Romeo and Juliet 1968

Romeo And Juliet stars Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting are suing Paramount Pictures after claiming they were exploited – what age were they?

“Nobody my age had done that before,” she recalled, before adding a “tasteful” performance was “needed for the film.” “These were very young naive children in the Sixties who had no understanding of what was about to hit them,” their attorney, Solomon Gresen, said. The suit alleges the actors “believed they had no choice but to act in the nude in body make-up as demanded.” The romance didn’t last but they have remained lifelong friends and even text each other “at least once every ten days,” Hussey told [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/olivia-hussey-recalls-controversial-romeo-and-juliet-role-at-16-reveals-personal-tragedies). Whiting has now retired, with 2015 film Social Suicide marking the actor’s last production and his first project alongside Hussey since Romeo And Juliet. Zeffirelli passed away in 2019 at the age of 96.

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, who starred in 1968's Romeo and Juliet, are suing Paramount Pictures for a sex scene they filmed as minors.

Hussey and Whiting's manager has commended them for filing the suit, saying that it was very courageous of the now 71- and 72-year-old actors to In 2018, Hussey actually defended the scene in an interview, stating that it was "needed for the film" and "wasn't that big of a deal." Hussey also says that while the nude scene was shocking in America in 1968, it was much more common in European films, and that "in the middle of shooting, [she] just completely forgot [she] didn’t have clothes on." However, on the day the sex scene was set to be shot, Zeffirelli told Hussey and Whiting that the film would "fail" if they did not act in the nude, while still assuring them they would be obscured by the positioning of the camera. The lawsuit was filed on December 30, 2022 and concerns a sex scene in the film which showed Hussey's breasts and Whiting's buttocks, despite reassurances supplied to the actors that there would be no nudity in the film. Zeffirelli that there would be no nudity filmed or exhibited and that Plaintiffs would be wearing flesh colored undergarments during the bedroom/love 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.

The actors “believed they had no choice but to act in the nude in body makeup as demanded.” “It was needed for the film.” 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 who played star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film are suing Paramount Pictures for child abuse over their brief ...

That would be the beginning for sure,” he said. “Defendants were dishonest and secretly filmed the nude or partially nude minor children without their knowledge, in violation of the state and federal laws regulating indecency and exploitation of minors for profit,” the suit says. The actors, now both in their 70s, claim in a suit filed in Santa Monica last week that a bedroom scene in which buttocks and bare breasts are visible amounts to sexual exploitation by movie studio Paramount, and that the company was guilty of distributing nude pictures of adolescents.

Romeo and Juliet” stars Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, accusing Paramount of sexually exploiting ...

“It was needed for the film.” 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 Dec. “Nude images of minors are unlawful and shouldn’t be exhibited,” said the actors’ attorney, Solomon Gresen, in an interview. “These were very young naive children in the ’60s who had no understanding of what was about to hit them. But in the final days of filming, the director allegedly implored them to perform in the nude with body makeup, “or the Picture would fail.” Hussey was 15 at the time and Whiting was 16.

Hussey, then 15, and Leonard Whiting, then 16, filed the suit against Paramount Pictures alleging sexual abuse, sexual harassment and fraud.

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

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting assert in a lawsuit that Paramount Pictures should have known nude images of them in their teens were “secretly and ...

She told [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/olivia-hussey-recalls-controversial-romeo-and-juliet-role-at-16-reveals-personal-tragedies) that “it wasn’t that big of a deal” and that the film’s production crew had become a “big family.” Hussey’s interviews about the scene showed her trying to “come to grips” with the situation and express her pride for the film and her performance, although, he said, she was never proud of that scene. Hussey had expressed some approval of how the scene was filmed, telling The scene was filmed on a closed set, Ms. Hussey had worked with the director again in the 1977 mini-series “ Hussey recalls the filming of the scene, writing that after a makeup artist approached her to apply full body makeup, she confronted Mr. In recent days, the state has seen a He said that over the years, the actors had maintained a “relationship of profound gratitude and friendship” with Mr. Hussey was 16 years old when the scene was filmed, and Mr. (The scene was filmed in September 1967, he said, though the lawsuit that was filed contains an inaccurate date.) According to the lawsuit, Mr. In the scene, Mr.