The two major stars of 1968′s “Romeo and Juliet” sued Paramount Pictures for more than $500 million on Tuesday over a nude scene in the movie shot when they were teens.
Leonard Whiting, then 16 now 72, and Olivia Hussey, then 15 and now 71, allegedly filed the suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court claiming sexual abuse, sexual harassment and fraud.
The Director of The film Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, originally told the two that they would put on flesh-colored undergarments in the bedroom scene that comes late in the film and was shot on the final days of filming, the suit affirms.
However, on the morning of the shoot, Zeffirelli told Whiting, who played Romeo, and Hussey, who played Juliet, that they would only wear body makeup, while still reassuring them the camera would be positioned and placed in a way that would not show nudity, according to the suit.
Still, they were captured in the nude without their knowledge, in violation and offence of California and federal laws against indecency and the exploitation of children, the suit says.
Director Zeffirelli told them they must act in the nude “or the Picture would fail” and their careers would be hurt, the suit said. The stars “believed they had no choice but to act in the nude in body makeup as demanded.”
Whiting’s exposed buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts are shortly shown during the scene.
The Movie, and its theme song, were major hits at the time, and has been shown to various generations of high school students studying and learning the Shakespeare play since.
The court filing says the Hussey and Whiting have suffered emotional damage and mental agony for years, and that each had careers that did not reflect the success of the film.
It says given that suffering and the revenue brought in by the film since its debut, the actors are entitled to damages of more than $500 million.
An email seeking response from representatives of Paramount was not instantly returned.
The lawsuit was filed under a California law immediately 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 formerly dismissed.
in a 2018 interview with Variety, Hussey defended the scene 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.”
The Associated Press does not usually name people who say they have been sexually abused except they come forward publicly, as Hussey and Whiting have.
