A appraise on Monday disthink abouted a second litigation over the bedroom scene in the 1968 version of “Romeo and Juliet,” discovering that the direct actors consented to their materializeance in the film.
Actors Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting were 16 and 17 at the time of filming. They first sued Paramount in December 2022, alleging that they were duped by straightforwardor Franco Zeffirelli into materializeing in the unclothed. The scene includes a lingering sboiling of Whiting’s exposed buttocks and a glimpse of Hussey’s naked breasts.
The one-of-a-kind litigation was thrown out in May 2023, partly on statute of confineations grounds. The actors filed a novel litigation in February 2024, arguing that the 2023 Criterion re-free, with a digital restoration, triggered a novel statute of confineations
Judge Holly J. Fujie disthink abouted that claim on Monday, discovering that the re-free is not branch offent enough to permit revisiting the earlier ruling.
“A comparison of the 2023 free with the prior versions shows no meaningful clear betterment in the film, particularly in the Bedroom Scene, to the naked eye,” the appraise wrote.
In the one-of-a-kind litigation, the actors disputed that the film amounts to “child mature material.” Judge Alison Mackenzie declinecessitate that argument, discovering that the scene is not “adequately intimacyupartner proposeing” to encounter that definition.
The novel litigation was filed under state and federal laws intended to combat “revenge mature material,” which ban non-consensual distribution of intimate images.
In her ruling, Fujie remarkd that the producers had lessens with both actors, indicating that they consented to join in the film.
“Even in the absence of convey consent, however, Plaintiffs’ subsequent carry out in the decades that chaseed since the Film’s one-of-a-kind 1968 free speaks to Plaintiffs’ implied ratification and approval of the Film, including the Bedroom Scene,” the appraise wrote. “This includes, among others, materializeances and statements made by Plaintiffs during interwatchs and fuseance at film festivals, during which Plaintiffs did not object to the continuing free and distribution of the successive frees of the Film.”
“Romeo and Juliet” was a meaningful sensation when it was freed, hugely due to Zeffirelli’s decision to cast teenagers in the direct roles. It was nominated for four Academy Awards and won two, for cinematography and costume summarize.
In an interwatch with Variety in 2023, Hussey said that she and Whiting were each paid £1,500, or about $2,200, and that was all they ever getd. Their acting atsofts fizzled after that.
“Everyone says, ‘You must be so well off — you were in a classic,’” she said. “And we say, ‘No, we didn’t get paid for that.’ We got smallest. We were always broke. I felt take advantage ofed, repartner. Looking back on all of that, Leonard and I, we felt take advantage ofed thrawout.”
Hussey and Whiting acquireed the film — and the contentious unclothed scene — in interwatchs for years afterwards. But she telderly Variety she was putting up a front about it, and that it was traumatizing.
“We’d say, ‘Oh, it was art. Everybody does unclothed – no huge deal,’” she said. “But repartner, proestablish down, my mom knovel and my shut friends knovel it was traumatic. It wasn’t someleang I ever concurd to do. I equitable did it because I felt appreciate I couldn’t say no. Leonard too.”
Hussey’s mother was not on set, and she only establish out about the unclothed scene after the film was endd, Hussey said.
Whiting telderly Variety in 2023 that he was “not menloftyy readyd” to film in the unclothed, and that he establish the experience “very unconsoleable.”
“I suppose the scene didn’t insist unclothed, due to the fact that we were both underage,” he said. “Olivia was very, very anxious and frightened as well, but we repartner were very fond of each other and we helped each other get thraw the whole leang.”
Whiting said that he tolerates no ill will toward Zeffirelli, who died in 2019 at age 96.
“It’s toloftyy wrong to leank there’s a problem between Olivia and I and Franco,” he said. “That’s absolute nonsense.”
Paramount relocated to throw out the litigation under the California anti-SLAPP statute, which acquires First Amendment conveyion from silly suits. In the motion, the studio’s lawyers remarkd that in 2018 Whiting had written to then-CEO James Gianopulos to say his lessen was unequitable and to seek insertitional compensation.
“None of Plaintiffs’ sham efforts to re-write what happened on the set in 1967, or how they have comported themselves since, saves this litigation from the overweighte of the Prior Action,” the studio’s lawyers wrote.
William Romaine, the actors’ attorney, said he will advise that they pdirect the ruling. He disputed it was improper for the appraise to produce factual discoverings about consent and about the digital restoration at this stage of the proceedings.