Son of famed Romeo and Juliet director slams stars over their ‘sexual exploitation’ lawsuit
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The son of director Franco Zeffirelli has spoken out against a $500 million lawsuit over scenes of underage nudity in his father’s 1968 film Romeo and Juliet.
Pippo Zeffirelli said it was “shameful” that actors Olivia Hussey, 71, and Leonard Whiting, 72, waited 55 years to say they had spent their lives scarred by the film, in which they allege the Italian director pressured them to film a nude sex scene when they were only 15 and 16 years old.
Zeffirelli also noted that Hussey willingly worked with his father on later films and that Whiting attended Zeffirelli’s funeral in 2019.
Hussey and Whiting filed a lawsuit in California’s Santa Monica Superior Court last month accusing Paramount Pictures of sexual harassment, fraud, sexual abuse and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Pippo Zeffirelli (right) said it was ‘shameful’ that Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting waited 55 years to claim their father Franco’s film marked them (left).
Olivia Hussey, 71, and Leonard Whiting, 72, filed a lawsuit against Paramount Studios in California seeking damages ‘believed to be in excess of $500 million’ (pictured in 2018)
In a statement Sunday, Zeffirelli also said he felt the nudity in the film was not pornographic and that his father was an outspoken critic of pornography.
“Zeffirelli himself was accused of being reactionary precisely because, time and time again, he spoke out against pornography,” he said.
“It is shameful to hear that today, 55 years after filming, two elderly actors who owe their notoriety essentially to this film wake up to declare that they have suffered abuse that has caused them years of anxiety and emotional distress.”
“It seems to me that in all these years they have always maintained a relationship of deep gratitude and friendship towards Zeffirelli, publishing hundreds of interviews about the happy memory of their very lucky experience, which was crowned with worldwide success,” he said.
The lawsuit alleges that the teens “were left with no choice but to perform nude in body makeup as required on the last day of filming,” despite originally being promised that no nudity would be filmed or published.
The Franco Zeffirelli-directed film (pictured with Hussey and Whiting at the film’s Paris premiere) was released in 1968 to critical acclaim, earning the Italian filmmaker an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Zeffirelli died in 2019 at the age of 96.
Both actors said the older Zeffirelli originally told them there would be no nudity in Romeo and Juliet.
But on the last day of shooting, they alleged that he said the movie would “fail” unless they performed a scene in the nude while wearing body makeup.
“What they were told and what happened were two different things,” Tony Marinozzi, the couple’s business manager, said in a statement. declaration.
They trusted Franco. At the age of 16, as actors, they took their initiative that it would not violate that trust they had,’ said the manager.
‘Franco was his friend, and frankly, at 16, what do they do?’ Marinozzi added in a statement to the outlet. There are no options. There was no #MeToo.’
The lawsuit alleges the couple was filmed nude without their knowledge, and they are now seeking damages “believed to be in excess of $500 million.”
Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting on the set of the 1968 film production of Romeo and Juliet
In the lawsuit, Hussey and Whiting accuse Paramount Pictures, which released the film, of sexual harassment, fraud, sexual abuse and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The lawsuit alleged that Zeffirelli showed the actors where the camera would be placed, but that no nudity would be filmed or ultimately published.
The actors said they thought they “had no choice but to perform nude with body makeup as required on the last day of filming.”
The film was released in 1968 to critical acclaim and earned Zeffirelli an Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
He died in 2019 at the age of 96.
In a statement to Variety, Solomon Gresen, the couple’s lawyer, said the actors “were very young, naive kids in the ’60s who didn’t understand what was about to hit them” and that the scene caused them long-term financial losses. term. physical and emotional pain
In a statement to VarietySolomon Gresen, the actors’ lawyer, said “they were very young, naive kids in the ’60s who didn’t understand what was about to hit them.”
The couple said the scene caused them long-term financial, physical and emotional pain.
They said the film also cost Hussey and Whiting “a lifetime of lost income and other employment benefits and employment opportunities,” according to the complaint.
“Suddenly they were famous on a level they never expected, and on top of that, they were raped in a way they didn’t know how to handle,” Gresen said.
The $500 million in damages the couple is seeking matches the amount the film has earned since its 1968 release.
According to Variety, the actors’ lawsuit is based on a California law that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations on allegations of child sexual abuse.
That law had a deadline of December 31, 2022.
The actors’ lawsuit is based on a California law that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse allegations. That law had a deadline of December 31, 2022
The $500 million in damages the couple is seeking matches the amount the film has earned since its 1968 release.
Hussey continued her acting career and even reunited with Zeffirelli to play Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the director’s acclaimed 1977 miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth.
In a 2018 interview, Hussey claimed that Zeffirelli referred to her as ‘Boobs O’Mina’ and that he had admitted that she was the unrequited love of his life.
At the time, Hussey also said that she “loved playing Juliet” but that the press was “exhausting”.
Whiting also enjoyed a career as an actor and singer in his native Britain.