Sharon grabs the limelight again

What happened over the next 10 minutes astounded everyone present and overshadowed all the hype attached to the film. Instead of DiCaprio and Diaz first walking up the steps as was expected, Sharon Stone, at the festival as a member of the jury, swept into view, clad in a skin-tight, pale blue dress.

Clearly buoyed up by the week's favourable headlines, the 44-year-old decided it was her time to take centre stage, although etiquette ruled that it was not. While the real stars of the premiere were forced to wait, the actress posed and twirled for the paparazzi, running her hands provocatively over her body as if she were a 20-year-old starlet. As one film critic put it: "She grabbed the moment by the balls and ran with it."

So, what exactly is Sharon Stone up to? While other judges on the panel, film luminaries such as David Lynch and directors Claude Miller and Walter Salles, spend their days in small cinemas, intensely studying the mainly highbrow films in competition, the Basic Instinct star is either holed up with her stylist and hairdresser or showing off in front of the cameras.

Cannes is like one giant audition and the fiercely ambitious actress is clearly taking advantage. On the face of it she may be in France to add a bit of glamour to what is really a ramshackle trade fair, but the real reason for her presence has become clear. "I'm looking for a job," she casually admitted last week, "so if there are any offers out there, I'd like to hear them." It's also no surprise to learn that today marks 10 years since the release of Stone's only real hit, Basic Instinct, and the new DVD is being plugged. Tonight she will be hogging the limelight again when she co-hosts the annual Cinema Against Aids gala. We should expect another revealing outfit and, fittingly, Stone is the top prize - the winner must bid more than £10,000 for a one-to-one telephone chat with the star.

Of course, what makes these recent events little short of miraculous is that eight months ago the 44-year-old actress was fighting for her life after suffering a near-fatal brain haemorrhage. Even by Hollywood standards her return to the spotlight is a legendary achievement and has created a PR opportunity that the wily former model is milking for all she can.

During an emotional Cannes press conference she murmured, with a barely suppressed sob and a brave smile: "I've been away for a couple of years, first to become a mother and then because of an illness which has taken more time than I wanted, but I just want to get back to film-making."

Expertly, she has applied a heroic gloss to a much more brutal reality. Stone had been consigned to the celebrity rubbish heap several years before she paid £80,000 to adopt a child and suffered a brain aneurysm (an abnormal swelling in an artery brought on by her excessive fitness regime). In Hollywood she was too old with too many flops on her CV.

At the time she bitterly complained at Hollywood's vicious treatment of older women; "When women hit 40 in Hollywood they get punished," she moaned. She knows these two weeks at Cannes are her last shot at regaining the power she held in 1992 when Basic Instinct propelled her to instant superstar status. Perhaps her near-death experience has also reinvigorated the ambition that has been dormant since she discovered marital bliss with Phil Bronstein, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.

It took guts to face Cannes just days after being back in hospital for more check-ups. For this, at least, she deserves respect.

Throughout her 10-year career Stone has drawn equal measures of admiration and scorn. Whatever you think about her acting abilities, she knows how to behave like a star. She seeks to entertain and provoke; journal-ists can rely on her to give a good quote, most famously announcing in one interview: "If you have a vagina and a point of view, that's a deadly combination."

By 1995, the Pennsylvania-born actress had achieved everything she wanted. The road may have been long and her route dubious (Joe Eszterhas, scriptwriter for Basic Instinct, claimed she climbed to the top using the casting couch), but she had reached the dizzy heights of owning a mock French château in Beverly Hills. When she met Bronstein in 1997, the one thing that had evaded her - a happy family life - was finally within reach. Then the fairy castle crumbled.

Her big-budget movie The Muse bombed at the box-office. Further attempts to revive her career with a sequel to Basic Instinct ended the following year when the producers pulled out. Paul Verhoeven, who directed her in Total Recall and Basic Instinct, said bitchily: "I would never be able to do the sequel unless I checked out whether Sharon was still a nightmare or not." A brief respite came with the adoption of a baby boy from a penniless single mother. But when, last October, news of Stone's blood clot broke, it seemed her dazzling career as a Hollywood diva was finally over.

Tonight, yet again, she is going to prove all of us wrong. If the past two weeks are anything to judge by, the charming Mrs Bronstein could be getting all she wants before long.