Vulture published a truly excellent article about Olivia and the impact Romeo and Juliet had on her life, from initial casting to the lawsuit she and her co-star filed against Paramount more than 50 years later. When that suit failed, they filed a federal suit against Paramount and Criterion over the HD re-release on disk. The judge dismissed that suit as well.
After her controversial nudity in Romeo and Juliet, in which she played a 13-year-old girl when she was 16, her adult nude roles involved a lot of body doubling (Tortilla Heaven; Turkey Shoot – AKA Escape 2000), but she did two legitimate topless scenes
Psycho 4 (1990)
Island Prey (2003)
Here are clips from her nude scenes, including the body doubling
One of the most beautiful women who ever lived.
“Most beautiful woman in the world” is an entirely subjective and unprovable notion, but for a time she was definitely in the discussion.
I saw her nude in Romeo and Juliet when the movie was screened uncensored for our entire high school in the school gym in the 1970s. That was duly appreciated by the students and nobody complained. I imagine that would not be allowed today even though the same age students today probably will have seen much much more nudity and sex, via exposure on the Internet, than students back then.
I attended a Catholic elementary school for 8 years and would have gone to a Catholic high school if I hadn’t been accepted to the Bronx High School of Science. It was quite a culture shock to go from a Catholic elementary school to a public high school. I bring all that up because in 1982, my 9th-grade English teacher showed us Romeo and Juliet after we finished reading the play. It was quite a surprise when Olivia rolled over. I taught at a regular Bronx High School for several years, and I know that many of my former students would have commented loudly if I ever showed them a film with a topless woman. However, I don’t recall anybody in that English class commenting on her nudity, at least not in that class. My teacher expected us to be mature enough that a brief flash of nudity wouldn’t warp our fragile little minds. Obviously, she was wrong, at least in my case, given that I hang out around here. It’s all Franco Zefferelli’s fault! I wonder if I should sue his estate. That’s a joke.
It’s not just a difference between Catholic and public schools or between schools 40+ years ago and today’s schools. It often comes down to a difference in teachers. I was 14 or 15 when I watched Romeo & Juliet in my English class. I was 18 when my 12th-grade social studies teacher showed us the Woody Allen movie The Front. The movie is about blacklisted screenwriters using Woody Allen’s character as a front. They gave Woody scripts they had written, and he sold them to the studios as though he had written them. Woody would then give the money he was paid to the writer minus his cut for acting as a front. My teacher showed us that movie because we had been studying McCarthyism. At the end of the film, Woody is testifying before a committee. He gets up to leave, then turns back and tells the congressmen…something I didn’t learn for more than 35 years. My teacher had stood up next to the TV and turned off the sound so our fragile ears wouldn’t hear Woody Allen tell the committee to go fuck themselves.
Having been a teacher, I understand why my social studies teacher did what she did. I’d have probably done the same thing if I had decided to show that film. Even with tenure, it’s just not worth going through the aggravation of a parent’s complaint. However, what she did upset me at the time. Of course, I wasn’t so bothered that I watched the movie’s end outside school. I did finally see the ending 4 or 5 years ago.
Thank you, Olivia, for, however briefly, adding a little extra excitement to Shakespeare. Rest in peace..
She was 13 in Romeo and Juliet? I thought it was 15 or 16. Daaang.
I’ve only read 15 so 13 seems entirely wrong. I also find this revisionist. When I was younger, the mainstream media was saying that nudity wasn’t a big deal and that prior generations were just acting stupid. Most people seemed fine with it. Many actors under 18 did some nude scenes especially in Europe. That has never really ended, but the mainstream media started making a bigger and bigger deal of it and started claiming every scene in the past was controversial. Except I don’t remember anyone making a big deal of most of it and even things like Reader’s Digest were saying that the nudity in Walkabout was perfectly natural and fine for the whole family.
I find when current media claims things in the past were controversial it is usually bullshit. I also don’t care what the actors may say when they are older because many of them just go along with the current narrative for whatever benefit they think they may receive from it. Basically, I’m sick of hearing a lot of these people lie all the time. People in the real world have real problems and they can just go fuck themselves. So glad big Hollywood companies are dying a very painful death.
You can set your watch by whenever Stick pulls out his “DAMN WOKESTERS” stump speech rant, like clockwork – take this bot shit to 8chan, man
Cons have always been better at framing a narrative iow messaging iow bullshit! But is it a bad thing that Cosby, Epstein, Weinstein etc, etc ended up in jail? 😮
btw, up until Trump decided to be a Rep he was quite comfortable hobnobbing w/the Hollywood elite, eh.
Oh what a tangled web we weave …
I don’t think the mainstream media is to blame for this. In fact, that seems like an odd thing to say. The Christian Right would seem far more likely to me. And also a rising concern among lots of people over the sexual exploitation of the young, leading to laws against child pornography. If you are going to have such a law, you need to say what age a child is, and that became anything under the contemporary age of adulthood, which is 18. I can’t really see the problem with that.
In short, I have to go with Hanzo the Razor on this one.
Don’t get me going on the hypocritical evangelical “christian” right. Yielding back the balance of my time …
I think I read it wrong. Or Scoop clarified after the fact. She was 16 but playing a 13 year old character.
I modified the post to what I had originally meant to write.
I believe Juliet is supposed to be about 13 in the play. Olivia Hussey was a 16-year-old playing a 13-year-old.
Correct
Stick is usually full of shit, but I think he’s right this one.
Obits have her born in 51. The movie filmed in summer 67, after her April birthday.
She was 16.
The controversy, then, seems odd, given that Thora Birch had her famous topless scene in American Beauty at the same age. That was a much longer, more explicit scene as well, compared to the fleeting glimpses Hussey offered.
Brooke Shields was (11) when she did her Pretty Baby nude scenes.
Carry on …
Things were really crazy back in the day lol. Brooke Shields posed nude at the age of 11 for the biggest men’s magazine in the world, and still under the influence of her mother. This woman must have had some heavy traumas after that, she must still have to this day
We could get into the history of extra spicy stuff, but there’s no reason to dip into that very, very risky topic.
The point here is what she did wasn’t a huge deal. Not even in that era. 16 and up was common,especially in Europe. Everything from dramas to comedies to straight up sex romps made in Europe in that period had 16 and 17yo actresses all kinds of nude.
It’s true, like I said… These things were pretty crazy back in the day. However, did these actresses also pose nude at 10 years old for Playboy? I don’t think so lol. That was pretty absurd. And if that wasn’t enough, she also did nude scenes at 11 years old in a movie
Stick might be only wrong by a year about Olivia’s age, but the bulk of his post is an apoplectic rant that says far more about him than anything else.
+ he has no clue re: the origins of the word woke.
She was 15 when cast for the role, 16 when it was filmed.
She swore in her first lawsuit that she was 15 during the scene, and she has said elsewhere that she turned 16 during the filming, but those claims appear impossible based upon the filming dates and her birthdate. Moreover, those claims are contradictory, based on her own 2018 recollection that the nude scene was filmed near the the end of the shoot, which absolutely would have made her 16.
Thora Birch’s underage nude scene was longer, but she was dressed from the waist down and stood in the window by herself. Olivia had to get naked and lay in bed with the naked actor playing Romeo. If your 16-year-old daughter had to film one of those scenes, which one would you choose for her?
For the record, Birch’s parent was on set when her scene was filmed. Also her parents were former adult film stars, so they probably didn’t care very much about how much/little she showed as long as she (ie. they were getting paid for it)
Hussey’s father died early, her mother worked and was not on set, as Scoopy pointed out in that article she said she was very trusting (almost to a fault) Zeffirelli used his leverage to get her to do the scene, it wasn’t until later in her life that she felt exploited (when she needed money) which was also brought on by Marinozzi who exploited her as well (but convinced her he was trying to help)
Two totally different things, also if Hussey felt so violated by Zeffirelli, why did she work with him again 9 years later?
I’d say that neither would especially bother me, but I’d be mortified to see my 11-year-old child or grandchild do the Brooke Shields scenes in Pretty Baby.
Yeah that was pretty crazy lol. It’s one of those things that would never happen nowadays, impossible.
My point was that while Thora Birch’s scene was longer, it wasn’t “a much longer, more explicit” scene, as Mr. Dark described it. But this all started as a discussion of whether Olivia was traumatized by the experience of filming the bedroom scene. We have no way to know the answer to that question. The answer will really depend on the actress. However, if you take a 16-year-old girl who’s never even kissed a boy and make her get naked, get into bed with a naked boy, and then press her body against his, I’d expect that to be somewhat traumatic, especially since all that would occur in front of a film crew.
Maybe it was traumatic at the time…or maybe it was not. It is interesting though that up until that lawsuit, both had spoken positively about the experience.
I’m guessing that lawsuit was a last ditch effort to get some dough for cancer treatments or to secure her family’s finances knowing that death was imminent. It was still an uphill battle considering she gave a completely different account in 2018. And this was at the height of the MeToo movement and Zeffirelli was already accused of sexual assault. So if she had misgivings about the nude scene that would have been the time to speak up. It didn’t help that she hired a sleazy lawyer.
That said there might be some truth to what she said that she was surrepitously filmed topless. If you look at the way it was shot, it looks like she was getting up to grab a robe and her lines were overdubbed. Her lips werent even moving.
According to Venture’s analysis, Hussey was a sucker for any kind of charlatan, and eventually fell under the spell of one with dollar signs in his eyes who persuaded her to sue. The suit might have achieved some measure of success, at least persuading Paramount to come to the table with a modest settlement, if the charlatan had not directed them to a completely inept lawyer who not only filed an unpersuasive case, but also made several procedural errors in the process.
The pedo case was weak, but they might have been able to argue successfully that they were financially exploited, i.e. not fairly compensated for their work. (They made about $2000 apiece for devoting months of their time to a film that for many years held the record for Paramount’s highest-ever return on investment.) Unfortunately, they could only get around the statute of limitations by making it a pedo case under a unique and temporary California law designed solely for those types of cases.
So that’s what they did – thus basically forcing Hussey to withdraw every word she had uttered in the previous 50 years!
I more suspect her co-star convinced her to do it. Who even remembers him? She kept working right until she became ill. She had money. That guy, did he manage a chips shop in Surrey or something?
Her personal motivation doesn’t seem to have been money, but she did seem to need it.
Olivia was probably just a naive kid & producers (especially ITALIAN producers) were just beginning ’67-’68 to get every bit of skin from every actress, teen or older, it does get weirder that she was doing a sex scene as well, not just standing boobs out like Birch — and then the 70s, Shields etc JFC! big pedo time: not just Polanski’s crimes, but then he had Eva Ionesco as a bit player in one of his movies – google her name for some seriously fucked up shit (worst stage mother EVER)