Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting are suing Paramount Pictures for alleged false assurances that there would be no nudity in the 1968 film adaption of Romeo and Juliet. The lawsuit was filed in Santa Monica and the duo is seeking $500 million in compensation.
Stars of 1968 Box Office Smash ‘Romeo and Juliet’ File $500 MILLION Lawsuit Against Paramount Over Nude Scene
Romeo and Juliet was made on a budget of $850,000 and pulled almost $40 million at the ticket booth. It also resulted in the lead stars getting the Most Promising Newcomer Award at the Golden Globe Awards in 1968. In years following the movie’s release, the nude scene has been viewed as the main problematic part of the film.
At the time of the filming, Whiting was 16and Hussey was 15. They were told that they wouldn’t have to be nude by director Franco Zeffirelli. Instead, they would wear flesh-colored underwear during the scene.
However, as filming was wrapping up, Zeffirelli allegedly approached them and made an appeal for them to do the scene nude with body makeup.
According to the filing, Zeffirelli said that Romeo and Juliet would flop without the scene. Their accusations go further stating that they were filmed without their knowledge.
Their manager Tony Marinozzi said that trust was violated and that as teenagers, they didn’t really have the means or weight to do anything. Solomon Gresen, the lawyer representing the two, said of the filing:
“Nude images of minors are unlawful and shouldn’t be exhibited. These were very young naive children in the ’60s who had no understanding of what was about to hit them…They were famous at a level they never expected, and in addition they were violated in a way they didn’t know how to deal with.”
It should be noted that Olivia Hussey has spoken favorably of the scene in the past and expressed the importance of it to the overall adaptation. Hussey would work with Zeffirelli again in the 1977 TV movie Jesus of Nazareth.
What changed her view on the scene following her praise of the scene in 2018 wasn’t detailed in the filing..
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