London — Actor Olivia Hussey, who played teenage Juliet in the 1968 film “Romeo and Juliet,” has died, her family announced on social media Saturday. She was 73 years old.
Hussey died Friday “peacefully at home surrounded by his loved ones,” according to a statement posted to his Instagram account. The cause of death has not been disclosed.
Hussey was 15 when director Franco Zeffirelli cast him in his adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, after he was spotted on stage in the production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, starring Vanessa Redgrave.
“Romeo and Juliet” won two Oscars, and Hussey won the Golden Globe Award for Best New Actress for her role as Juliet opposite British actor Leonard Whiting, who was 16 years old at the time.
Decades later, Hussey and Whiting filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures, accusing them of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and fraud over nude scenes in the film.
She was initially told that she would wear skin-colored underwear for the bedroom scenes, but Zeffirelli claims that on the day of filming, she was told that she would only wear body makeup and that the camera would be positioned so that she would not be wearing skin-colored underwear. Show nudity. They claimed they were photographed nude without their knowledge.
The lawsuit was dismissed in 2023 by a Los Angeles County judge, who ruled that the depictions did not qualify as child pornography and that the two had filed their suit too late.
Whiting was among those who paid tribute to Hussey on Saturday. “Rest now, my beautiful Juliet, no injustice can harm you now, and the world will forever remember your beauty inside and out,” he wrote. .
Hussey was born on April 17, 1951 in Bueno Aires, Argentina, and moved to London as a child. She studied at the Italia Conti Academy Drama School.
She also played the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the 1977 television series Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the 1978 Agatha Christie adaptation Death on the Nile and the horror films Black Christmas and Psycho IV: He also appeared in “The”. The beginning. “
She is survived by her husband, David Glenn Eisley, three children, and grandchildren.
Hui writes for The Associated Press.
