The two actors who played my role Romeo and Juliet In the 1968 film adaptation of the play Shakespeare The famed film, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, is suing Paramount Pictures for appearing nude in one of its work scenes without their consent, their defense attorney announced Tuesday.
Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, who were 15 and 16 years old during the filming of the film, won a Golden Globe for their performances in this work.
And last week, the two 70-year-old actors filed a lawsuit in Santa Monica, California, accusing Paramount, which produced the film, of sexually exploiting them when they were minors, showing an intimate scene showing parts of their bodies.
The lawsuit, which was seen by Agence France-Presse, indicated that Italian director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, insisted on shooting this scene and confirmed that the work “would have failed” without it, while the scene had to be filmed in clothing of a color similar to skin color.
The lawsuit accused those responsible for the film of “dishonesty and of surreptitiously filming minors naked or semi-naked without obtaining their consent, which constitutes a violation of the laws (…) governing the sexual exploitation of minors”.
The lawsuit said the two actors had been dealing with anxiety and emotional turmoil for more than five decades following the film’s screening and are seeking compensation worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Their defense attorney, Solomon Grayson, explained that the damages suffered continued over the years, especially after the release of a new version of the film.
“Paramount Pictures had shot scenes that showed naked minors and they knew they had to be cut from the film,” he told AFP.
Paramount did not respond after AFP tried to contact them.
Variety magazine reported that Olivia Hussey defended the scene during an interview in 2018. At the time, she believed Franco Zeffirelli played the scene appropriately.
“The scene was essential to the film,” he said in that interview.
(AFP)
