1968 ‘Romeo and Juliet’ lead actors – teenagers at the time – sue film studio over nude scene: ‘We had no choice’

Olivia Hussey, then 15 and now 71, and Leonard Whiting, then 16 and now 72, filed sexual assault, sexual harassment and fraud charges in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, initially told the two they would wear flesh-colored underwear in the bedroom scene.

But on the morning of the day of shooting the scene, Zeffirelli suddenly announced that they would only make up the body, otherwise the film would “fail”. He assured them, according to the indictment, that the camera would be positioned so as not to see nudity. The actors agreed because they “believed they had no choice”.