ROMEO & JULIET (1968) File $100 Million Lawsuit Against Paramount

[AndyDursin]

Guess we can be thankful Criterion was too far along in the production of their Blu-Ray restoration to cancel/delay their upcoming disc (hopefully!??).

In a Shakespearean drama of their own and estimating the studio has made over $500 million off the Zeffirelli adaptation, Hussey and Whiting are seeking punitive and exemplary damages of more than $100 million. With Encino CA-based attorney Solomon Gresen handling their case, the duo is also looking at “compensatory, economic and non-economic damages according to proof, along with disgorgements of the economic benefit to Paramount.”

Seemingly confusing a December 1967 date for 1968, the year the film was released, the December 30, 2022 filing details:

At the time of filming, Mr. Whiting (Romeo) was a minor child aged 16 years and Ms. Hussey was also a minor child aged 15 years. Plaintiffs were told by Mr. Zeffirelli that there would be no nudity filmed or exhibited and that Plaintiffs would be wearing flesh colored undergarments during the bedroom/love scene. However, on the morning of the shoot of the bedroom scene in the second week of December 1968, the very last days of photography the minor children Plaintiffs were given body make-up and were told by Mr. Zeffirelli that they must act in the nude or the Picture would fail. Millions were invested. They would never work again in any profession, let alone Hollywood. Zeffirelli showed them were the cameras would be set so that no nudity would be filmed or photographed for use in Romeo & Juliet or anywhere else. Plaintiffs believed they had no choice to act in the nude with body make-up as demanded on the last days of filming.

Article:

https://deadline.com/2023/01/sexual-abu ... 235210875/

The actual suit is here:

https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads ... dacted.pdf

[Eric Paddon]

I'm sorry but just at first glance, this is ridiculous.

[Monterey Jack]

Reasonable people don't wait 55 goddamn years to sue somebody.

[Eric Paddon]

Why wait until Zeffirelli was dead? Maybe because the fact that Hussey worked with him again on "Jesus Of Nazareth" wouldn't help her case one iota?

[Paul MacLean]

Nudity and sexuality were treated very casually the late 1960s -- particularly in Europe, and most especially in the arts. I have a tough time believing the actors had no idea what was expected of them.

Olivia Hussey didn't seem to mind working with Zeffirelli again a decade later, when he cast her in Jesus of Nazareth.

Whiting and Hussey are probably disgruntled that such a successful film did not launch them into lucrative, high-profile careers.

Apart from the film adaptation, I have to add I am disturbed by conversations I've had with two different women, who both assert that Shakespeare's play itself is "perverted", as Juliet is 13 years of age. One of these women went so far as to say "Romeo was a child molester". But people matured much sooner in centuries past. Alexander Hamilton was 21 years of age when the Declaration of Independence was signed -- and James Monroe was 18. And before the 20th century people died at much younger ages too.

[Monterey Jack]

Apart from the film adaptation, I have to add I am disturbed by conversations I've had with two different women, who both assert that Shakespeare's play itself is "perverted", as Juliet is 13 years of age. One of these women went so far as to say "Romeo was a child molester".

This reeks of "Presentism", where the social mores of today's society have to be applied to events of the past, and if they don't lock together Lego-tight, the past events become "problematic".



Hey, guess what, the world wasn't a Utopia prior to 2023. Forty years from now, people will look back at today and find aspects of society appalling. I'm surprised that the 2015 adaptation of Romeo & Juliet was able to cast a then-15 Hailee Steinfeld without raising hackles (albeit with zero nudity). Then again, that was juuuuuuuuuuuust before the current Twitter Outrage Cycle began in earnest with Ghostbusters '16 leading the charge.

[Paul MacLean]

[Monterey Jack]

BREAKING NEWS!!! Jodie Foster to sue Coppertone for the "child porn" usage of her in 1965!