Stars of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ sue Paramount for child abuse: they allege they were tricked into filming nudes when they were minors

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting were teenagers when they wowed audiences in the 1968 version of “Romeo and Juliet,” directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

The film was a success and was nominated for four Academy Awards. But it also sparked controversy for a bedroom scene that included images of Whiting’s buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts.

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Now in their 70s, Hussey and Whiting filed a lawsuit in Santa Monica Superior Court on Friday, accusing Paramount of sexually exploiting them and distributing images of nude teenage boys, according to a Variety review.

The lawsuit alleges that Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, assured both actors that there would be no nudity in the film and that they would wear flesh-colored underwear in the bedroom scene.

But in the final days of filming, the director reportedly implored them to act nude with body makeup, “or the movie would flop.”

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‘Romeo and Juliet’ stars sue Paramount for child abuse

Hussey was 15 at the time and Whiting was 16. According to the complaint, Zeffirelli showed them where the camera would be placed and assured them that no nudity would be photographed or published in the film.

The suit alleges that he was being dishonest and that, in fact, Whiting and Hussey were filmed in the nude without their knowledge.

“What they were told and what happened were two different things,” said Tony Marinozzi, who is a business manager for both actors.

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“They trusted Franco. At 16, as actors, they took his initiative that he would not violate that trust they had. Franco was his friend, and frankly, at 16, what do they do? There are no options. There was no #MeToo.”

According to the complaint, Hussey and Whiting suffered mental anguish and emotional distress in the 55 years since the film’s release, and also lost job opportunities.

Despite their outstanding performances, Hussey and Whiting had very limited acting careers after “Romeo and Juliet.”

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“Nude images of minors are illegal and should not be posted,” the actors’ attorney, Solomon Gresen, said in an interview.

“These were very young, naive kids in the ’60s who didn’t understand what was about to hit them. All of a sudden, they became famous at a level they never expected, and on top of that, they were raped in a way that they didn’t know how to handle,” he commented.

The lawsuit relies in part on a California law that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for prior child sexual abuse claims.

The courts saw an influx of complaints against the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church, among other organizations, in the days leading up to the December 31 deadline.

In a 2018 interview with Variety, Hussey defended the nude scene. “No one my age had ever done that before,” she said, adding that Zeffirelli tastefully filmed it. “It was necessary for the movie.”

In another 2018 interview with Fox News, he said the scene was “taboo” in the United States, but nudity was already common in European films at the time.

“It wasn’t that important,” he said. “And Leonard wasn’t shy at all! In the middle of filming, I completely forgot that he had no clothes on.”

(YO)

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