While there are any number of actresses who reportedly got bought their way to fame via the "casting couch", few mainstream performers got there by spreading their legs on screen. Sharon Stone is one of those few. She even got a Golden Globe nomination and won the Best Female Performer and Most Desirable Female MTV Movie Awards of 1993 for doing so.
Sharon Stone spent the 1980s laboring in obscurity in short-lived television series in small movie roles. As her star rose, she was seen along-side Richard Chamberlain in a pair of Allan Quartermain films; in one of Steven Seagal's better pictures, "Above the Law""; and with Arnold Schwartznegger in the sci-fi thriller "Total Recall".
In 1992, Stone appeared as the possibly bat-shit crazy sexual predator Catherine Tramell "Basic Instinct", flashed her nether-regions at the camera... and a star was born!
In the two decades since, Stone has made over 30 movies, starred in several other short-lived TV series and made guest appearances on many others. Several of her films have been supernatural thrillers or horror movies, such as "Sphere" "Cold Creek Manor", and "Catwoman" (although "Catwoman" is more horrible than horror).