Map of Asia and Europe circa 1200 C.E.

Nanzhao, alternate spellings Nanchao and Nan Chao (Traditional Chinese: 南詔; Simplified Chinese: 南诏; pinyin: Nánzhào​; Tibetan: Jang^[1]) was a polity that flourished in what is now southern China and Southeast Asia during the 8th and 9th centuries. It was centered around present-day Yunnan in China.

Founding and ethnography[link]

Asia in 800AD, showing Nanzhao and its neighbors.

Originally, there were several tribes that settled on the fertile land around the alpine fault lake Erhai. These tribes were called Mengshe (蒙舍), Mengsui (蒙嶲), Langqiong (浪穹), Dengtan (邆賧), Shilang (施浪), and Yuexi (越析). Each tribe had its own kingdom, known as a zhao. In 649 AD the chieftain of the Mengshe tribe, Xinuluo (細奴邏), founded a kingdom (Damengguo 大蒙國) in the area of Lake Erhai. In the year 737 CE, with the support of the Tang Dynasty of China, Piluoge（皮逻阁）united the six zhaos in succession, establishing a new kingdom called Nanzhao (Mandarin, "Southern Zhao").

Nanzhao was made up of many ethnic and linguistic groups. Some historians believe that the majority of the population were of the Bai people,^[2] but that the elite spoke a variant of Nuosu (also called Yi), a Tibeto-Burman language closely related to Burmese.^[3] In any case, the capital was established in 738 at Taihe (modern day Taihe village, a few miles south of Dali). Located in the heart of the Erhai valley, the site was ideal: it could be easily defended against attack, and it was in the midst of rich farmland.

Nanzhao came under Tibetan control from 680 CE. The Tibetans recognised its suzerainty after 703 and then took it under their control again from 750-794, when Nanzhao turned on their Tibetan overlords and helped China defeat their armies.^[4]

Religion[link]

Nanzhao had a strong connection with Theravada Buddhism^{[citation needed]}, as evidenced by surviving stone carvings^{[citation needed]}, as well as temples from the period. Some scholars are said to have claimed that Nanzhao's Acarya Buddhism was related to the Tantric Ari Buddhism of Bagan, Myanmar^{[citation needed]}.

Expansion[link]

In 750, Nanzhao rebelled against the Tang Dynasty. In retaliation, the Tang sent an army against Nanzhao in 751, but this army was soundly defeated at Xiaguan. (It was in the same year that the Tang suffered another serious defeat at the hands of the Arabs at the Battle of Talas in Central Asia; these defeats weakened the dynasty both internally and externally.) Today the General's Cave (two kilometres west of Xiaguan), and the Tomb of Ten Thousand Soldiers (in Tianbao Park) bear witness to this great massacre. In 754, another Tang army was sent, this time from the north, but it too was defeated (and Tang was unable to send another expedition due to the outbreak of Anshi Rebellion in the following year). Bolstered by these successes, Nanzhao expanded rapidly, first into Burma, then into the rest of Yunnan, down into northern Laos and Thailand, and finally, north into Sichuan. In 829, Chengdu was taken; it was a great prize, as it enabled Nanzhao to lay claim to the whole of Sichuan province, with its rich paddy fields. This was too much for the Tang Dynasty, who lost no time in counterattacking.

Decline[link]

By 873, Nanzhao had been expelled from Sichuan, and retreated back to Yunnan. Taking Chengdu marked the high point of the Nanzhao kingdom, and it was a watershed: from then on, the Nanzhao Kingdom slowly declined.

Overthrow[link]

In 902, the Nanzhao dynasty was overthrown. The end was bloody, for in that year the chief minister murdered all of the key members of the royal family, including the heir apparent. This was followed by three other dynasties in quick succession: Da Changhe, Da Tianxing and Da Yining. Duan Siping seized power in 937 to establish the Kingdom of Dali.

Footnotes[link]

1. ^ Stein, R. A. (1972) Tibetan Civilization, p. 63. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0806-1 (cloth); ISBN 0-8047-0901-7 (pbk)
2. ^ Joe Cummings, Robert Storey (1991). China, Volume 10 (3, illustrated ed.). the University of California: Lonely Planet Publications. p. 705. ISBN 0-86442-123-0. http://books.google.com/books?ct=result&id=J99vAAAAIAAJ&dq=nanzhao+mongol+dian&q=kingdom. Retrieved 15 May 2011. 
3. ^ C. X. George Wei (2002). Exploring nationalisms of China: themes and conflicts. Indiana University: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 195. ISBN 0-313-31512-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=qz3vdkxBt4AC&pg=PA195&dq=nanzhao+mongol+dian#v=snippet&q=nanzhao%20erhai%20lake%20capital&f=false. Retrieved 15 May 2011. 
4. ^ Stein, R. A. (1972) Tibetan Civilization, pp. 60, 65. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0806-1 (cloth); ISBN 0-8047-0901-7 (pbk)

References[link]

• Backus, C. The Nan-chao Kingdom and T'ang China's China's Southwestern Frontier, Cambridge, 1981, ISBN 0-521-22733-X.
• Chan, Maung (March 2005) Theravada Buddhism and Shan/Thai/Dai/Laos Regions.

Sharon Stone
Stone at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005
Born	Sharon Vonne Stone (1958-03-10) March 10, 1958 (age 54) Meadville, Pennsylvania, United States
Occupation	Actress, model, producer
Years active	1980–present
Spouse	Michael Greenburg (1984–1990) Phil Bronstein (1998–2004)
Children	3

Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for her performance in Casino.

Early life[link]

Stone was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The second of four children, she is the daughter of Dorothy (née Lawson), an accountant and homemaker, and Joseph William Stone II, a tool and die manufacturer and factory worker.^[1][2][3] Stone graduated in 1975 from Saegertown High School in Saegertown, Pennsylvania.^[3]

Career[link]

Modeling[link]

Stone won the title of Miss Crawford County in Meadville, and was a candidate for Miss Pennsylvania.^[3] One of the pageant judges said she should quit school and move to New York City to become a fashion model.^[3] In 1977, Stone left Meadville, moving in with an aunt in New Jersey. Within four days of her arrival in New Jersey, she was signed by Ford Modeling Agency in New York.

1980–1989[link]

While living in Europe, she decided to quit modeling and become an actress. "So I packed my bags, moved back to New York, and stood in line to be an extra in a Woody Allen movie," she later recalled.^{[citation needed]} Stone was cast for a brief role in Allen's Stardust Memories (1980),^[3] and then had a speaking part a year later in the horror film Deadly Blessing (1981). French director Claude Lelouch cast her in Les Uns et les Autres (1982), starring James Caan.^{[citation needed]} She was on screen for two minutes and did not appear in the credits.

Her next film role was in Irreconcilable Differences (1984), starring Ryan O'Neal, Shelley Long, and a young Drew Barrymore. Stone played a starlet who breaks up the marriage of a successful director and his screenwriter wife. In 1984, she appeared in a two-part episode of Magnum, P.I., titled "Echoes of the Mind", where she played identical twins, one a love interest of Tom Selleck's character.

Through the rest of the 1980s, she had roles in such B-films as King Solomon's Mines (1985) and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1987), and played Steven Seagal's wife in Above the Law (1988). Also in 1988, Stone took over the role of Janice Henry for the filming of the miniseries War and Remembrance.

1990–2002[link]

Stone in France, 1991

Her appearance in Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall (1990) with Arnold Schwarzenegger gave Stone's career a boost.^[3] To coincide with the film's release, she posed nude for Playboy, showing off the muscles she developed in preparation for the film (she lifted weights and learned taekwondo). In 1999, she was rated among the 25 sexiest stars of the century by Playboy.^[4]

In another Verhoeven film was the role that made her a star, playing Catherine Tramell, a brilliant, bisexual, alleged serial killer, in Basic Instinct (1992).^[3] Several better known actresses of the time turned down the part, mostly because of the nudity required.^{[citation needed]} In the film's most notorious scene, Tramell is being questioned by the police, and she crosses and uncrosses her legs, revealing the fact she is not wearing any underwear.^[5] According to Stone, she agreed to film the flashing scene with no panties, and although she and Verhoeven had discussed the scene from the beginning of production, she was unaware just how explicit the infamous shot would be:^[6]

"I knew that we were going to do this leg-crossing thing and I knew that we were going to allude to the concept that I was nude, but I did not think that you would see my vagina in the scene. Later, when I saw it in the screening I was shocked. I think seeing it in a room full of strangers was so disrespectful and so shocking, so I went into the booth and slapped him and left."^[7][8]

She claimed in an earlier interview, however, that "it was so fun" watching the film for the first time with strangers.^[6] Verhoeven has denied all claims of trickery and said, "As much as I love her, I hate her, too, especially after the lies she told the press about the shot between her legs, which was a straight lie".^[9] Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who later befriended the actress, also claimed in his memoir, Hollywood Animal, that the actress was fully aware of the level of nudity involved.

Stone at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival

Following Basic Instinct, she was listed by People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world.^[10] In 1992, photographer George Hurrell took a series of photographs of Stone, Sherilyn Fenn, Julian Sands, Raquel Welch, Eric Roberts, and Sean Penn. In November 1995, Stone received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6925 Hollywood Blvd. That same year, Empire chose her as one of the 100 sexiest stars in film history. In October 1997, she was ranked among the top 100 film stars of all time by Empire.

In 1995, she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Dramatic Motion Picture, for her role as "Ginger" in Martin Scorsese's Casino, opposite Robert De Niro.^[3] She also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the role.^[3] The same year, she starred opposite Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, and Leonardo DiCaprio in the Sam Raimi western The Quick And The Dead. Also in 1995, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award.^[11]

Stone starred opposite Ellen DeGeneres in the 2000 HBO film If These Walls Could Talk 2, in which she played a lesbian trying to start a family. For her work on 'Walls', she was again recognized by Women in Film, this time with the Lucy Award.^[11]

In 2001, Stone was linked to a biopic of the German film director Leni Riefenstahl. The prospective director, Paul Verhoeven, and Riefenstahl herself, favoured Stone to portray Riefenstahl in the film. According to Verhoeven, he discussed the project with Stone and she was very interested. Subsequently, Verhoeven pulled out of the project as he wanted to hire a more expensive screenwriter than the producers did.^[12][13]

Stone was hospitalized on September 29, 2001 for a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which was diagnosed as a vertebral artery dissection rather than the more common ruptured aneurysm, and treated with an endovascular coil embolization.^[14]

2003–present[link]

Stone in 2005

In 2003, she appeared in three episodes from the eighth season of The Practice. For her performances, she received an Emmy Award^[15] for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.

Also in 2003, she appeared in a James Woods-directed American Stroke Association television commercial to raise awareness of the symptoms of a stroke. This commercial was also shown in Canada courtesy of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.^[16]

Stone attempted a return to the mainstream with roles in the films Cold Creek Manor (2003) with Dennis Quaid and Catwoman (2004) with Halle Berry; however, both films were critical and commercial flops.

After years of litigation, Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction was released on March 31, 2006. A reason for a long delay in releasing the film was reportedly Stone's dispute with the filmmakers over the nudity in the film; she wanted more, while they wanted less. A group sex scene was cut in order to achieve an R rating from the MPAA for the U.S. release; the controversial scene remained in the U.K. version of the London-based film. Stone told an interviewer, "We are in a time of odd repression and if a popcorn movie allows us to create a platform for discussion, wouldn't that be great?"^[17]

Despite an estimated budget of $70 million, it placed only 10th in gross on its debut weekend with a meager $3,200,000, and was subsequently declared a bomb.^[18] It ultimately ran in theaters for only 17 days and finished with a total domestic gross of under $6 million. Despite the failure of Basic Instinct 2, Stone has said that she would love to direct and act in a third Basic Instinct film.

Stone at the 83rd Academy Awards in 2011

She appeared in the 2006 drama Alpha Dog opposite Bruce Willis, playing Olivia Mazursky, the mother of a real-life murder victim. Stone wore a fatsuit for the role.^[19] In February 2007, Stone found her role as a clinically depressed woman in her latest film, When a Man Falls in the Forest, uplifting, as it challenged what she called "Prozac society." "It was a watershed experience," she said. "I think that we live in a... Prozac society where we're always told we're supposed to have this kind of equilibrium of emotion. We have all these assignments about how we're supposed to feel about something."^[20]

In December 2006, she co hosted the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway together with Anjelica Huston. The concert was in honor of the Nobel Peace Prize winners Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank.^[21] Also in that year, she appeared in the last episode of the Turkish TV series Kurtlar Vadisi (Valley of the Wolves) along with Andy Garcia.^{[citation needed]}

On January 5, 2010, Entertainment Weekly reported Stone's impending appearance in four episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in April,^[22] and then included in a review on the 29th of that April such descriptions of Stone's performance as a "great presence," and having "had to revive her best . . . tone to sell hokey lines" in a series it described as "mawkish and overwrought."^[23] Stone portrayed Jo Marlowe, a former cop turned prosecutor.

Criticism[link]

Tanzania[link]

On January 28, 2005, Stone helped solicit pledges for $1 million in five minutes for mosquito nets in Tanzania,^[24] turning a panel on African poverty into an impromptu fund-raiser at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Many observers, including UNICEF, criticized her actions by claiming that Stone had reacted instinctively to the words of Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, because she had not done her research on the causes, consequences and methods of preventing malaria.^[25]

Of the $1 million pledged, only $250,000 was actually raised. In order to fulfill the promise to send $1 million worth of bed nets to Tanzania, UNICEF contributed $750,000.^[26] This diverted funds from other UNICEF projects.^[26] According to prominent economist Xavier Sala-i-Martín, officials are largely unaware of what happened with the bed nets. Some were delivered to the local airport.^[26] These reportedly were stolen and later resurfaced as wedding dresses on the local black market.^[25][26]

Chinese earthquake[link]

Stone sparked a storm of criticism with her comments in an exchange on the red carpet with Hong Kong's Cable Entertainment News during the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 25, 2008. When asked about the 2008 Sichuan earthquake she remarked:

Well you know it was very interesting because at first, you know, I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And so I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don't like that. And I had been this, you know, concerned about, oh how should we deal with the Olympics because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that Karma? When you're not nice then the bad things happen to you? ^[27]

Observers have noted that Wenchuan County, the epicenter of the earthquake, is located in Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, where ethnic Tibetans compose over half the population. According to the Hollywood Reporter, one of China's biggest cinema chains reacted to Stone's comments by declaring it would not show her films in its theaters.^[28] The founder of the UME Cineplex chain and the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, Ng See-Yuen, called Stone's comments "inappropriate," and said the UME Cineplex chain would be presenting her films no further.^[28] Christian Dior advertisements featuring Stone's image were dropped from all ads in China amid the public uproar.^[29] Stone was struck from the 2008 Shanghai International Film Festival guest list, and the event's organizers considered banning the actress permanently.^[30]

Dior China had originally posted an apology in Stone's name, but Stone later denied making the apology during an interview with the New York Times, saying "I'm not going to apologize. I'm certainly not going to apologize for something that isn't real and true – not for face creams," although she does admit she had "sounded like an idiot."^[31] However, after the interview, Stone released a statement entitled "In my own words by Sharon Stone" in which she said "I could not be more regretful of that mistake. It was unintentional. I apologize. Those words were never meant to be hurtful to anyone."^[32]

While Stone cited the Dalai Lama as her "good friend" when she made the remark at the Cannes film festival, the Dalai Lama has reportedly distanced himself by saying of her only, "yes, I've met that lady".^[33][34]

Mensa[link]

For many years, Stone maintained that she had an IQ of 148^[35] and was a member of Mensa,^[36][37] but in April 2002, she admitted she was not, and had never been, a member of that society.^[36][38] Jim Blackmore of Mensa said, "It's delightful to finally see Ms. Stone admit that she's not and never has been a member of our society." Blackmore admits Stone may be as clever as many like to think. He says, "My gut feeling is that she would definitely qualify. But that's just based on what we've been told by other individuals."^[38]

Personal life[link]

In March 2006, Stone traveled to Israel to promote peace in the Middle East through a press conference with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres.^[39]

Religion[link]

Stone is a convert to Tibetan Buddhism.^[40] She believes in God and is religious by self-description.^[41] She is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church.^[42]

Relationships[link]

Stone married television producer Michael Greenburg in 1984 on the set of The Vegas Strip War, a television film he produced and she starred in. The couple separated three years later, and their divorce was finalized in 1990.^[43]

In 1993, Stone met William J. MacDonald (aka Bill MacDonald) on the set of the film Sliver, which he co-produced. MacDonald left his wife Naomi Baca for Stone and became engaged to her. They separated one year later in 1994.^[44]

While working on the film The Quick and the Dead in 1995, Stone met Bob Wagner (a second assistant director) and they became engaged. After they separated, Stone returned the engagement ring via FedEx.^[45]

On February 14, 1998, Stone married Phil Bronstein, executive editor of the San Francisco Examiner and later San Francisco Chronicle.^[46] They adopted a baby son, Roan Joseph Bronstein, in 2000.^[47] Bronstein filed for divorce in 2003, citing irreconcilable differences.^[48] The divorce became final in 2004,^[49] with a judge ruling that Roan should remain primarily with Bronstein, with Stone receiving visitation.^[50][51]

Stone adopted her second son, Laird Vonne Stone, in 2005,^[52] and her third son, Quinn Kelly Stone, in 2006.^[43][53]

In 2005, during a television interview for her film Basic Instinct 2, Stone hinted at an interest in bisexuality, stating "Middle age is an open-minded period".^[54] Stone also has said that in the past she's "dated" girls. Furthermore, in Naked Instinct, an unauthorized biography of Stone, author Frank Sanello details a sexual liaison between Stone and a woman in the bathroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel.^[55] In an interview on the Michael Parkinson talk show in Britain on March 18, 2006, she said she was straight. However, in January 2008, she was quoted as saying, "Everybody is bisexual to an extent. Now men act like women and it's difficult to have a relationship because I like men in that old-fashioned way. I like masculinity and, in truth, only women do that now".^[56]

In 2011, Stone stated on Piers Morgan Tonight that she was never married to George Howe Englund Jr., despite contrary internet rumors.^[57]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sharon Stone

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• Sharon Stone at the Internet Movie Database