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SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Sharon Stone is crouched on the carpeted floor of a VIP tent outside the Santa Monica Airport's Barker Hangar helping 5-year-old son Roan open a bag of popcorn. In a few minutes, Mommy will be done with her work, and Roan can play with his new Hot Wheels on the limo drive home.
Stone has been hard at work recently getting sexy for a very important role. No, not as Catherine Tramall, the deadly bisexual vamp she'll reprise March 10 in Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction. Nor the role she just accepted in director Emilio Estevez's all-star production, Bobby, about the assassination of Robert Kennedy. (She also has shot a multi-episode arc as an AIDS activist who becomes involved with Oliver Platt on Showtime comedy Huff.)
Rather, she has been working the catwalk, as she does every year, for Macy's Passport HIV/AIDS fashion show fundraiser, where she uses her sex appeal to auction everything from cars to tennis lessons with Pete Sampras. When Sampras joins Stone on the catwalk and ups his offer to include a tour of his L.A. home to view his collection of trophies, Stone tells the tennis champ, "I'd like to see your trophies."
Everything Stone, 47, says sounds naughty. Auctioning a trip to the Bahamas, she tells the crowd, "If you can't get (sex) with this trip, you're too old and should stay home and watch The Golden Girls."
Before her work is done, Stone will have raised more than $150,000. "I just love doing it," Stone says. Before she begins, she prays "to be small enough and humble enough that I remember why I'm there. And to be big enough that I can play catch with that many people."
Is it a challenge to turn her sex-appeal switch on and off? "No," she says with a laugh. "I think I'm just actually sexy. People know if I have fun, they'll have fun."
Jennifer Lopez also attended to showcase her Sweetface by JLO fall fashion line. On the red carpet before the show, La Lopez, in a flowing, black Michael Kors gown, received a kiss on the lips from her husband, Marc Anthony.
Asked to name the bigger diva, herself or Stone, Lopez noted Stone's humanitarian work. "She's just lovely," said Lopez, 36. "She's a powerful actress who stands up for what she believes in. And she helps people. That's a beautiful way to use your power."
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