The Beauty of Living Twice

Sharon Stone

• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838953881
• Print ISBN:
  9781838953898
• Subtopic: Film & Video

THE TIMES #1 BESTSELLER

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

One of Vogue's Best Books to Read in 2021
One of O Magazine's 55 Most Anticipated Books of 2021
One of Marie Claire's 25 Best 2021 Memoirs

'Electrifying.' The Sunday Times

'A glorious, rogue, raw account ... It is funny; it is shocking; it is good.' The Times

'Dangerous, alluring and misunderstood: Sharon Stone remains one of our best ever movie stars ... Her new book serves as a spectacular reminder of the outrageous fun of her Nineties fame and why she is more than due for contemporary respect.' Independent

'Brawler, hillbilly, misfit, thief - the actress's memoir of her hardscrabble life, The Beauty of Living Twice, is a feast of yarns and jokes.' Daily Telegraph

'While [ The Beauty of Living Twice] contains some startling personal revelations, equally affecting is Stone's warmth and grace, qualities that, by the end, feel quite miraculous . . . Writing with zeal and urgency, Stone argues for a stronger legal system, for rape kits on police shelves to be processed, for better training for teachers and paediatricians. Above all, she offers a hopeful glimpse of life beyond trauma . . . The Beauty of Living Twice promises the possibility of improvement or redemption, of compassion and understanding, of living honestly.' The Washington Post

Sharon Stone , one of the most renowned actresses in the world, suffered a massive stroke that cost her not only her health, but her career, family, fortune, and global fame. In The Beauty of Living Twice , she chronicles her efforts to rebuild her life, and the slow road back to wholeness and health. In an industry that doesn't accept failure, in a world where too many voices are silenced, Stone found the power to return, the courage to speak up, and the will to make a difference in the lives of women and children around the globe.

Over the course of these intimate pages, Stone talks about her pivotal roles, her life-changing friendships, her worst disappointments, and her greatest accomplishments. She reveals how she went from a childhood of trauma and violence to a business that in many ways echoed those same assaults, under cover of money and glamour. She describes the strength and meaning she found in her children, and in her humanitarian efforts. And ultimately, she shares how she fought her way back to find not only her truth, but her family's reconciliation and love.

Stone made headlines not just for her talent and beauty, but for her candour and her refusal to "play nice," and it's those same qualities that make this memoir so powerful. The Beauty of Living Twice is a book for the wounded, and a book for the survivors; it's a celebration of women's strength and resilience, a reckoning, and a call to activism. It is proof that it's never too late to raise your voice, and speak out.

Me Too

As I sit here now, nearly two decades later, the right side of my head still hurts. This is where the brain damage is, where the scarring is. My hearing is back, though sometimes I have to turn my head a bit to shut out the sounds that can interfere with what I am trying to hear. I am walking normally. I have all of the feeling again in my left leg, though getting it back was hell. Each stab of pain was a sign that that area was waking up, the excruciating stabs a stunning hello to a previously dead zone. I can write again; that took only a year or so. I was able to control the pen and keep it on the paper, though writing my own name was always the hardest. I often wondered if that was because I was now a different person. Was I no longer Sharon Stone, or simply no longer the Sharon Stone I had been before?

The stuttering stopped after about four or five months, when I was finally put on the correct anti–brain seizure medication. Same with the colored blocks that appeared in my vision, and the undulation of the floor beneath my feet. My depth perception returned.

My memory, both short- and long-term, took longer. I used to have a near-photographic memory. Now I didn’t know what the heck was going on. Over the years most of it has returned. Doctors and spiritualists say that the brain will work around damage, and I can say that in my experience that’s true. It will find its own new pathways. The interesting thing is that as the injury’s healed, I have found myself with greater perceptions than I had prior to my injury. In effect, I am now using more of my brain than before. I have learned how to access more of my own mind.

With that I have come to have both greater compassion and a realization that not everyone should receive that compassion. There are those who get up each day and choose to walk a bad road. That is their choice, and to waste one’s compassion there is a dangerous path. One that I will not walk again.

This allows me to be both more pragmatic and more loving. This allows me greater spiritual safety. It is easier to see who is real and truthful and who is pretending for nefarious reasons. While it can feel lonely to realize this piece of life, it is important to spend this alone time, to find a deeper place within oneself.

It took many years and almost dying for me to work my way back to myself. But now that I am myself again, or this self again, I have a happy house, full of laughter and fun. When I just had my career, I worked hard only at that. I was very disciplined. But my home was empty. I loved my work and I had good success in my work. But my work did not love me back. When I had times of confusion or needed guidance, my work did not guide me or help me.

I recently had a talk with my European bodyguard, Bruno. We have traveled the globe together for more than thirty years. He was laughing, saying that when we started, his job was much more difficult since I was much more difficult. Of course, it was also at the height of my fame, which was a scene. But he said that the change in me from my Buddhist practices was so big that I had become, in his words, “so beautiful on the inside” and “so easy to be with,” and so his job was easy now. I must have been a hellion. In fact, I am sure of it. I used to love to mix it up.

Peace of mind is a rush, though, I must say. Bigger than the other thing—and a lot less trouble. Though I can look back and laugh. Oh, I used to cause some trouble. I used to love to piss people off. Just to watch. It was so easy to wind people up. I think that I liked to have control of people’s minds and it was so easy to get them off their rockers. I wasn’t the person who was at home later thinking, Gee, I wish I’d said that, I was the person who went home thinking, Gee, I wonder if I really should have left them in pieces on the floor.

It is okay to change.

So, the acting thing: I do still like it. Actually, I like it more than before. I feel much more comfortable in it, and it’s a whole lot easier to do. I feel less pressure when I do it now, as it is not my entire world. I have also had more profound life experiences to bring to it. When the workday is over, good or bad—and it’s mostly always good—I go home to a house full of love, so no big deal.

I am not hungry for it. People can tell and they like you hungry. Jeez, do they like you hungry. This town is keen for the hunger. It’s like a zoo at feeding time all day long. But Mama’s a big animal, so I guess I could have that hungry look anytime. Maybe I could even have the I could eat you look. If you know what I mean.

I am proud of my success in my work. It belongs to me, I earned it. I kept getting up to bat, just like my dad said. Not every movie or TV job I’ve done has been a winner. Some of them seem like I’m a pie girl again: just shoveling the crap out of the can into the premade crust. However, work is work. I go into each project wanting to do my best, be my best, hoping for the best outcome. Hoping to be promoted. I get myself a little gift each time. A sweater for this job, a new kitchen for that job, the kids’ tuition for this one, in rougher times. Each one is sweet, even if it didn’t work out as a box-office hit or even if the thing as a whole failed.

Even with the worst directors, like the one who wouldn’t direct me because I refused to sit in his lap to take direction. This #MeToo candidate called me in to work every day for weeks, when Laird was a brand-new baby, and had me go through the works—hair, makeup, and wardrobe—and then wouldn’t shoot with me because I refused to sit in his lap and take direction. Yes, this was a multimillion-dollar studio film, of which I was the star, and the studio didn’t say or do anything. I just kept coming to work and spending the day constantly getting retouched in my trailer and being with my baby.

Of course the film was a bomb. The level of insecurity and unprofessionalism and I would guess drug abuse required to make those kinds of choices never leads to good work. But as a superstar, which at that point I was, and a woman, I had no say. That was how it was in my day. Even a high, abusive director had more power than I did.

Thank God it is not that way now. The whole system is changing. The financial burden is real, and the old boys’ club isn’t covering for this anymore. There are more women at the helm, and they aren’t in the pocket of the men, forced to play along or be canned.

Not to say there weren’t great men in my day too. Men who would come in and shut the show down when things were going wrong, men who would talk to me. Those men helped us make great pictures. Those men helped us make great pictures like Casino. Those men shut down a show I was on when the director was so high on cocaine he was spinning. Now that same director has sobered up and gone on to do fabulous and important work. Not with me, of course, as I aided in the shutdown.

I don’t regret my choices. Being an actress used to be everything to me. Really, just everything. I used to eat, sleep, breathe, run, play, and work at nothing but acting. I loved everything about it. The pages of words, the look in the other actors’ eyes, the lost places in the scenes, the scents of the soundstages and locations. The feeling of pulling up to a new location, like running away with the circus. I was putty in the hands of a great director, thrilling to his every thought, and angry to be held hostage by the mediocre ones.

I loved working for the studios, feeling the tradition of the ones who went before me: Bogie and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. I wanted to be great like they were. I wanted to be a super-pro. I wanted every movie to be a hit; I worked my ass off to sell my movies all over the world to make sure they were. I was proud to do it, happy to be a studio girl.

I stood up for gay actors and actresses; I told the studio when their people were not available to work because they were too high to talk or too drunk to drive. I was on the side of the studio, and I loved my job. That didn’t work out great for me either. It’s not a popular position to be in: certainly not then, certainly not as a woman. It would be fair to say I fucked myself.

Now, I suppose in retrospect, I might seem dependable. I was the one who always sold my films, good or not so good. Showed up to work on time, did my job. But then, in the good ol’ days, with the good ol’ no-rules, women as superstars were not a darling of the system. They preferred us to be ornaments. I was supposed to do what I was told.

I had actor approval in my contract. No one cared. They cast who they wanted. To my dismay, sometimes. To the detriment of the picture, sometimes. I had a producer bring me to his office, where he had malted-milk balls in a little milk carton–type container under his arm with the spout open. He walked back and forth in his office with the balls falling out of the spout and rolling all over the wood floor as he explained to me why I should fuck my costar so that we could have on-screen chemistry. Why, in his day, he made love to Ava Gardner onscreen and it was so sensational! Now just the creepy thought of him in the same room with Ava Gardner gave me pause. Then I realized that she also had to put up with him and pretend that he was in any way interesting.

I watched the chocolate balls rolling around, thinking, You guys insisted on this actor when he couldn’t get one whole scene out in the test. . . . Now you think if I f—him, he will become a fine actor? Nobody’s that good in bed. I felt they could have just hired a costar with talent, someone who could deliver a scene and remember his lines. I also felt they could f—him themselves and leave me out of it. It was my job to act and I said so.

This was not a popular response. I was considered difficult.

Naturally I didn’t you-know-what my costar; he was baffled enough without me confusing him some more. But he did make a few haphazard passes at me in the upcoming weeks, I’m sure spurred on by this genius.

I’ve had other producers on other films just come to my trailer and ask, “So, are you going to f—him, or aren’t you? . . . You know it would go better if you did.” I take my time and explain that I am like the nice girl they grew up with, and get them to recall that girl’s name. This leaves us all with a little bit of our dignity.

Sex, not just sexuality on-screen, has long been expected in my business. I do not in any way think that this is about my business, particularly. I have seen my mother in a rage because some man pushed her up against the filing cabinets at my dad’s factory. I have heard her in the kitchen saying, “I told that bastard to back the fuck up before I stick him in the neck.” Then we all laugh at her and with her. But I know how scared she felt.

My father used to call me back from playtime in our giant yard, take me aside, and, putting his hand on my shoulder, say, “You are letting those boys beat you so that they will like you. Now, go out there and win, and they will respect you.”

While my dad made me strong and he made me tough, and this protected me from a sea of ravages, it also put too much armor around my femininity. It has taken the #MeToo moment for my mother and I to talk and for me to gain the perspective of my true feminine power and the glory and beauty of it.

For my generation of women, this could be seen as goodnaturedly spilling the milk shake I was serving onto the lap of the asshole who put his hand up my skirt as I worked my way through college in blue-collar Pennsylvania.

Roy London suggested I approach my male bosses with my “feelings,” so as not to be threatening. He said they would be less threatened if I had “feelings” instead of opinions. I tried that. Tried so long to keep working without compromising myself.

People used to say, “Sharon Stone has the biggest balls in Hollywood.” It’s not a coincidence that I was the first woman to get paid something considered respectable—still a whole lot less than men, but more than women had been paid in the past.

People criticize me and say that men are intimidated by me.

That just makes me want to cry.

I was often alone on a set with hundreds of men. Hundreds of men and me. Often not even the caterer employed women when I was first working. My makeup and hair were men. Can you imagine what it was like to be the only woman on a set—to be the only naked woman, with maybe one or two other women standing near? The costumer and the script gal? And now I am the intimidating one.

This new press circus, with the humble letting go of the accused with a tidy yet massive settlement, is not due process for what are in fact crimes, crimes for which we have not discovered practical jurisprudence. Why must we “stand together and stay strong”? Where is the law? Did we let our pussy-grabbing president take that with him too? I personally do not believe that we did. I believe that there is a great and good court of law for this that must be revised, reviewed, revamped, reclaimed, and reconsidered to respect the sexuality of the public as a whole.

I know that all of these women and men who have been harassed, been raped, had their jobs held for ransom, and been sexually tormented deserve their day in court. I know that to be true. I know that all of the unprocessed rape kits on police shelves everywhere must be processed so that crimes can be solved. This inaction is a true and real crime in itself.

To some of the less violent trespassers of my personal space—the ones who have threatened to fire me if I didn’t put out, for example—I suggested recently that if they would only sit with me and talk it out, I would let it go, without revealing their offensive behavior. I believed that a kind of truth-and-reconciliation discussion might be a good start. But so far, not one of them has manned up. It seemed like a more-than-fair offer, considering the humiliating and offensive state of my workplace. We must begin somewhere. There were always beasts. They weren’t always men. We tried to stay out of their way. There were always perverts. We tried to warn one another.

A friend told me a story about another dear friend of ours who was driven by a guy out into a field, where he violently forced her to give him oral sex. She came home fractured, devastated. Her girlfriends sent her back out into that field with him again, this time with a container of Krazy Glue; yes, he did it again, and yes, she squirted the Krazy Glue into his pants and ran for her life.

I have worked with great men, great creative geniuses, good, decent, fun men, flirtatious, delightful men, men and women who I would trust with my life, and have.

So that is why I accept apologie...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Death Becomes Me
• What Is Home
• Style
• Kitchen- Sink Irish
• An Education
• Work
• Role Models
• Basic
• Invisible
• Dreams
• Dancing Lessons
• Answered Prayers
• Cages
• Choices
• Karma
• Hope
• The Bull
• Me Too
• The Beauty of Living Twice
• Acknowledgments
• Resource Guide