Two stars of Romeo And Juliet have sued Paramount Pictures for more than 500 million dollars (£414m) over a nude scene in the 1968 film shot when they were teenagers. Olivia Hussey, who was then 15, and Leonard Whiting, 16, when they appeared in the Franco Zeffirelli movie.
The two have now filed the suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging sexual abuse, sexual harassment and fraud. Director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, initially told the two that they would wear flesh-coloured undergarments in the bedroom scene that comes late in the movie and was shot on the final days of filming, the suit alleges.
But on the morning of the shoot, Zeffirelli told Whiting, now 72, who played Romeo, and Hussey, now 71, who played Juliet, that they would wear only body make-up, while still assuring them the camera would be positioned in a way that would not show nudity. Yet they were filmed in the nude without their knowledge, in violation of California and federal laws against indecency and the exploitation of children, the suit says.
