Actors Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting have filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures, accusing the studio of sexually exploiting them and distributing nude footage of the two when they were teenagers. They starred in the classic Romeo and Juliet (1968) by director Franco Zeffirelli (19232019) and appeared nude in a love scene when she was 15 years old; he, 16. The two are seeking more than $500 million (2.7 billion reais) in compensation.
According to Variety, in the lawsuit, the pair said Zeffirelli promised they would not have to undress in the film and would wear nude underwear to simulate nudity. Later, during the shooting, he changed his speech and asked the actors to be naked so the film wouldn’t fail. He made sure the camera was strategically placed to avoid showing too much. Still, the feature features Whiting’s butt and Olivia’s breasts.
“What they were promised and what happened on set were very different things,” Tony Marinozzi, manager of the two actors, told the report. “They trusted Franco. At 16, they believed that he would not break their trust. Franco was her boyfriend, and honestly, what could they do? At that time there was no other option. There was no #MeToo.”
In the lawsuit, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting allege that they have endured emotional distress and anguish over the 55 years since the film’s release. They also say they lost job opportunities for appearing naked in the feature. Although the film was a success and was nominated for four Oscars, the actors worked shortly after Romeo and Juliet.
“Images of naked minors are illegal and should not be shown. They were innocent kids in the 1960s who had no idea what was about to happen to them. Suddenly they were famous on a level they never imagined and they were being abused in ways they didn’t know how to handle.”
Before Franco Zeffirelli’s death, Olivia Hussey praised the nude scenes while speaking to Variety herself. “They were necessary for the film. And nobody my age had done that before,” she appreciated, who also minimized the sequence speaking to Fox News, noting that nudity is only taboo in the US and that Europeans are used to seeing naked people in the cinema see.