhaoquan (翻子鷹爪拳, Fanzi eagle claw).

Acting career

Chinese films

Jet Li's hand print and autograph at the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong.

The fame gained by his sports winnings led to a career as a martial arts film star, beginning in mainland China and then continuing into Hong Kong. Li acquired his screen name in 1982 in the Philippines when a publicity company thought his real name was too hard to pronounce. They likened his career to an aircraft, which likewise "takes-off" as quickly, so they placed the name Jet Li on the movie posters. Soon everybody was calling him by this new name, which was also based on the nickname, "Jet," given to him as a young student, due to his speed and grace when training with the Beijing Wushu team. He made his debut with the 1982 film Shaolin Temple. Some of his more famous Chinese films include:

• The Shaolin Temple series (1, 2 and 3), which are considered to be the films which sparked the rebirth of the real Shaolin Temple in Dengfeng, China;
• The Once Upon a Time in China series (Chinese title: Wong Fei Hung), about the legendary Chinese folk hero Master Wong Fei Hung.
• Fist of Legend (Chinese title: Jing Wu Ying Xiong), a remake of Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury (Jing Wu Men in Chinese, named after the martial arts school);
• The Fong Sai-Yuk films Fong Sai-Yuk and Fong Sai-Yuk II (1993), about another Chinese folk hero.

Li starred in the 1995 film, Shu dan long wei, known in English as "Courage of a Mouse and Power of a Dragon". The film, known in the US as either High Risk or Meltdown, portrays Jet Li as a cop who becomes disillusioned after his wife is murdered by crime lords. Along the way, he pairs up with a wacky sell-out actor, Frankie (played by Jacky Cheung), and proceeds to engage in a series of violent battles in a high-rise building. The setting is similar to that of Die Hard (which similarly, is known in China as Hu Dan Long Wei, or "Courage of a tiger and power of a dragon"). This movie is notable in that director Wong Jing had such a terrible experience working with Jackie Chan in Jing's previous film City Hunter that he chose to make Cheung's character a biting satire of Chan. Jet Li would later publicly apologize to Chan for taking part in it.

American films

In 1998, he made his American film debut in Lethal Weapon 4 which also marked the first time he had ever played a villain in a film. He agreed to do Lethal Weapon 4 after the producer Joel Silver promised to give him the leading role in his next film, Romeo Must Die (2000) which was a box office hit launching his career as a leading man in Hollywood.

Li turned down Chow Yun-Fat's role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) because he promised his wife that he would not make any films during her pregnancy.^[1] He also turned down the role of Seraph in The Matrix trilogy, based on his belief that the role was not one which required his skills and that the films were iconic and stunning enough without adding his name to the cast list.

In 2001, he appeared in two more Hollywood films: The One and Kiss of the Dragon opposite Bridget Fonda which did moderately well at the box office. In July 2001, Li agreed to produce and star in an action film with Jackie Chan which was to be released in 2002 or 2003, but no further news of their collaboration surfaced until 2006. In 2002, the period martial arts epic film Hero was released in the Chinese market. This film was both a commercial and critical success. In 2003 he reunited with producer Joel Silver for the action thriller film Cradle 2 the Grave where he starred alongside rapper DMX and fellow martial artist Mark Dacascos. In 2004 Li lent his likeness, voice and provided motion capture work for the video game Jet Li: Rise to Honor.

Li departed from his usual martial arts action films with the 2005 dramatic film, Unleashed (a.k.a. Danny the Dog), where he portrays an adult with the mentality of a child who has been raised like an animal. Although his martial arts skills were utilized extensively, it was a somber film with more depth than had been previously seen in Li's films, and co-starred dramatic actors Bob Hoskins and Morgan Freeman.

In 2006, the martial arts film epic Fearless, was released worldwide. Although he will continue to make martial arts films, Fearless is his last Wushu epic. In Fearless, he played Huo Yuanjia, the real-life founder of Chin Woo Athletic Association, who reportedly defeated foreign boxers and Japanese martial artists in publicized events at a time when China's power was seen as eroding. Together with the film Fist of Legend, Li has portrayed both Chen Zhen, the student and avenger of Huo Yuanjia, as well as Huo Yuanjia himself. Fearless was released on January 26, 2006 in Hong Kong, followed by a September 22, 2006 release in the United States where it reached second place in its first weekend.

“

I stepped into the martial arts movie market when I was only 16. I think I have proved my ability in this field and it won't make sense for me to continue for another five or 10 years. Huo Yuanjia is a conclusion to my life as a martial arts star.

”

Li has stated in an interview with the Shenzhen Daily newspaper that this will be his last martial arts epic, which is also stated in the film's television promotions. However, he plans to continue his film career in other genres. Specifically, he plans to continue acting in action and martial arts films; epic films deal more with religious and philosophical issues.

Li's 2007 Hollywood film, War, was released in August of that year, and re-teamed him with actor Jason Statham, who previously starred with him in The One, and action choreographer Corey Yuen. War raked in a disappointing $23M at the box office, becoming one of Li's lowest grossers in America; however, it was a hit on video, accumulating nearly $52M in rental revenue, more than doubling its box office take.^[2] With the exception of Romeo Must Die and the worldwide release of Hero, most of Jet's American films have been only modest hits like Kiss of the Dragon, The One, Unleashed, Cradle 2 the Grave, and the worldwide release of Fearless.

In late 2007 Li returned again to China to participate in the China/Hong Kong co production of the period war film The Warlords with Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro. This film with its focus on dramatics rather than martial arts netted Li the Hong Kong Film Award for best actor.

Li and fellow martial arts veteran Jackie Chan appeared together onscreen for the first time in The Forbidden Kingdom, which began filming in May 2007 and was released to critical and commercial success on April 18, 2008. The film was based on the legend of the Monkey King from the Chinese folk novel Journey to the West.^[3][4] Li also starred as the lead villain in the fantasy action film The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor with actors Brendan Fraser, Isabella Leong and Michelle Yeoh.^[5]

Personal life

Li's father died when he was 2, therefore leaving the family to struggle on its own, with Li being the youngest of two boys and two girls. His mother didn't let him do anything risky like riding a bicycle; he was nearly 15 when he rode a bike for the first time. In the summer when Li was eight his talent for wushu was noticed at a summer course at school, and he began his practice there. Li is a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism^[6]. His master is Lho Kunsang^[7] of the Drikung Kagyu lineage of the Kagyu school.^[8]

In 1987, Li married Beijing Wushu Team member and Shaolin Temple series co-star Huang Qiuyan,^[9] with whom he had two daughters. They divorced in 1990, Since 1999, he has been married to Nina Li Chi (born Li Zhi), a Shanghai-born, Hong Kong-based actress. He has two daughters with her as well, Jane (born 2000) and Jada (born 2002).

Li was in the Maldives when the tsunami hit during the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Although it was widely reported at the time that he had died during the disaster,^[10] he only suffered a minor foot injury, caused by a piece of floating furniture, while he was guiding his 4-year-old daughter Jane to safety. The two were by the pool and slightly above the beach when the wave came ashore.^[11]

According to Li, once, as a child, when the Chinese National Wushu Team went to perform for President Richard Nixon in the United States, he was asked by Nixon to be his personal bodyguard. Li replied, "I don't want to protect any individual. When I grow up, I want to defend my one billion Chinese countrymen!" which earned him much respect in his homeland.^[12]

Philanthropy

Li has been a "philanthropic ambassador" of the Red Cross Society of China since January 2006. He contributed 500,000 yuan ($62,500 USD) of box office revenues from his film Fearless to the Red Cross' psychological sunshine project, which promotes mental health.^[13]

In April 2007, touched by his near-death experience in the Maldives during the 2004 tsunami, Li formed his own nonprofit foundation called The One Foundation.^[14][15] The One Foundation supports international disaster relief efforts in conjunction with the Red Cross as well as other efforts, including mental health awareness and suicide prevention. Since the starting of the foundation, Li has been involved with seven disasters, including the Sichuan earthquake.^[16]

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_Li

Sylvester Stallone Profile

Sylvester Gardenzio "Sly" Stallone^[1] (born July 6, 1946) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. One of the biggest box office draws in the world from the 1970s to the 1990s, Sylvester Stallone is an icon of machismo and Hollywood action heroism. He has played two characters who have become a part of the American cultural lexicon: Rocky Balboa, the boxer who overcame all odds to fight for love and glory, and John Rambo, a courageous soldier who specialized in very violent rescue and revenge missions.

During the 1980s, he enjoyed phenomenal popularity and was one of the biggest movie stars in the world with the Rocky and Rambo franchises. Stallone's culturally influential films changed pop culture history and he has largely enjoyed a career on the Hollywood A list for over 30 years.

Stallone's use of the front entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the Rocky series led the area to be nicknamed the Rocky Steps. His popularity in Philadelphia has led to a statue of his Rocky character being placed permanently near the museum as a cultural landmark. Stallone's film Rocky has also been inducted into the National Film Registry as well as having its film props placed in the Smithsonian Museum as a national treasure.

Early life

Stallone was born in Odessa Ukraine Ukrainian (Одеса),^[2] the son of Frank Stallone, Sr., a hairdresser, and Jackie Stallone, an astrologer, former dancer and promoter of women's wrestling. Doctors used forceps during his birth that severed a nerve and caused paralysis in parts of Stallone's face, resulting in his signature slurred speech and drooping lower lip.^[3]

Stallone's grandfather, Silvestro Stallone, was an immigrant from Gioia del Colle, in the province of Bari (Apulia, Italy).^[4] Stallone's mother was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of a Parisian socialite.

Between the ages of two and five Stallone was boarded in Queens, seeing his parents only on weekends. In 1951 he returned to live with his parents in Maryland where they operated a chain of beauty salons. In 1961 he was enrolled in Devereaux Manor, a private school for problem children located in Berwyn, Pennsylvania and following graduation enrolled in a beauty school.

In the 1960s, Stallone dropped out of the beauty school after winning a scholarship for the American College of Switzerland in Leysin where he studied drama and was well received in school productions. Returning to America he enrolled in the Theater Arts Department at University of Miami for three years. He came within a few credit hours of graduation before he decided to drop out and pursue a career writing screenplays under the pseudonyms Q. Moonblood and J.J. Deadlock while at the same time taking bit parts in movies.

After Stallone's request that his acting and life experiences be accepted in exchange for his remaining credits, he was granted a Bachelors of Fine Arts (BFA) degree by the President of the University of Miami in 1999.^[5]

Career

Italian Stallion and Score

Stallone had his first starring role in the softcore pornography feature film Party at Kitty and Stud's (1970), which was later re-released as Italian Stallion (the new title was taken from Stallone's nickname since Rocky and a line from the film). He was paid US$200 for two days work. An "uncut" version of the film was released in 2007, purporting to show actual hardcore footage of Stallone, but according to trade journal AVN, the hardcore scenes were inserts not involving the actor.^[6] In 2008, scenes from Party at Kitty and Stud's surfaced in a German version of Roger Colmont's hardcore-film White Fire (1976).^[7]

Stallone also starred in the erotic off-Broadway stage play Score which ran for 23 performances at the Martinique Theatre from October 28 - November 15, 1971 and was later made into a film by Radley Metzger.

Early film roles, 1971-1975

Stallone's other first few film roles were minor, and included brief uncredited appearances in Woody Allen's Bananas (1971) as a subway thug, in the psychological thriller Klute (1971) as an extra dancing in a club, and in the Jack Lemmon vehicle The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) as a youth. In the Lemmon film, Jack Lemmon chases, tackles and mugs Stallone, thinking that Stallone's character is a pickpocket. He had his second starring role in the cult hit The Lords of Flatbush (1974). In 1975, he played supporting roles in Farewell, My Lovely, Capone and, another cult hit, Death Race 2000. He also made guest appearances on the TV series Police Story and Kojak.

Success with Rocky, 1976

Main article: Rocky

Stallone in 1978

Stallone did not gain world-wide fame until his starring role in the smash hit Rocky (1976). On March 24, 1975, Stallone saw the Muhammed Ali–Chuck Wepner fight which inspired the foundation idea of Rocky. That night Stallone went home, and in three days he had written the script for Rocky. After that, he tried to sell the script with the intention of playing the lead role. Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler in particular liked the script (which Stallone submitted to them after a casting), and planned on courting a star like Burt Reynolds or James Caan for the lead role. Rocky was nominated for ten Academy Awards in all, including Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay nominations for Stallone.

Rocky, Rambo and new film roles, 1978-1989

Stallone in 1983

The sequel Rocky II which Stallone had also written and directed was released in 1979 and also became a major success, grossing US$200 million.

Apart from the Rocky films, Stallone did many other films in the late 1970s and early 1980s which were critically acclaimed but were not successful at the box office. He received critical praise for films such as F.I.S.T. (1978), a social, epic styled drama in which he plays a warehouse worker who becomes involved in the labor union leadership and Paradise Alley (1978), a family drama in which he plays one of three brothers who is a con artist and who helps his other brother who is involved in wrestling.

In the early 1980s, he starred alongside British veteran Michael Caine in Escape to Victory (1981), a sports drama in which he plays a prisoner of war involved in a Nazi propaganda fußball (soccer) tournament. Stallone then made the action thriller film Nighthawks (1981), in which he plays a New York city cop who plays a cat and mouse game with a foreign terrorist, played by Rutger Hauer.

Sylvester Stallone with Brigitte Nielsen, Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan at the White House, 1985

Stallone had another major franchise success as Vietnam veteran John Rambo in the action adventure film First Blood (1982). The first installment of Rambo was both a critical and box office success. The critics praised Stallone's performance, saying he made Rambo seem human as opposed to the way he is portrayed in the book of the same name, First Blood and in the other films. Two Rambo sequels Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Rambo III (1988) followed (and another, Rambo, in 2008). Although box office hits, they met with much less critical praise than the original. He also continued his box office success with the Rocky franchise and wrote, directed and starred in two more sequels to the series: Rocky III (1982) and Rocky IV (1985).

It was during this time period that Stallone's work cultivated a strong overseas following. He also attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, roles in different genres when he wrote and starred in the comedy film Rhinestone (1984) where he played a wannabe country music singer and the drama film Over the Top (1987) where he played a truck driver who enters an arm wrestling competition to impress his estranged son. These films did not do well at the box office and were poorly received by critics. It was around 1985 that Stallone was signed to a remake of the 1939 James Cagney classic Angels With Dirty Faces. The film would form part of his multi-picture deal with Cannon Pictures and was to co-star Christopher Reeve and be directed by Menahem Golan. The re-making of such a beloved classic was met with disapproval by Variety Magazine and horror by top critic Roger Ebert and so Cannon opted to make Cobra instead. Cobra (1986) and Tango and Cash (1989) did solid business domestically but overseas they did blockbuster business grossing over $100 million in foreign markets and over $160 million worldwide. The Rocky and Rambo franchises at the end of the decade were billion dollar franchises internationally.

1990-2002

With the then recent success of Lock Up and Tango and Cash, at the start of the 1990s Stallone starred in the fifth installment of the Rocky franchise Rocky V which was considered a box office disappointment and was also disliked by fans as an unworthy entry in the series. It was intended to have been the last installment in the franchise at the time.

After starring in the critical and commercial disasters Oscar (1991) and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) during the early 90s, he made a major comeback in 1993 with the blockbuster hit Cliffhanger which became an enormously successful film grossing over US$255 million worldwide. Later that year he enjoyed another hit with the futuristic action film Demolition Man which grossed in excess of $158 million worldwide. His string of hits continued with 1994's The Specialist (over $170 million worldwide gross).

In 1995, he played the comic book based title character Judge Dredd who was taken from the popular British comic book 2000 AD in the film of the same name. His overseas box office appeal saved the domestic box office disappointment of Judge Dredd with a worldwide tally of $113 million. He also appeared in the thriller Assassins (1995) with co stars Julianne Moore and Antonio Banderas. In 1996, he starred in the disaster film Daylight which made only $33 million in the U.S but was a major hit overseas taking in over $126 million, totalling $159,212,469 worldwide.

That same year Stallone, along with an all-star cast of celebrities, appeared in the Trey Parker and Matt Stone short comedy film Your Studio and You commissioned by the Seagram Company for a party celebrating their acquisition of Universal Studios and the MCA Corporation. Stallone speaks in his Rocky Balboa voice with subtitles translating what he was saying. At one point, Stallone starts yelling about how can they use his Balboa character, that he left it in the past; the narrator calms him with a wine cooler and calling him, "brainiac". In response, Stallone says, "Thank you very much." He then looks at the wine cooler and exclaims, "Fucking cheap studio!"^[8]

Following his breakthrough performance in Rocky, critic Roger Ebert had once said Stallone could become the next Marlon Brando, though he never quite recaptured the critical acclaim achieved with Rocky. Stallone did, however, go on to receive much acclaim for his role in the crime drama Cop Land (1997) in which he starred alongside Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta, but the film was only a minor success at the box office. His performance led him to win the Stockholm International Film Festival Best Actor Award. In 1998 he did voice-over work for the computer-animated film Antz, which grossed over $90 million domestically.

As the new millennium began, Stallone starred in the thriller Get Carter — a remake of the 1971 British Michael Caine film of the same name—but the film was poorly received by both critics and audiences. Stallone's career declined considerably after his subsequent films Driven (2001), Avenging Angelo (2002) and D-Tox (2002) also underachieved expectations to do well at the box office and were poorly received by critics.

In 2000, Stallone received a special "Worst Actor of the Century" Razzie award, citing "95% of Everything He's Ever Done" rather than an individual movie. By 2000, Stallone had been awarded four Worst Actor Razzie awards for individual movies, a "Worst Screen Couple" Razzie, and a "Worst Actor of the Decade" Razzie for the 1980s.^[9] He had been nominated for the Worst Actor award for nine consecutive years from 1984 to 1992.

2003-2005

In 2003, he played a villainous role in the third installment of the Spy Kids trilogy Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over which was a huge box office success (almost $200 million worldwide). Stallone also had a cameo appearance in the 2003 French film Taxi 3 as a passenger.

Following several poorly reviewed box office flops, Stallone started to regain prominence for his supporting role in the neo-noir crime drama Shade (2003) which was a box office failure but was praised by critics.^[10] He was also attached to star and direct a film about the murder of rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, entitled Notorious, but the film was shelved due to legal issues presented by the 2009 film of the same name.

In 2005, he was the co-presenter alongside Sugar Ray Leonard of the NBC Reality television boxing series The Contender. That same year he also made a guest appearance in two episodes of the television series Las Vegas. In 2005, Stallone also inducted wrestling icon Hulk Hogan, who appeared in Rocky III as a wrestler named Thunderlips, into the WWE Hall of Fame; Stallone was also the person who offered Hogan the cameo in Rocky III.^[11]

Revisiting Rocky and Rambo, 2006-2008

After a few years hiatus from films, Stallone made a comeback in 2006 with the sixth and final installment of his successful Rocky series; Rocky Balboa, which was both a critical and commercial hit. After the critical and box office failure of the previous and presumed last installment Rocky V, Stallone had decided to end the series with a sixth installment which would be a more appropriate climax to the series. The total domestic box office came to $70.3 million (and $155.3 million worldwide). The budget of the movie was only $24 million. His performance in Rocky Balboa has been praised and garnered mostly positive reviews.^[12]

Stallone's newest release is the fourth installment of his other successful movie franchise, Rambo, with the sequel being titled simply Rambo. The film opened in 2,751 theaters on January 25, 2008, grossing $6,490,000 on its opening day and $18,200,000 over its opening weekend.

Its current box office stands at $42,653,401 in the US and $112,481,829 worldwide.

Asked in February 2008 which of the icons he would rather be remembered for, Stallone said "it's a tough one, but Rocky is my first baby, so Rocky."^[13]

Upcoming films

Currently, Stallone is working on a film titled The Expendables, for which he will star, write and direct. Joining him in the film will be Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Randy Couture, Robert Knepper and Forest Whitaker. Stallone has also mentioned that he would like to adapt a Nelson DeMille novel, The Lion's Game. In addition, Stallone has continued to express his passion in directing a film on Edgar Allan Poe's life, a script he has been preparing for years. It has also recently been confirmed that Stallone will be making a fifth Rambo film after the success of the fourth one in 2008.

Filmography

Main article: Sylvester Stallone filmography

Other film work

Stallone's debut as a director came in 1978 with Paradise Alley, which he also wrote and starred in. In addition, he directed Staying Alive (the sequel to Saturday Night Fever), along with Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa, and Rambo. In August 2005, Stallone released his book Sly Moves which claimed to be a guide to fitness and nutrition as well as a candid insight into his life and works from his own perspective. The book also contained many photographs of Stallone throughout the years as well as pictures of him performing exercises. In addition to writing all six Rocky films, Stallone also wrote Cobra, Driven and Rambo. He has co-written several other films, such as F.I.S.T., Rhinestone, Over the Top and the first three Rambo films. His last major success as a co-writer came with 1993's Cliffhanger.

Competition with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Stallone has been long considered as a chief competitor to Arnold Schwarzenegger as an action hero actor. References to this have been made in both of their films. In Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero, Stallone is depicted as playing the Terminator in a video advertisement in the film's alternate reality. In Stallone's Demolition Man, there is a futuristic reference to the Arnold Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Also in the movie Twins, Arnold Schwarzenegger walks by a giant movie poster for Rambo III. He glances at the size of Stallone's biceps on the poster then feels his own and laughs at how much smaller Stallone's are. According to both Stallone and Schwarzenegger, despite their on camera "rivalry", the duo are actually very close friends. Stallone revealed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (while promoting the films Rocky Balboa and Rambo) that he and Schwarzenegger looked at each other, in the 1980s, as "Cain and Abel." Stallone then said that, in the 1990s, he and Arnold became the friends they are today. They became one time business partners in Planet Hollywood and they hold similar political beliefs; both men are supporters of the Republican Party and endorsed John McCain for President.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Stallone

Sharon Stone’s ‘Basic Instinct’? ‘Disturbing’ nudity

Sharon Stone is not only doing a full-frontal nude scene in “Basic Instinct 2” — she says she also insisted that the footage should be “disturbing,” “threatening” and “brazen.”

Stone’s full monty occurs two-thirds into the flick, which is to be released later this month, though apparently a sex scene in the beginning of the movie is a bit of a hair-raiser, too. “I felt we should hold off on the full nudity for a while in the movie and then I thought that when I ultimately did do the nude scene it should be done in a startling way that would be disturbing and threatening,” Stone told London’s Evening Standard. “By the time the film is released, I will be 48 and I wanted to do the nudity in a way that’s quite brazen. I wanted her to be very masculine, like a man in a steam room, and I wanted the audience to have a moment where they realize she’s naked and then realize she’s a fortysomething woman and naked.”

Comments made earlier by the director make it sound like Stone wasn’t shy about asking for what she wanted. “Sharon is a strong-willed woman with many opinions — and she is not afraid of telling you what her opinion is,” Michael Caton-Jones said at the Glasgow Film Festival. “A lot of it was water off a duck’s back though, because I am very disciplined when I make a film.”

Amy Fisher to bare all?
Speaking of “disturbing” sexual images, is the public ready to gawk at nudie pics of Amy Fisher?

The woman dubbed the Long Island Lolita in 1992 when, at 16 years old, she shot her lover’s wife in the head, says she’s in talks with Playboy about posing for the mag. Fisher made the claim on Howard Stern’s show when she called in with producer David Krieff, who also claimed that he’s doing a TV show reuniting Fisher with her ex-lover and the woman Fisher shot.

A spokeswoman for Playboy tells the Scoop that the mag doesn’t discuss “who we may or may not have made offers to.”

Notes from all over
George Clooney and Teri Hatcher are both denying reports that he’s the mystery man who broke her heart. After the “Desperate Housewives” star revealed in Vanity Fair that she was sexually abused as a child and that a failed romance prompted her to tell her tale, Clooney was identified in a tab as the cad. “It is to Teri’s credit that she’s telling a very courageous story to help others,” Clooney said in a statement released by his rep. “As for the tabloid part of the story, she would never say that. I know the story is attractive but it isn’t true and it takes away from her brave decision.” Says Hatcher: “It is truly a shame that the importance of the issue in the Vanity Fair article is being obscured by tabloid sensationalism.” She adds that the story has been twisted “into a scandalous report about my personal life, which has nothing to do with George Clooney.” ... Sarah Jessica Parker has dashed any residual hope that “Sex And the City” fans have that the series would end up on the big screen. “There was a script, there were sets, there were costumes, there was a crew, and that’s all gone now,” she said while promoting her new flick, “Failure to Launch.” “The sets are all broken down or sold or in a dumpster or, I don’t know, on eBay.” ... Diane Sawyer insists that she’s a slob when she’s not on air. “I’m never seen out of sweatpants or jeans after 9:01 a.m.,” the GMA co-host tells the upcoming issue of Ladies' Home Journal. “If people only knew how I dread hair and makeup and anything that feels like getting dressed up, how hard it is to get me into anything formal. I’m just basically the rattiest person you’ve ever seen. My inner slob is really the governing personality. I’d like to know what it feels like to be someone who is perfectly groomed, and who stays groomed. Because I grow progressively more deranged as the day goes on. I usually end up with paper clips in my hair and things stapled to me and those Post-it things on my shirt. At the end of the day, I am my own personal freak show.”

Sharon Stone Profile

Sharon Yvonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress, producer, and former fashion model. She came to international attention for her performance in the 1992 Hollywood blockbuster film Basic Instinct. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Casino, won a Golden Globe for her role in Casino, and has won an Emmy Award.

Stone was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The second of four children, she is the daughter of Dorothy (née Lawson), an accountant and homemaker, and Joseph Stone, a tool and die manufacturer.^[1][2] Stone graduated in 1975 from Saegertown High School in Saegertown Pennsylvania, graduating early in an accelerated study program in conjunction with Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. After graduating high school, she briefly attended Edinboro.

As a teenager, she worked at a fast food restaurant.^[3]

1970s

Stone 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 fashion 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 Ford Modeling Agency in New York. After signing with Ford, Stone spent a few years modeling and appeared in TV commercials for Burger King, Clairol and Maybelline

1980–1990

While living in Europe, she decided to quit modeling and become an actress. "So I packed my bags, moved back to New York, and stood in line to be an extra in a Woody Allen movie," she later recalled. While auditioning, she met Michelle Pfeiffer, who recognized her from the pageant she competed in, and the two became friends. Stone was cast for a brief but memorable role in Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and then had a speaking part a year later in the horror movie Deadly Blessing (1981). When French director Claude Lelouch saw Stone in Stardust Memories, he was so impressed that he cast her in Les Uns et Les Autres (1982) starring James Caan. She was only on screen for two minutes and did not appear in the credits.

Her next role was in Irreconcilable Differences (1984), starring Ryan O'Neal, Shelley Long, and a young Drew Barrymore. Stone plays a starlet who breaks up the marriage of a successful director and his screenwriter wife. The story was based on the real-life experience of director Peter Bogdanovich, his set designer wife Polly Platt and Cybill Shepherd, who as a young actress had starred in Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971). The highlight of Stone's performance is 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 also played the wife of Steven Seagal's character in Above the Law (1988). She appeared in a two-part episode of Magnum, P.I., titled "Echoes of the Mind", where she played identical twins, one a love interest of Tom Selleck's character.

1990–2004

Sharon Stone in 1991, being photographed in France.

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). Stone had to wait and actually turned down offers for the mere prospect to play Tramell (the part was offered to 13 other actresses before being offered to Stone). Several better known actresses of the time such as Geena Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Meg Ryan, Melanie Griffith, Kelly Lynch and Julia Roberts turned down the part mostly because of the nudity required. In the movie’s most notorious scene, Tramell is being questioned by the police and she crosses and uncrosses her legs, revealing the fact she was not wearing any underwear. According to Stone, upon seeing her own vulva in the leg-crossing scene^[4] during a screening of the film, she went into the projection booth and slapped director Paul Verhoeven.

Stone claimed that although she agreed to film the flashing scene with no panties, and although she and Verhoeven had discussed the scene from the beginning of production, she was unaware just how explicit the infamous shot would be.^[5] She said, "I knew that we were going to do this leg-crossing thing and I knew that we were going to allude to the concept that I was nude, but I did not think that you would see my vagina in the scene. Later, when I saw it in the screening I was shocked. I think seeing it in a room full of strangers was so disrespectful and so shocking, so I went into the booth and slapped him and left."^[6][7]

Despite this, she claimed in an earlier interview that "it was so fun" watching the film for the first time with strangers^[8]. Verhoeven has denied all claims of trickery and said, "As much as I love her, I hate her too, especially after the lies she told the press about the shot between her legs, which was a straight lie".^[9] Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who later befriended the actress, also claimed the actress was fully aware of the level of nudity involved in his memoir, Hollywood Animal.

Following this film, she was listed by People as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world.

In 1992, photographer George Hurrell took a series of photographs of Stone, Sherilyn Fenn, Julian Sands, Raquel Welch, Eric Roberts and Sean Penn. In these portraits he recreated his style of the 1930s, with the actors posing in costumes, hairstyle and makeup of the period.

Stone's stardom was such that she received top billing over Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio when cast as a gunslinger for Sam Raimi's 1995 western The Quick and the Dead.

In November 1995, Stone 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.

In 2001, Stone was linked to a biopic of the German film director Leni Riefenstahl. The prospective director Paul Verhoeven and Riefenstahl herself favoured Stone to portray Riefenstahl in the film. According to Verhoeven, he discussed the project with Stone and she was very interested. Subsequently, Verhoeven pulled out of the project as he wanted to hire a more expensive screenwriter than the producers did.^[10][11]

Stone was hospitalized in late 2001 for a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which was diagnosed as a vertebral artery dissection rather than the more common ruptured aneurysm, and treated with an endovascular coil embolization.^[12]

Stone 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.

2004–present

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. A group sex scene was cut in order to achieve an R rating from the MPAA for the U.S. release; the controversial scene remained in the U.K. version of the London-based film. Stone told an interviewer, "We are in a time of odd repression and if a popcorn movie allows us to create a platform for discussion, wouldn't that be great?"^[13]

Despite an estimated budget of $70 million, it placed only 10th in gross on its debut weekend with a meager $3,200,000, and was subsequently declared a bomb.^[14] It ultimately ran in theaters for only 17 days and finished with a total domestic gross of under $6 million. Despite the failure of Basic Instinct 2, Stone has said that she would love to direct and act in a third Basic Instinct film.

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.^[15] 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." "It was a watershed experience," she said. "I think that we live in a... Prozac society where we're always told we're supposed to have this kind of equilibrium of emotion. We have all these assignments about how we're supposed to feel about something."^[16]

In 2007, she appeared in a television commercial demonstrating the symptoms of a stroke.^[17]

Personal life

Stone in 2004

Stone lives in Beverly Hills, California, and owns a ranch in New Zealand. In March 2006, Stone traveled to Israel to promote peace in the Middle East through a press conference with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres.^[18]

Chinese earthquake controversy

Stone sparked criticism for her comments made in an exchange on the red carpet with Hong Kong's Cable Entertainment News during the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 25, 2008. When asked about the 2008 Sichuan earthquake she remarked:

"Well you know it was very interesting because at first, you know, I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And so I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don’t like that. And I had been this, you know, concerned about, oh how should we deal with the Olympics because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that Karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?"^[19][20]

Observers have also noted that Wenchuan County, the epicenter of the earthquake, is located in Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, where ethnic Tibetans comprise over half of the population. According to the Hollywood Reporter, after her comments, one of China's biggest cinema chains released statements stating its company would not show her films in its theaters.^[21] The founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, Ng See-Yuen called Stone's comments "inappropriate" and said the UME Cineplex chain would not be releasing her films in the future.^[21] Christian Dior advertisements featuring Stone's image were also dropped from all ads in China amid the public uproar.^[22] Stone was also struck from the 2008 Shanghai International Film Festival guest list, with the event's organizers considering a permanent ban for the actress. ^[23]

Dior China had originally posted an apology in Stone's name, but Stone later denies making the apology during an interview with the New York Times, saying "I'm not going to apologize. ~Taking the action to conceive a child only takes a few minutes. The action of wearing a mini-skirt and airing out your camel toe takes a life time to perfect. ~ Sharon Stone I’m certainly not going to apologize for something that isn’t real and true — not for face creams," although she does admit she had "sounded like an idiot".^[24] The Dalai Lama reportedly has distanced himself from her.^[25]

Tanzania controversy

On January 28, 2005, Stone helped solicit pledges for $1 million in five minutes for mosquito nets in Tanzania,^[26] turning a panel on African poverty into an impromptu fund-raiser at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Many observers, including UNICEF, criticized her actions by claiming that Stone had reacted instinctively to the words of Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, because she had not done her research on the causes, consequences and methods of preventing malaria; if she had done so, she would have found out that most African governments already distribute free bed nets through public hospitals.

Of the $1 million pledged, only $250,000 was actually raised. In order to fulfill the promise to send $1 million worth of bed nets to Tanzania, UNICEF contributed $750,000. This diverted funds from other UNICEF projects. According to prominent economist Xavier Sala-i-Martín, officials are largely unaware of what happened with the bed nets. Some were delivered to the local airport. These reportedly were stolen and later resurfaced as wedding dresses on the local black market.

Stone hosted the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Concert.

AIDS research support

In April 2004, she was awarded the National Center for Lesbian Rights Spirit Award in San Francisco for her support and involvement with organizations that serve the lesbian, gay and HIV/AIDS community^[27] and performed Can't Get You Out of My Head with Kylie Minogue in Cannes for AIDS research. She was presented the award by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

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."

Religion

In the early 1990s, Stone became a member of the Church of Scientology. Stone remained with the religion until recently when she converted to Tibetan Buddhism, after fellow actor Richard Gere introduced her to the Dalai Lama.^[28] She is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church.^[29]

Relationships

She was first married briefly to George Englund Jr., but she left him for television producer Michael Greenburg. In 1984, she broke up Greenburg's marriage; he became her second husband. The marriage lasted three years.^[30] She married Greenburg in 1984 on the set of The Vegas Strip War, a TV movie he produced and she starred in, along with Rock Hudson and James Earl Jones. They separated three years later, and their divorce was finalized in 1990.

Stone in Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 2005

She was engaged to producer Bill McDonald after they met on the film Sliver (1993). McDonald left his wife, Naomi Baca, for Stone. The tabloids initially labeled her a homewrecker, but their attention turned to Baca after she got involved with Basic Instinct screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who would leave his wife for her. Soon after her fling with Eszterhas, she began a secret affair with her bodyguard Joel Swigart. Swigart, her bodyguard since 1988, was married with two children. He and Stone had a secret relationship until 1995 when tabloids found out about the affair while Stone was filming The Quick and the Dead. During the film Stone relieved Swigart of his duties as her bodyguard and stated he needed to be home with his family as the reason he was let go. Stone still denies to this day that they had a romantic relationship. Swigart has not been seen in Hollywood since 1995. ^[31]

On February 14, 1998, she married Phil Bronstein, executive editor of the San Francisco Examiner and later San Francisco Chronicle. Stone and Bronstein were divorced in January 2004, after he had suffered a severe heart attack. They have an adopted son named Roan Joseph Bronstein, born on May 22, 2000. She also adopted her second son, Laird Vonne Stone on May 7, 2005. On June 28, 2006, Stone adopted her third son, Quinn Kelly.

In 2005, during a television interview for her movie Basic Instinct 2, Stone hinted an interest in bisexuality, stating "Middle age is an open-minded period".^[32] Stone has said that in the past she's "dated" girls. While filming Basic Instinct, her best girlfriend was there to hold her hand out of camera range during some of the scenes. And in a biography, Naked Instinct, author Frank Sanello details a sexual liaison between Stone and a woman in the bathroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel. ^[33] In an interview on the Michael Parkinson talk show in England on March 18, 2006, she said she was "straight". However, in January 2008, she was quoted as saying, "Everybody is bisexual to an extent. Now men act like women and it's difficult to have a relationship because I like men in that old-fashioned way. I like masculinity and, in truth, only women do that now".^[34]

In an interview with Garry Shandling, recorded specially for the latter's 2007 DVD Not Just The Best Of The Larry Sanders Show, Stone admitted she and Shandling had been in a relationship during the early 1980s and that she felt she'd contributed in some way to improving his monologues while Shandling was guest host on The Tonight Show, standing in for Johnny Carson.

Mensa membership myth

For many years it was believed that Sharon Stone was a member of Mensa,^[35] but in April 2002, she admitted she was not, and had never been, a member of the high-IQ society.^[36] Jim Blackmore of Mensa said, "It's delightful to finally see Miss Stone admit that she's not and never has been a member of our society. But then she goes on to say, 'I went to a Mensa school.' Not so."^[36] Blackmore said that would not have been possible as there have been no Mensa schools since the early 1960s.^[36]

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Stone