{"id":278842,"date":"2026-09-04T09:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T09:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/278842\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T09:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T09:44:11","slug":"sharon-stone-is-unrecognizable-in-rare-photos-competing-at-miss-pennsylvania-50-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/278842\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharon Stone is unrecognizable in rare photos competing at Miss Pennsylvania 50 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justus Kelley of Virginia was crowned Miss USA on August 27, 2026. And while the pageant has garnered a slight controversial reputation, many of its contestants and winners went on to become internationally famous.<\/p>\n

From Halle Berry<\/a> to Olivia Culpo<\/a>, some of our favorite stars’ careers began on pageant stages. And every Miss USA contestant starts out competing for their own state. Over 50 years ago, Sharon Stone<\/a> competed at Miss Pennsylvania and you won’t recognize her in the rare photos from the event.<\/p>\n

\"Sharon\u00a9 Facebook<\/p>\n

Crawford County is in Northwest PA<\/p>\n

Sharon Stone’s early years in Pennsylvania<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Actress\u00a9 Getty Images<\/p>\n

Days of Our Lives actress Judith McConnell won Miss Pennsylvania in 1965<\/p>\n

From Miss Crawford County to Miss Pennsylvania<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, noting that while she was a “pageant pro,” Sharon “was a real pageant novice.”<\/p>\n

\"Sharon\u00a9 AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Sharon has since been on hundreds of magazine covers<\/p>\n

The advice Sharon Stone received from a pageant judge<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

By 1977, she was signed by Ford Modeling Agency and soon after was traveling across Europe to walk the runway.<\/p>\n

\"Sharon\u00a9 Getty Images<\/p>\n

She always dreamt of becoming an actress<\/p>\n

Sharon Stone’s pivot into acting<\/p>\n

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<\/a> movie before landing a brief role in his 1980 film Stardust Memories.<\/p>\n

Sharon kept at her dream, appearing in dozens of TV shows and films before finally landing her breakthrough role.<\/p>\n

\"Robert\u00a9 Getty Images<\/p>\n

The actress once said Robert De Niro is “the best kisser in the business.”<\/p>\n

The breakthrough role that made Sharon Stone a star<\/p>\n

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

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<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justus Kelley of Virginia was crowned Miss USA on August 27, 2026. And while the pageant has garnered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8660,116743,28,30,29,116742,593],"class_list":["post-278842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-celebrity-news","tag-celebrity-transformations","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-sharon-stone","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}