This past January, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting—the stars of Franco Zeffirelli’s award-winning 1968 adaptation of Romeo And Juliet—sued Paramount over a nude scene they said they had no choice in filming when they were just 16 and 17 respectively. A judge later tossed the case out of court because the plaintiff’s argument was “limited to cherry-picked language” from multiple, ill-interpreted statutes and they did not find the claim of “child pornography” convincing. But while this case initially seemed like a fizzle of an attempt to right a past wrong in the wake of changing Hollywood ethics, a new, lengthy report from Vulture reveals that these actors have been exploited more than anyone could have guessed—and it still seems to be happening today.
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Read on for some of the biggest takeaways from Vulture’s report:
The lawsuit was suggested by a shady new business manager looking for fodder for his screenplay
Hussey, now 72, met business manager Tony Marinozzi after decades of lauding Zeffirelli’s movie as a “perfect film” that “changed [people’s] life.” It was Marinozzi who suggested going to court after so many years. “I’m big on fighting for a cause,” he said. “It’s my William Wallace thing.”
Marinozzi eventually connected Hussey with a “business psychologist” friend who determined that she and Whiting were both “severely traumatized” from their experience on set, inspiring the suit. But Marinozzi was not exactly motivated by the goodness of his heart. He was working on a screenplay called Bedroom Secrets, which he told Vulture would put him on the level of Quentin Tarantino and William Goldman. The script would focus on the actors’ legal drama and even open with a recreation of the exploitative shoot in question with a new pair of young actors. He had Timothée Chalamet in mind for Whiting. “To represent the stars, to write the script, produce it, fund it, and most importantly, control it—that’s the key,” he said. He also admitted that he called Hussey and told her: “Do you believe all my dreams are coming true because of you?”
Marinozzi’s motivations are extra icky because, based on Hussey’s testimony, she and her costar really were mistreated as teenagers by Zeffirelli (who died in 2019). Multiple sources say that Hussey looked up to the director as a father figure (she even called him “Daddy”); meanwhile, he made her slim down to 100 pounds and gave her the moniker “Boobs O’Mina.” On the day of the shoot, she says she was promised only a “hint” that she was nude, but the director placed her nightgown out of reach so she’d have to expose her bare chest to grab it. She didn’t know that this moment would be included in the actual film until its premiere.
Further, Hussey discovered fully nude photographs of her from that day on set years later after she received them from a fan. Zeffirelli had promised her the set would be closed, and she had no idea they were taken. The report also notes that Zeffirelli has been accused of sexual abuse in recent years by a “handful of male actors,” one of whom played Benvolio in the film.
Solomon Gresen, the lawyer Marinozzi hired to try the case, admitted he rushed the job. “When the fucking rubber hits the road and you need somebody who can do something, I’m one of the guys who can,” he said. (Vulture interviewed four lawyers who were “struck by the weakness of the complaint.”) In the midst of a conversation where he continually hit on the interviewer, Gresen admitted that a claim stating that Zeffirelli told the actors “they must act in the nude or the Picture would fail” was completely fabricated. “They were told it was absolutely essential, and they felt like the weight of the world was crushing down on them, but he didn’t say that. Those are my words,” Gresen said.
Marinozzi is currently trying to hire a new judge to retry the case in federal court. He apparently heard from an undercover FBI agent that “the film could constitute evidence of human trafficking,” and wants to reach out to lawyers for Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell to see if anyone from Paramount has ties to “Epstein Island.” “I’m a Michelangelo guy,” he said. “You keep carving and the angel appears. I keep chiseling away.”
You can read Vulture’s full report here.