- Steven McIntosh
- BBC News Entertainment reporter
8 hours ago
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Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey were 16 and 15 years old respectively when filming Romeo and Juliet
the movie stars Romeo and Juliet (1968), which won two Academy Awards, is suing Paramount Pictures for sexual abuse over a nude scene in the film.
Actors Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey were teenagers when they made the film.
In the court case, the English actors, now in their 70s, claim that the director, Italian Franco Zeffirelli, encouraged them to film nude scenes, although they had previously assured that it was not necessary.
Paramount has not yet publicly responded to the allegation.
The two actors are seeking more than US$500 million (about R$2.7 billion) in damages based on the suffering they allegedly endured and the earnings the film has made since its release.
The couple claim Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, initially said they were wearing fleshcolored underwear in the scene where they meet in a bedroom.
But on the morning of the shoot, the director would have asked her to wear only body makeup to ensure the camera would be positioned to avoid showing nudity.
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Whiting and Hussey are now 72 and 71 years old respectively.
In the final cut of the film, Whiting’s buttocks and Hussey’s breasts appear briefly during the scene.
Zeffirelli allegedly told them they had to appear naked “or the film would fail,” and their careers would suffer, the two allege in the lawsuit. The actors “believed they had no choice but to perform nude with the requisite body makeup”.
Whiting, now 72, was 16 when the film was made; Hussey is a year younger.
The duo are suing Paramount for sexual abuse, sexual harassment and fraud.
The lawsuit alleges that the Hollywood studio sexually exploited the two young actors and distributed pictures of naked teenagers.
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The court filings went on to say that Whiting and Hussey suffered decades of emotional damage and anguish as a result of the way they were treated.
The film was a huge hit at the time and has since been shown to generations of students studying Shakespeare’s play.
It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture, and won two Best Cinematography and Costume Design.
The trial opened last Friday (12/31) in the Superior Court of Santa Monica, California, thanks to a state law temporarily suspending the statute of limitations for the crime of child sexual abuse.
The suspension led to a number of new lawsuits and the reopening of many others that had previously been dismissed.
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The film was nominated for four Oscars and won two for best cinematography and best costume design.
“What they were told and what happened were two different things,” Tony Marinozzi, manager of both actors, told Variety.
“They trusted Franco. At 16, as an actor, they believed that he would not betray their trust. Franco was her boyfriend, and honestly what do you do when you’re 16? There are no options. There was no #MeToo.”
Solomon Gresen, an attorney for the couple, added in a statement: “Nude pictures of minors are illegal and must not be shown.”
“These were very young, naive kids in the 1960s who didn’t understand what was about to hit them.”
“All of a sudden, they found fame on a level they never expected, and on top of that they were being abused in ways they didn’t know how to handle.”
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The lawsuit alleges Paramount sexually exploited the couple and distributed images of naked teenagers.
In a 2018 interview with Variety, Hussey defended the nude scene.
“Nobody my age had done that before,” she said, adding that Zeffirelli shot it “tastefully” and that the scene was “necessary to the film.”
In an interview with Fox News, also conducted in 2018, she explained that the scene was “taboo” in the United States, but that nudity was common in European films at the time.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” she explained.
“And Leonard wasn’t shy at all! Halfway through filming, I just completely forgot I wasn’t wearing any clothes.”