Stone’s Blonde Ambition

“If I was just intelligent, I’d be OK. But I am fiercely intelligent, which most people find very threatening. Women in the movie business are never going to be wholly popular . . . but you have to figure out how to achieve your goals with dignity. If I were a petite, brunette, ethnic lawyer, then my behavior would be totally acceptable. But we Barbie dolls are not supposed to behave the way I do.” That’s what “Basic Instinct” actress Sharon Stone has to say in the new issue of Details.

This young woman may look like the typical Hollywood blonde, but she’s not! She is on target, funny, cynical, openly ambitious and--as this and other interviews have proved--does not suffer fools gladly.

Controversy continues to surround “Basic Instinct” (opening March 20). Here’s what Stone says of those in the gay community who object: “Their position was that the only characters who were bad in the movie were homosexual, and that (the film) showed this minority group in an unfair, derogatory way. Well, ‘Roxanne’ showed firemen to be inept and stupid, but you didn’t see firemen demonstrating. There has to be a protagonist for every piece and I happen to be it in ‘Basic Instinct.’ “If you are a minority and you need a public forum, then you should use anything possible to gain access to the media. I think they were right to take advantage of the situation to achieve their aims . . . but in the end, nothing in the script was changed.”

Stone’s take on the Hollywood power scene? “People in L.A. treat each other like they are disposable . . . they think they are more powerful or that they have their hooks into immortality.”

Personally, I’d like to see Barbra Streisand direct Stone, Sean Young and Roseanne Arnold in--anything! The men of Tinseltown would have to fasten their seatbelts!

Elizabeth Taylor wasn’t quite as raucously relaxed with Oprah Winfrey last week as she was with Johnny Carson, but the star’s “Oprah” appearance was still funny, candid, and infinitely better than their first get-together back in 1988. Taylor even apologized to Winfrey for the previous show, saying: “I was a basket case.” And Winfrey ended the show with a big pitch for the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Fund.

Taylor looked great too, in her short, flirty skirt and trim jacket. The one criticism? Her latest hairstyle. Jose Eber has done some marvelous things with Taylor’s thick mane over the years, but when he goes wrong, he goes wrong in a major way! Although it was slightly less electrified than at her birthday, Taylor’s hair on “Oprah” still looked as if Eber had terrified his most famous client. And yes, I read the recent New York Times article on “Big Hair”--but there’s big and then there’s too big !