The late director Franco Zeffirelli’s son has weighed in on the lawsuit against Paramount regarding his father’s 1968 film Romeo and Juliet. Earlier this week, various outlets such as Variety reported that the movie’s lead stars, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, were suing Paramount for sexually exploiting them in a nude scene when they were minors. At the time of filming, Whiting was 16, and Hussey was 15. While a statute of limitations would generally prevent this lawsuit, the Child Victims Act of 2019 temporarily lifted the statute of limitations, allowing for lawsuits against actors like Warren Beatty and musicians like Steven Tyler to have recently come before courts. The Act recently expired, but the Romeo and Juliet stars filed their suit just two days before it would be too late.
Franco Zeffirelli’s Son Criticizes ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Stars Lawsuit
Romeo and Juliet was directed by Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019 at the age of 96. The Guardian reports that Zeffirelli’s son Pippo, who is president of the Franco Zeffirelli Foundation, has come against the actor’s claims against his father, saying the nude scene was “far from pornographic.” Pippo said in a statement, “Zeffirelli himself was accused of being reactionary precisely because, over and over again, he spoke out against pornography. The nude images in the film express the beauty, the transfer, I would even say the candor of mutual giving and do not contain any morbid feeling.”
Romeo and Juliet has been made and remade many times, and the 1968 version was a big success and is still beloved by many. However, the scene in question stirred up controversy at the time of its release. In the scene, the two actors are in bed together, and Whiting’s bare butt is exposed, as are Hussey’s bare breasts. According to their complaint, Zeffirelly told Whiting and Hussey they would wear flesh-colored underwear and assured them that no nudity would be photographed or released. However, when the actual time to film the scene approached, Zeffirelly allegedly pushed them to perform the scene nude “or the picture would fail.” According to the complaint, the two actors, now in their 70s, suffered mental anguish and anxiety after this experience and claimed to have lost job opportunities. Interestingly, however, Hussey defended the scene as recently as 2018, saying that it was “needed for the film” and “wasn’t that big of a deal.”
Do the Romeo and Juliet stars have much of a case in this lawsuit, or is Franco Zeffirelli’s son right in his criticism? Share your thoughts in the comments.