- Olivia Hussey (b. Apr. 17. 1951) is an English actress.
- She appeared as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.
- In 2023, she and her costar, Leonard Whiting, sued Paramount for more than $500 million over the film’s nude scene.
- In May of 2023, the judge in the case moved to ‘tentatively’ dismiss it.
Olivia Hussey won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year for her role in 1968's Romeo and Juliet. However, 55 years after she starred opposite Leonard Whiting in Franco Zeffirelli's film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play, Olivia, 71, and Leonard, 72, have filed a lawsuit against the film's nude scene, according to the Associated Press.
A court ruled that the plaintiffs' entire complaint against Paramount was a "gross mischaracterization" of the scene on May 25, 2023, and that the case would be "completely dismissed" as a result of the First Amendment.
Olivia, who was 15 at the time of Romeo and Juliet's filming, and Leonard, who was 16, claim that director Zeffirelli assured them that there would be no nudity in the film and that they'd wear flesh-covered undergarments, "or the Picture would fail," according to Variety. However, Whiting's final cut showed Hussey's naked breasts.
Hussey and Whiting allege they've suffered "mental agony and emotional suffering" in the half-century since the film's release, and that they've lost out on job opportunities. According to Variety, the case is based in part on a California law that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for earlier allegations of child sexual abuse.
Here's all you need to know about Olivia as the courts process this.
She Is A Singer's Daughter
Olivia Hussey (neée Osuna) was born in Argentina at the age of two. She is the first child of Argentine opera singer Andrés Osuna (alias Osvaldo Ribó) and Joy Hussey, an English legal secretary.
Mary and Mother Teresa have been played by her.
Olivia rose to prominence in 1968's Romeo and Juliet. She then portrayed Mary in the 1977 television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, appearing in four episodes, according to IMDB. In 2003, she would reprise the role of Mother Teresa in a TV film of the same name.
She's left the organisation in 2015's Social Suicide.
Olivia has some seriously bad horror credentials.
Olivia Hussey is well-known among horror enthusiasts because she played Jess in 1974's Black Christmas, essentially becoming the first modern "Final Girl." She also appeared in 1979's The Cat and the Canary, and 1995's Ice Cream Man, which was adapted by Tim Curry.
“It was a very unpleasant experience for me for some reason,” she said in a post on Morbidly Beautiful. “I shot Psycho IV in Florida, where I was treated very well, and everybody was so helpful.”
She has a lot of experience working in a galaxy far, far away.
Olivia has also served as a voice actress in a few DC cartoon series (Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond) as well as a pair of Star Wars video games. In the 2000 film Star Wars: Force Commander, Olivia voiced Master Yuon Par.
"It's completely different," she told Morbidly Beautiful about voice acting. "I wouldn't say I'm a great voiceover artist."
In 2018, she defended the nude scene.
In a 2018 interview with Variety, Olivia explained that she had never denied that she was pregnant. "Nobody my age had ever done that before," said Olivia.
"It was necessary for the film," she said. "Everyone thinks they were so young they probably didn't realize what they were doing. But we were very aware." Both of us graduated from drama schools, and when you work, you take your job very seriously."
