It seems that Sharon Stone’s life does not imitate art so much as a bad Hollywood B-movie. After last week’s legal pot-boiler, which saw the Casino star launching a lawsuit against the producers of the aborted Basic Instinct sequel, events spun from the ugly to the ridiculous. In a scene better suited to a 1950s’ monster movie, a Saturday trip to the zoo ended with Stone’s husband being mauled by a 10-foot Komodo dragon.
The bizarre attack occurred as Mr Stone (aka San Francisco Chronicle executive editor Phil Bronstein) was being treated to a private tour of the reptile’s cage at LA zoo. “He was in the Komodo dragon cage when he was bitten,” zoo spokesperson Lora LaMarca explained. “We have a number of celebrities who want to go behind the scenes and he had a fondness for these dragons, according to his wife.”
No doubt Bronstein’s warm feelings came to an abrupt end when the reptile attacked his foot, almost severing his big toe. The damage was exacerbated by the fact that Bronstein was bare-foot at the time. The editor had removed his white tennis shoes before entering the cage after learning that the lizard was fed on a diet of white rats and might confuse Bronstein’s feet for his next meal. In the event the creature proved more myopic than the officials anticipated.
Stone, who watched horrified from outside the cage, later told the San Francisco Chronicle that the lizard clamped down on Bronstein’s foot and began trashing its body to and fro. Fortunately Bronstein managed to free himself with the aid of an accompanying zookeeper and was able to escape by clambering through the cage’s feeding hatch. Surgeons later worked to reattach severed tendons and rebuild the casing of the toe. Bronstein is said to be in a “satisfactory” condition at an LA hospital. The Komodo dragon, unharmed in the skirmish, has been quarantined.