‘Romeo & Juliet’ actors suing Paramount for sexual exploitation over 1968 movie’s teen nude scene

Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey were 17 and 15 years old, respectively, when they took on the lead roles in the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli film adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” for which they allege, a highly controversial nude scene made it to the final cut, and included bare breasts, without their knowledge.

Both actors are now in their 70s and allege that Paramount Studios, part of Paramount Global
PARA,
-1.08%,
engaged in fraud, sexual abuse and sexual harassment, according to a complaint filed late last year in state Superior Court in Los Angeles County, The Wall Street Journal reported. The complaint seeks $500 million in damages.

Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, told the actors they would appear in flesh-colored clothing in a bedroom scene, according to the complaint. But once shooting commenced, Zeffirelli asked them to film completely nude and then told the actors they would wear body makeup with the camera positioned in a way that wouldn’t show their nude bodies in the film, the lawsuit said. 

Paramount was “repackaging what is essentially pornography,” the complaint said. 

In fact, it is because the footage, of teenagers, can be viewed over and over that elevates the controversy, the suit says. “The knowing and repeated use of sexual images of minor children is the worst of behaviors in our society and must be eradicated,” the charge says.

“Romeo & Juliet” received critical acclaim and earned four Academy Award nominations — including for Best Picture and Best Director. Decades later, it is often still shown in high school English classes to supplement the play.

Hussey and Whiting, who have promoted the film at festivals in recent years, were previously barred from filing a lawsuit for the incident because the statute of limitations had expired. But in 2019, California passed a law that lifted the statute of limitations for childhood sex abuse for a three-year period, in part at public urging to allow old alleged cases of abuse against the Catholic Church in the state to be revisited. That three-year window expired at the end of 2022.

Allegations of sexual assault and behavioral misconduct against many of Hollywood’s most powerful stars, filmmakers and producers, usually but not always male, have shaken up the entertainment industry ever since the New York Times and New Yorker published damning exposés of indie film mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2017.

Weinstein is now serving time, and while his decadeslong and largely ignored, assaults and career-hobbling blacklisting of some women may be seen as the tip of the iceberg, the #MeToo movement has also amplified the protective needs of actors on set. The professional guild known as SAG-AFTRA has published intimacy coordinator standards and protocols.

Famously, French actress Maria Schneider, who was 19 when she starred alongside Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 erotic film “Last Tango in Paris,” said she suffered years of mental health issues after, she alleges, Bertolucci and Brando, included a rape scene in the story line without getting her consent or even telling her of the plan ahead of shooting the scene.

“Last Tango in Paris” became one of the highest-grossing foreign films of all time, and Brando and Bertolucci received critical acclaim, with Oscar nominations for both. Schneider, who died in 2011 of cancer, struggled with mental health and addiction following her part in the film, she said in several interviews about the film.

“I felt humiliated, and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci,” Schneider said in a 2007 interview.