Sex Stars 1992

If rumors "counted, both of this year's presidential candidates might have qualified as Sex Stars of 1992. But Sex Stars are judged by a higher standard and must ultimately overcome the competition in a distinctly different list of primaries. This year witnessed the triumph of tough.

Madonna, a perennial Sex Star, was rivaled by Sharon Stone, definitely a sharp pick—as evidenced by her Playboy Interview in this issue. Madonna offered fewer outrageous opinions (text continued on base 190) than usual during the year, saving the shock for sex, her coffee-table book of erotic fantasies, She turned in a relatively prim, athletic performance in A League of Their Own, plus a part a bit more expected of her ad a kinky hot waxer of naked men in Body of Evidence.

Clearly unwaxed, Stone offered a pubic peek that became a draw for Basic Instinct. To reporters, she professed to feeling double-crossed by director Paul Verhoeven who, she said, coaxed her into removing her panites just before the flash would not be too revealing.

Conversely, for her big bedroom scene with Michael Douglas, Stone chose to tear off her crotch patch and bare all explaining to Premiere, "I just took off my robe and went, "Let's all stop pretenting—I'm nude, we all know it, let's go.'"

Later, Verhoeven offered a film-school primer on how to direct a sex scence: "You say, 'And now you have to put yourself on top of each other. OK, now let's start moving. OK, stick out your tongue—can you lick her? Can you lick her nipple a bit more, or his nipple?'"

For following such different instructions, Douglas was said to have been paid $14 million

But that was a pittance compared with the $60 million deal Madonna reportedly signed with Time Warner to run her own music, film and television empire. The setup allows Madonna to sign other talent, some of whom discovered she can be seductive in business, too. Among the first courted by Madonna's company were pretty punker Courtney Love and her band, Hole. "Madonna's interest in me was kind of like Dracula's interest in his latest victim," Love commented. Sandra Bernhard once had Madonna's interest, but no more. Still, Sandra has plenty of blood—and flesh—left, as demonstrated in her layout in the September Playboy. In the text she wrote to accompany the photos, Bernhard proclaims, "Here I am, big, bold, naked and all turned on for you. This sex-goddess stuff comes as second nature to me now. I love it! ... And damn it, I'm gonna hang out my wares while they're firm, fresh and fun to look at."

Sandra is one tough cookie, but her remark hints that even she is troubled by the specter of aging. Some leading ladies remain undaunted by it. "Fuck it, that's another thing I refuse to be afraid of," Geena Davis declared in Vanity Fair. "It's based on nonsense, as far as I'm concerned. It's just this cultural perception that women are not fabulous and sexually attractive when they get older.

"I've heard so many women say men look great when they get old but women don't. That's not true. Women are fabulous when they have some wrinkles and some experience."

Brave words, but some guys still think younger is better. After more than a decade with Mia Farrow, Woody Allen split and took up with her 21-year-old adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. And Mick Jagger, who's pushing 50, abandoned 36-year-old model Jerry Hall, reportedly for a fling with Carla Bruni, 23 an Italian model formerly accused of causing trouble between Donald Trump and his young trophy, Marla Maples.

A younger Hall once through she had the secret to preventing such slippage. "You just have to be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a tart in the bedroom," Hall advised in 1985. "As long as the house is clean and organized and they are fed and they have plenty of sex, they'll never run away."

Cindy Crawford, 26, has a clear-eyed perspective on aging. "Models are like baseball players," she told People after her wedding to actor Richard Gere, 16 years her senior. "We make a lot of money quickly, but all of a sudden we're thirty years old, we don't have a college education, we're qualified for nothing and we're used to a very nice lifestyle. The best thing to do is marry a movie star."

Although far from lacking in qualifications, Annette Bening married a movie star, Warren Beatty, who not only is some two decades older but has long been considered an unlikely prospect for matrimony. Both profess to total happiness with daughter Kathlyn, born before they announced the wedding.

Another set of devoted newlyweds, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, star together in Far and Away, drawing praise from director Ron Howard, who admired their ability to take Playboy in July that she was first attracted to acting as a girl in Australia. One of the additional benefits, she recalled, was "the boys in the play had to appear naked, and it was the first time I'd seen a young boy naked."

She was initially less enthusiastic about her own frontal nudity in her second U.S. film, Billy Bathgate. "It was a worry to me," She told Premiere. "But if I were going to do that again, I would actually do more nudity." On the other hand, she objects to "those boring love scenes, where the people are naked and they're just humping."

An excess of casual humping has taken its toll on several sports stars, so it was refreshing to hear Michael Jordan praise the life of a contentedly married man in a Playboy Interview in May. Noting he made a "well-timed decision to settle down and get married," Jordan asserted, "It's been a more laid-back environment for me with a wife and two kids.

"And you know, it's sad to say, but especially considering Magic Johnson's situation, I look at my kids and think, I'm very fortunate."

Other marriages have come undone under the pressures of success. With one monster hit, Achy Breaky Heart,Billy Ray Cyrus exploded overnight with grinding stage moves that quickly set him apart from other country singers. But his fans didn't learn he was married until his wife left him and another women turned up with his baby son—the flesh-and-blood by-product of a relationship during the "hurtin' time" after his divorce.

The old outlaws of country music were not impressed with Cyru's shenanigans, however. "Billy Ray is not a good singer," Waylon Jennings said to a People writer. "He's like Fabian. Fabian couldn't sing.... Billy Ray, he's not a good singer, but you don't need to be if you look that good. I was telling Willie [Nelson] the other day, 'You and me would be in lot of trouble if we was just starting out.'"

For newcomers, it's sometimes wise to seek advice from elders of the same sex. That's why Luke Perry and Jason Priestley sought the insights of Tom Jones shortly after their overnight success in TV's Beverly Hills, 90210. Over drinks and dinner, Perry recalls they asked, "Look, Tom, this shit is happening to us really quickly, and how do we deal with it?" Presumably, Perry has also sought the advice of new friend Madonna, who latched on to him after she discovered that one of his best friends is female impersonator Eva Destruction. "Anybody who hangs out with drag queens is a friend of mine," Madonna declared.

Perry insisted to Rolling Stone that he and Priestley are good pals, despite repeated rumors of rivalry between them. "I hang out with that fucker four or five days a week. I mean, what do I have to do, get up there and kiss him on the mouth so people will know we're good friends?" Better not ask Madonna for advice on that.

They don't kiss each other, either, but Mike Myers and Dana Carvey are close pals whose pairing in this year's Wayne's World was a big hit among postadolescent dweebs and rockers. Myers told Rolling Stone he hopes their weirdness on screen does not inspire youngsters. "In no way am I promoting infantile sexuality," he explained. "A lot of men recognize a part of you is forever twelve years old. That's what this is about. I in no way want to promote sexism. But to say little boys don't go to the poster section and look at Heather Locklear...." Happily, for all those men with 12-year-olds within, there are many beautiful ladies who see absolutely nothing wrong with male appreciation of their charms. As usual, many of these beauties proudly appeared in Playboy. Pamela Anderson first appeared as Miss February 1990 and, after nabbing a role in ABC's hot sitcom Home Improvement, reprised with a cover and a layout in this year's July issue and a leading role in Baywatch.

But men aren't the only ones watching with interest these days. "The last fantastic movie I saw was In the Realm of the Senses,"Jennifer Jason Leigh reports in a 20 Questions session in February's Playboy. "They're really fucking on screen, but the film can't be termed pornography because it's clearly made by a genius." Leigh has her own explicit love scenes in Single White Female. "The first couple of seconds are horrible," she said to an Us reporter. "If it's just about being naked in front of the camera, you're gonna be screwed, because then it's terrifying. But if you stay inside the role and make the scene as alive as you can, then you can have fun doing it."

To help with Leigh's fun on that film, director Barbet Schroeder provided a rubber dildo (off camera) to keep her inspired during some solo shooting. The crew called the object "Leonard," Leigh reported, and "we had to keep everyone from laughing because it was so silly. It was just me and this.... this thing?

Those things are popular items among Hollywood ladies. While hubby Bruce Willis was away, Demi Moore threw a "goddess party" for her female friends, who received various sexual devices as party favors. They also played a game called "pin the dong on the hunk."

As always, there's considerable resistance to screen nudity. Even thought she was bedding on screen with boyfriend Sean Penn in State of Grace,Robin Wright insisted on keeping her panties on. "They wanted me completely naked. When I got the part, I was told that I would absolutely have to do a love scene. So I said, 'Ok, if Sean takes his shirt off, so I had to do it. What can I say? I blew it. I didn't like it. I don't want to do it again. I've since learned to be more specific about my conditions."

It's nothing new to be asked to remove your hair? Sigourney Weaver confronted that in her first meeting with director David Fincher before starting Alien?. "He said, 'How do you feel about bald?'" she recalled. "And I sort of looked at him." But she quickly came upwith an age-old Hollywood solution: "If I make the picture bald, I'll have to make more money."

Shortly after the film opened, a New York hair salon offered Alien buzzcuts to other women for $12 a shearing. So far, though, it hasn't been a hot trend.

With all these worries about hair, home and heartaches, this year's Sex Stars didn't seem too involved in national politics. But former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen was rumored to be one of Bill Clinton's old flames. Although she revealed a lot about herself in a May Playboy layout, Gracen remained reticent about the rumor— finally denying it at a press conference.

That's our Sex Stars: Innocent to the end.

Great Instincts She's Got Hollywood Breathing Heavy trumpeted the cover blurb on Playboy's July 1990 issue, which featured Sharon Stone outside and in. Her sizzling performance as a bisexual murder suspect who snares detective Michael Douglas in 1992's Basic Instinct has the entire world catching its breath.

Hot off the Presses: Some Sex Stars just naturally inspire controversy. La Toya Jackson's autobiographical feud with her parents didn't hurt her shows at Paris' Moulin Rouge. Demi Moore reappeared on Vanity Fair's cover in her body-painted birthday suit, and rumor linked former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen to Bill Clinton. Madonna was hard at work on a book of erotic fantasies. Guns n' Roses singer Axl Rose was busted for his actions during a concert riot, Roxanne Pulitzer got involved in her beau's child custody case and comedian Sandra Bernhard resuscitated the Playboy Bunny.

Sex Potpourri: There was no single route to sex stardom this year. Michelle Pfeiffer retained her stellar status with a stint as Batman's Catwoman, while newcomer Jane March won critics' plaudits in The Lover's interracial romance. Demonstrating that bald is beautiful, Patrick Stewart of Star Trek: The Next Generation was surprise winner of a TV Guide poll as The Most Bodacious Man on TV, Michael Jordan repeated as the NBA's MVP and Sigourney Weaver got scalped for Alien3. On cable, Billy Zane scores in Lake Consequence. Teens sighed for Luke Perry of Beverly Hills, 90210; Geena Davis homered with A League of Their Own.

Camera Ready: Models' faces are even more famous than those of Hollywood sirens these days, and, in a welcome trend, they're showing off their bodies as well. Rachel Williams has graced many a magazine cover, including (in February of this year) ours. Claudia Schiffer has another calendar coming out. Meanwhile, she sued R.O.M.E. magazine for publishing sneaked dressing-room photos. Pepsi ad campaigner Cindy Crawford doubles as MTV's fashion correspondent. Joan Severance combines acting with ads for The Limited, while Christy Turlington stars in George Michael's video Freedom.

We Saw 'EM First: Can we pick them or what? These blonde beauties were Playboy centerfolds before fame on TV, film and advertising. Pamela Anderson, Miss February 1990, added a Baywatch role to her gig in Home Improvement; July 1989 Playmate Erika Eleniak appears in Steven Seagal's new movie, Under Siege; and Miss May 1992, Vickie Smith, turns up everywhere in the new Guess jeans ad campaign.