After struggling for years to achieve a mediocre success, Stone finally reached the top with the film Basic Instinct. But even with that accomplishment behind her, she was not taken seriously. Three years later, a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for her work in Casino proved she was a powerhouse in the film industry.

Naked Instinct uncovers the experiences that made Sharon Stone the dynamic, intriguing woman she is today. It tells:

- Why during her childhood, the girl with a genius I.Q. felt fat and ugly -- even after winning a local beauty contest and a contract with the modeling agent of the seventies, Eileen Ford

- Why her high school classmates loathed her

- How mysteriously, in her starlet years, Stone lived lavishly, with no visible means of support

- The personal and professional low she hit in Africa, where she made back-to-back bombs: King Solomon's Mines and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold

- The near-fatal car crash that paralyzed her for six months immediately after a big break in Total Recall, in which she starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger

Why her own former publicist, Howard Brandy, calls her "a nut case" after she claimed to have heard voices on the set of her recent flop, Diabolique

- How her superagency, CAA, continued to treat her poorly, even after she became a superstar

Why she fired former president Richard Nixon's ex-bodyguard when he asked for two days offto attend his former boss's funeral

- How a stalker "forced" her to move out of her modest one-bedroom house into a 27,000-square-foot Beverly Hills chateau

- Why she told Steven Spielberg to get lost when he asked her to star in a film

Naked Instinct explores Stone's colorful love life, beginning with the tragic deaths of two high school boyfriends and continuing through a series of brief, often volatile romantic liaisons she began after emerging from several years of sexual seclusion following her 1987 divorce from producer Michael Greenburgh. Her list of lovers includes country singer Dwight Yoakum; Chris Peters, son of Jon Peters and Leslie Ann Warren; producer Bill MacDonald; and Robert Wagner, a twenty-something production assistant. Stone pursues a new and tougher stardom the same way she pursues male companionship, with equal amounts of verve and determination.

Naked Instinct exposes the foibles, excesses, ambitions, and fears of this driven and remarkable woman.