‘Romeo & Juliet’ stars sue over 1968 film’s teen nude scene

[Sugar Cookie]

The two stars of 1968’s “Romeo and Juliet” sued Paramount Pictures for more than $500 million on Tuesday over a nude scene in the film shot when they were teens.

Olivia Hussey, then 15 and now 71, and Leonard Whiting, then 16 now 72, filed the suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging sexual abuse, sexual harassment and fraud.

Director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, initially told the two that they would wear flesh-colored undergarments in the bedroom scene that comes late in the movie and was shot on the final days of filming, the suit alleges.

But on the morning of the shoot, Zeffirelli told Whiting, who played Romeo, and Hussey, who played Juliet, that they would wear only body makeup, while still assuring them the camera would be positioned in a way that would not show nudity, according to the suit.

Yet they were filmed in the nude without their knowledge, in violation of California and federal laws against indecency and the exploitation of children, the suit says.

Zeffirelli told them they must act in the nude “or the Picture would fail” and their careers would be hurt, the suit said. The actors “believed they had no choice but to act in the nude in body makeup as demanded.”

Whiting’s bare buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts are briefly shown during the scene.

The court filing says the Hussey and Whiting have suffered emotional damage and mental anguish for decades, and that each had careers that did not reflect the success of the movie.

It says given that suffering and the revenue brought in by the film since its release, the actors are entitled to damages of more than $500 million.

The lawsuit was filed under a California law temporarily suspending the statute of limitations for child sex abuse, which has led to a host of new lawsuits and the revival of many others that were previously dismissed.

Hussey defended the scene in a 2018 interview with Variety, which first reported the lawsuit, for the film’s 50th anniversary.

“Nobody my age had done that before,” she said, adding that Zeffirelli shot it tastefully. “It was needed for the film.”

‘Romeo & Juliet’ stars sue over 1968 film’s teen nude scene

The two stars of 1968’s “Romeo and Juliet” sued Paramount Pictures for more than $500 million on Tuesday over a nude scene in the film shot when they were teens.

www.wkrg.com

 

[thuumpr]

Olivia Hussey, then 15 and now 71, and Leonard Whiting, then 16 now 72.

Are they saving for their later years?

 

[ronda2711]

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Shakespeare, yeah, yeah



Tristan und Isolde





Anna Karenina





Madame Bovary










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[Symmachus]

Oh, shoot. That puts me in an awkward predicament.

Am I allowed to say that one of the suing parties is a "shameless Hussey"?

 

[McDanel]

This is as silly as Nirvana naked baby boy, no, even worse.

 

[cubby]

I'm thinking if her defense of the film, only 4 years ago, is brought forward, and I am sure it will be, it will lessen their chances of a successful suit.

I do feel if you've managed to make it 55+ years, why do it now? It's just a cash grab that they think will be easy in today's climate. Maybe they are right. If they had raised objections and threatened to sue back in the 70's, then yes go for it, but a half century later? NO.

 

[BBBLUE77]

I think they are a day late and a nipple short on this deal.

 

[thuumpr]

I honestly believe that they deserve justice but I'm betting this either gets settled (unlikely?) or tossed.

They've waited so long that the director, the screenwriters, the others in the cast (with the exception of Michael York and Pat "Patricia" Heywood), the guy who composed the music, and Shakespeare are dead.

Hussey discussed in 2018 that the director shot the scenes 'tastefully'.

Whiting and Hussey both won Golden Globe Awards for Most Promising Newcomers.

That was a Golden Globe Award. Not an AVN (Adult Video News) award.

So the question is, "Did they not receive royalties?"

 

[knockout]

Did the parents not sign off on this and get paid?

 

[runninfawn]

i am thinking if maybe their children and grand children did put them up to do it so they can get it when they old folks die and at their ages by the time it is settled one way or another it prob will take years so yea the old folks can't spend it all ... sorry but yea lots of greedy kids and grandkids out there ... if they think there might be something in it for them they will encourage, brow beat, what ever it takes to make sure they get "their" money what is due to them ....

 

[Sejanus]

Did they even have careers after this?

 

[Sugar Cookie]

As they should. They need to take this shit up with their parents who allowed then to do the movie.

The only person I could see having a real claim would be Brooke Shields.

The actors who starred in the acclaimed 1968 film version of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” have lost their lawsuit over a nude scene for a second time.

Actors Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting sued Paramount Pictures twice for illegally using nude images of them in the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli Oscar-winning film “Romeo and Juliet,” when they were 15 and 16 years old, respectively. The film was shot in Italy and became an award-winning critical and box office success.

In January 2023, one day before a new statute of limitations would expire and more than five decades after the facts involved, the film’s stars sued seeking damages for misusing their nude images.

Hussey and Whiting, now 72 and 73, said that Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, deceived them and that Paramount “knew or should have known images of plaintiffs’ nude bodies were secretly and unlawfully obtained during the performance.”

That complaint was dismissed when a Superior Court judge ruled that it had been a “gross mischaracterization” to describe the scene at issue as “pornographic material.”

Hussey and Whiting next filed a second lawsuit in February, this time arguing that the 2023 release of a new digitally remastered DVD version of the movie contained, “digitally enhanced photographs of Whiting and Hussey lying together in the nude in a bed simulating a newly married couple luxuriating after a session of marital coitus,” and seeking over $500 million in damages.

The complaint also alleged that the new version contained “computer created, digitally enhanced photographs of the aureoles and nipples on Hussey’s naked breasts,” and falsely portrayed the actors as “willing participants in the purveyance of prurient abuse of youthful pulchritude in the service of monetary gain and rendered them the subject of ridicule and obloquy rather than respect and praise for their virtuoso performances.”

The actors argued that Zeffirelli assured them there would be no nudity in the film and that they would wear flesh-colored undergarments during the single bedroom scene, but that on the shoot date, he insisted they film the scene nude or risk never working again in the acting field.

Paramount filed an anti-SLAPP motion in response to the lawsuit, arguing that the dismissal of the first lawsuit “should have been the end of this nonsense,” given specifically that Whiting and Hussey had defended the nude scenes in the past as having been “tastefully” done.

Paramount’s motion also argued that the rerelease was actually a “lower picture quality” and “lower resolution” than the original release of the film.

Superior Court Judge Holly Fujie sided with the studio. In a 10-page ruling, Fujie said the actors cannot prove they did not consent to the scene.

'Romeo and Juliet' actors lose childhood nudity lawsuit for a 2nd time

Actors Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting sued Paramount Pictures twice for illegally using nude images of them in the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli Oscar-winning film "Romeo and Juliet."

lawandcrime.com