The stars of the 1968 Romeo and Juliet film have sued Paramount Pictures for more than $500 million, claiming they endured sexual abuse due to a nude scene in the film that was shot while they were minors.
Olivia Hussey, 71, and Leonard Whiting, 72, filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Hussey and Whiting, who were 15 and 16, respectively, at the time of filming, also alleged they endured sexual harassment and fraud when told by director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, that they must act in the nude with only body makeup during a bedroom scene toward the end of the movie, according to the Associated Press.
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The actors claimed they were originally told they would wear flesh-colored undergarments but that on the morning of the shoot, Zeffirelli changed that, assuring them the camera would not show nudity.
Yet the lawsuit states they were filmed in the nude without their knowledge, which is a violation of California and federal laws against child exploitation and indecency.
“Nude images of minors are unlawful and shouldn’t be exhibited,” the actors’ attorney Solomon Gresen told Variety. “These were very young naive children in the ’60s who had no understanding of what was about to hit them. All of a sudden, 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.”
Hussey and Whiting claim Zeffirelli told them they must go through with the scene in the nude “or the Picture would fail,” leading them to believe “they had no choice but to act in the nude in body makeup as demanded,” according to the lawsuit.
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The lawsuit depends, in part, on a California law that has temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for child sex abuse claims.
Court filings state both actors have suffered mental and emotional harm as a result.
