Romeo and Juliet stars sue over ‘high-definition’ nude scene with ‘naked breasts and bums’

The stars of a 1968 Romeo and Juliet film are suing Paramount Pictures over the distribution of a nude scene they filmed when they were teens more than five decades ago.

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting played the leads in Franco Zeffirelli’s award-winning adaption of the Shakespeare play, which featured a scene depicting the pair of star-crossed lovers naked in a bedroom. Last year the actors argued the scene, which they filmed when Olivia was 16 and Leonard was 15, was child sex abuse in an initial lawsuit.

Their case was dismissed by a judge but the pair, who are now both in their 70s, revived the lawsuit on Wednesday over the film’s recent re-release. In a new lawsuit against Paramount and home-video distribution company Criterion Collection, Olivia and Leonard have accused the two movie companies of unlawfully distributing their naked images.

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The nude photos in question are from the same naked bedroom scene at the centre of their original suit. In the latest lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles, Olivia and Leonard claim they never consented to Paramount’s redistribution of the movie.

They also allege that “nothing in the agreement” for the original release gave the company the right to recreate, republish or redistribute photos of their work in any other medium than 35mm analogue cinematographic photographs, Entertainment Weekly reports. But they argue Criterion Collection’s new release of the film disregards this by using “digitally enhanced photographs” of Olivia and Leonard lying in bed naked together.

The lawsuit claims that in the original release of the film, the actor’s “private areas shown in those photographs were arguably obscured by their extremely low resolution.” But they claim the “extremely high-definition” of the new release means viewers can clearly see Olivia’s “complete naked breasts” and Leonard’s “complete naked buttocks.”

“Hussey and Whiting acquiesced in the inclusion of the Original Photos in the Original Work … because [the two] did not feel that the presentation … so far exceeded Zeffirelli’s undertaking as to be actionable as breach of that undertaking,” the lawsuit states. The actors also claim they were misled by the director about their nude scene in the film.

In a joint statement to Entertainment Weekly, Oliva and Leonard said their lawyers “extended the olive branch to Paramount” in hopes of settling the legal issue, but claim the company “do not want to take responsibility”. They said: “Our fight for accountability will now involve a new lawsuit and a more rigorous effort in the media, which up until this time we had sought to avoid.

“The facts, evidence, and law are all crystal clear in this matter, and we believe that over half a century of mental incarceration for this traumatic event has been quite enough.” Oliva and Leonard accused Paramount of sexual exploitation and distributing child sex abuse images in their original lawsuit.

But the case was thrown out by a judge in May who said the images could not be classed as child sex abuse images and that the actors had filed their claim too late. The judge also determined the scene was protected by the First Amendment after finding that Olivia and Leonard didn’t “put forth any authority showing the film here can be deemed to be sufficiently sexually suggestive as a matter of law to be held to be conclusively illegal.”

The Daily Star has reached out to Paramount for comment.

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk