SHARON STONE - MY LIFE IN 10 Pictures

GROWING UP in small-town Meadville, Pa., Sharon Vonne Stone admitted, “I was odd, but not on purpose. I was a social disaster, like I still am, because I tell the truth constantly.”

And she stayed true to herself as she made her way from modeling and movies like Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol to stardom — enduring many setbacks along the way, including a near-fatal stroke in 2001. “I spent two years learning to walk and talk again. People treated me in a way that was brutally unkind.” Now Sharon, who turned 65 on March 10, can honestly say that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. “Life doesn’t always make you feel like a winner as you grow older. [But] I feel like this is the most exciting and creative period of my life.”

1 1980 NOW AND THEN For her film debut as Woody Allen’s dream girl in Stardust Memories, “I was cast as an extra, and [a crew member] said, ‘The person who was supposed to play this part didn’t come today. Would you like [it]?’ I said, ‘Sure, when?’ and he was like, ‘Now’ ...It was like those stories where you get discovered in a drugstore.”

2 1983 NOT MUCH She’d land the short-lived series Bay City Blues, but “when I entered the business, the term ‘f***able’ was used to see if you were employable. Executives sat around a large table and discussed whether or not each of us was. They thought I was not.”