The two stars of 1968’s “Romeo and Juliet” sued Paramount Shots for extra than $500 million on Tuesday in excess of a nude scene in the movie shot when they were being teenagers.
Olivia Hussey, then 15 and now 71, and Leonard Whiting, then 16 now 72, submitted the fit in Los Angeles County Excellent Courtroom alleging sexual abuse, sexual harassment and fraud.
Director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, to begin with told the two that they would dress in flesh-colored undergarments in the bedroom scene that will come late in the movie and was shot on the final times of filming, the go well with alleges.
But on the morning of the shoot, Zeffirelli instructed Whiting, who played Romeo, and Hussey, who performed Juliet, that they would don only human body make-up, though nevertheless assuring them the camera would be positioned in a way that would not show nudity, in accordance to the go well with.
Still they were filmed in the nude without their understanding, in violation of California and federal legislation versus indecency and the exploitation of children, the accommodate says.
Zeffirelli informed them they ought to act in the nude “or the Image would are unsuccessful” and their professions would be damage, the fit stated. The actors “believed they experienced no choice but to act in the nude in overall body makeup as demanded.”
Whiting’s bare buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts are briefly revealed through the scene.
The movie, and its topic music, had been major hits at the time, and has been revealed to generations of substantial college college students studying the Shakespeare engage in since.
The court filing says the Hussey and Whiting have experienced psychological destruction and mental anguish for decades, and that each had professions that did not reflect the achievement of the film.
It says provided that suffering and the revenue brought in by the movie because its launch, the actors are entitled to damages of a lot more than $500 million.
An electronic mail trying to get remark from representatives of Paramount was not instantly returned.
The lawsuit was submitted under a California legislation temporarily suspending the statute of restrictions for child intercourse abuse, which has led to a host of new lawsuits and the revival of quite a few other individuals that had been beforehand dismissed.
Hussey defended the scene in a 2018 job interview with Assortment, which first noted the lawsuit, for the film’s 50th anniversary.
“Nobody my age experienced done that in advance of,” she mentioned, adding that Zeffirelli shot it tastefully. “It was necessary for the film.”
The Linked Push does not normally title folks who say they have been sexually abused except if they occur forward publicly, as Hussey and Whiting have.
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