Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin’s blowout was a long time coming.
The actors publicly tussled this week after Stone revealed on Louis Theroux’s podcast that producer Robert Evans told her to have sex with Baldwin during filming of their 1993 movie “Sliver” to improve his lousy screen performance.
But the ugly fight goes back more than 30 years.
6 “Give me a man. Give me Alec. I’d let Alec throw me over a table anytime,” Sharon Stone allegedly said. ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
During the fraught production of the sexually charged thriller, the pair quickly developed an antipathy for one another.
“Thin lips, OK breath,” Baldwin, Alec Baldwin’s brother, reportedly said after shooting a love scene with the “Basic Instinct” star, according to Entertainment Weekly.
The hatred was mutual.
“He’s a boy,” Stone complained, according to “Sliver” screenwriter Joe Eszterhas in his book “American Rhapsody.”
“Give me a man. Give me Alec. I’d let Alec throw me over a table anytime.”
Eszterhas claimed Stone would “wipe her mouth after kissing him or rinse it with mouthwash. She bit his tongue during a kiss.”
6 A book claimed Stone would “wipe her mouth after kissing him or rinse it with mouthwash.” ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
Yet he also wrote that Stone wanted Baldwin to fall for her “so hard, he won’t know what hit him.”
Stone released a statement at the time saying, “I think it’s hilarious. I knew [Joe] was funny, but I didn’t think he could write comedy.”
She clarified the situation in a 2021 interview with the New Yorker, insisting that Baldwin misconstrued her innocent desire to rehearse as sexual advances.
“When I would say to him, ‘Why don’t you come to my trailer and we’ll work on the scenes,’ I don’t think he realized that I really wanted to work on the scenes,” Stone told the outlet. “They were pushing alternative realities very hard on both of us.”
6 Director Phillip Noyce said: “I ended up having to shoot many of their close-ups with only one of them in the room at a time, because they didn’t want to look at each other.” ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection
But Eszterhas quoted “Sliver” director Phillip Noyce in his 2007 book “The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood” as saying that Stone was fuming over Baldwin being cast in the film.
“Billy Baldwin knew that Sharon Stone hadn’t wanted him in ‘Sliver,’ and their relationship was always tense,” Noyce said. “I ended up having to shoot many of their close-ups with only one of them in the room at a time, because they didn’t want to look at each other.”
Eszterhas also claimed Baldwin called Stone “a paean to lipstick lesbianism.”
6 Producer Robert Evans allegedly told Stone to have sex with Baldwin to improve his acting. FilmMagic
The 1990s feud boiled over this week after Stone alleged that Evans tried to get her in bed with Baldwin to make his acting “better.”
“He called me to his office,” Stone said of the late producer who was once head of Paramount and delivered box office hits such as “The Godfather,” “Chinatown” and “Love Story.”
“And he’s running around his office in sunglasses explaining to me that he slept with Ava Gardner and I should sleep with Billy Baldwin, because if I slept with Billy Baldwin, Billy Baldwin’s performance would get better.”
6 “If I slept with Billy Baldwin, Billy Baldwin’s performance would get better,” Stone remembers of Evans’ rationale. Getty Images
After the story exploded, Baldwin, 61, viciously responded on social media.
“Not sure why Sharon Stone keep [sic] talking about me all these years later?” the actor began.
“Does she still have a crush on me or is she still hurt after all these years because I shunned her advances?”
Baldwin also claimed he has plenty of information on the actress.
6 Billy Baldwin shot back on social media this week, “I have so much dirt on her it would make her head spin.” Getty Images
“I have so much dirt on her it would make her head spin but I’ve kept quiet,” he went on.
He added: “The story of the meeting I had with Bob Evans imploring him to allow me to choreograph the final sex scene in the photo below so I wouldn’t have to kiss Sharon is absolute legend.”
“Wonder if I should write a book and tell the many, many disturbing, kinky and unprofessional tales about Sharon?” he quipped.
“That might be fun.”