The son of the director of Romeo and Juliet has known as the kid abuse lawsuit filed over the 1968 movie’s nude scene “embarrassing.” Actors Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, who have been 15 and 16 when the movie was shot, recently sued Paramount for sexual exploitation and little one abuse. In accordance with a Selection report, the actors particularly alleged that late director Franco Zeffirelli pressured them to carry out nude and used nude footage of them within the last reduce that was shot with out their information or consent. “It’s embarrassing to listen to that right now, 55 years after filming, two aged actors who owe their notoriety basically to this movie get up to declare that they’ve suffered an abuse that has triggered them years of hysteria and emotional discomfort,” Franco’s son Pippo Zeffirelli responded in an announcement to the Guardian, including that the nude scene in query was “removed from pornographic.” He additionally stated that he believed the actors’ mother and father had supplied consent kinds to producers on the movie.
Pippo, who’s the president of the Franco Zeffirelli Basis, stated that his father had a historical past of talking out in opposition to pornography. He additional famous that Hussey labored together with his father once more in 1977, whereas Whiting was among the many attendees at his father’s 2019 funeral. “It seems to me that in all these years, they’ve at all times maintained a relationship of deep gratitude and friendship in direction of Zeffirelli, releasing lots of of interviews in regards to the joyful reminiscence of their very lucky expertise, which was topped with worldwide success,” Pippo stated. Hussey and Whiting are reportedly looking for damages of greater than $500 million on the grounds that they misplaced job alternatives and suffered psychological and emotional misery within the years since Romeo and Juliet’s launch. “Nude photos of minors are illegal and shouldn’t be exhibited,” the actors’ lawyer, Solomon Gresen, told Variety. “These have been very younger naive kids within the ‘60s who had no understanding of what was about to hit them.”
