Sharon Stone is unrecognizable in rare photos competing at Miss Pennsylvania 50 years ago

The Irreconcilable Differences actress was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania in 1958 and lived there until she was 15 years old. While studying creative writing at Edinboro State College, Sharon won the title of Miss Crawford County, Pennsylvania. 

The pageant is still put on today at the annual Crawford County Fair, with the judges looking for “a young lady that will represent our fair as an ‘ambassador’ of the PA fair, farm, livestock, and agricultural industry.” The current holder is Stephanie Skinner. 

After Sharon won Miss Crawford County, she went on to compete in the Miss Pennsylvania pageant when she was 17. But, the Catwoman actress didn’t take home the crown. 

That year’s winner was Miss Bucks County Marie McLaughlin. One of Sharon’s fellow contestants, future 1977 winner Marie Rotunda, wrote about their time competing together. for the Naples Daily News, noting that while she was a “pageant pro,” Sharon “was a real pageant novice.”

Sharon didn’t leave the Miss Pennsylvania pageant empty handed. During a 1999 interview with Inside the Actors Studio, she revealed that one of the pageant judges told her to quit college and move to New York City to become a fashion model. And Sharon did just that.

By 1977, she was signed by Ford Modeling Agency and soon after was traveling across Europe to walk the runway.

The model lived abroad for several years before packing her bags and moving back to New York to pursue an acting career. Sharon remembered standing in line to be an extra in a Woody Allen movie before landing a brief role in his 1980 film Stardust Memories.

Sharon kept at her dream, appearing in dozens of TV shows and films before finally landing her breakthrough role.

Years after her pageant days, Sharon starred in the 1992 thriller Basic Instinct as an alleged serial killer. For the part, she earned a Golden Globe Award nomination. In 1995, Sharon acted alongside Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s epic crime drama Casino and landed herself an Oscar nomination.

Since then, Sharon has continued acting, most recently appearing in season three of Euphoria as the powerful studio executive and boss to Lexi Howard (played by Maude Apatow).