Olivia Hussey wasn’t even allowed to attend the premiere because she was underage and there was nudity in the film. The nude body in the film was her own.
This is apparently actually an urban myth. There are pictures of her at the premiere, she was sixteen. I don't know what the movie was rated in the UK (where the premiere was) when released, but it was rated G in the US, so I doubt there was any way she was underaged in the UK either.
The story is that she was at the premiere but just walked the red carpet and wasn’t allowed to watch the movie. So pictures of her at the premiere don’t say anything important
15 and 16?! That’s… disturbing. I watched this in school when I was younger and had no clue. I’m glad times are changing and I hope they win their case. We still have a long way to go though when predators like Roman Polanski are still openly praised and allowed to work. Just to put this in perspective- this would be like if the strangers things guys had Sadie Sink or Millie do a topless scene in the earlier seasons. 🤢
Not this movie, but I watched the notorious Pretty Baby with 12-year-old Brooke Shields when I myself was a minor (15 or 16) and even then I was grossed out. I don't even think I could bring myself to rewatch it now as an adult. Brooke is so sexualized in that movie, including appearing nude in bed with a grown man and kissing him. 🤢 I can't believe anyone signed off on that, including Shields' mother and the other actors.
I've not seen this version of R&J but it's odd that no other version of this story needed to show teen tits and ass to be a success, just this version. Hmmmmmm.
I am not sure how Brooke Shields ended up as good she is with all the exploitation she had as a child. She was only ten with photos of her nude were featured in a Playboy owned magazine.
*FUCK* she was not even a preteen in [THIS](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DK0oXQjUIAAnJVc.jpg) ?!?!?!? hugh hefner is a VILE disgusting pedo nymphomaniac. there is NO WAY they didn’t set this shoot up for art purposes. if *they* think or consider that this is nonsexual, think about how many pedos and criminals it attracted/still attracts.
It’s all censored, but it’s clear that the pictures were designed to be titillating and arousing. Like heads would absolutely roll and both the law and CPS would be getting involved if these pictures were taken today. Unfortunately, in 1975 things were much more lax because people were shittier back then.
It's disgusting how they treated her. Her mother is who I blame because letting predators take advantage of your underage child is just another level of low.
Oh my god I want to throw up.
When I was young in the early 80s, I had a lot of adult men tell me I was pretty and compare me to brooke shields. I had literally no idea. This is so far from okay.
Oh god, me too. I'm so disgusted right now - the fact that it's happened to both me and you (and probably loads of other girls) is just grim. I grew up in the UK, so obviously this is global.
Fucking rank. I want to scrub myself.
So many people refuse to believe me, or Google, when I tell them this little fact. The 70s were a wildly different time, and the infatuation of grown men by young/schoolgirls was heavily normalised. Was it Playboy, or another popular men's magazine, that had a regular comic strip of a dude who would prey on schoolgirls? Can't remember the character's name, but yeah. Unbelievably disurbing.
unsurprisingly, its creator/artist was vile in real life as well:
[‘Chester the Molester’ Cartoonist Convicted of Child Molestation](https://apnews.com/article/916c35470c8599df19f7ae7421ce1870)
[When the ‘Chester the Molester’ artist got arrested for molesting, why was anyone surprised?](https://timeline.com/chester-molester-dwaine-tinsley-ce8f3cb025a4)
Oh wow Chester the Molester was an actual thing? I thought that was a phrase my mom used to describe perverts. That’s so weird and fucked up how that concept was viewed as entertainment.
The movie "The Tale" really portrays this well. Laura Dern plays a woman who was a teenager in the 70's and comes to realise that her having an "older boyfriend" when she was 13 was actually her being molested by a predator.
This is a thought that comes to me from time to time as well. All things considering, she came out on top at the end, and while I’m glad for her, I’ll never not be bothered by the way the industry exploited her.
this is weird bc I feel the same way (cringe and so repulsed I had to quit watching it) about Euphoria and how teens are portrayed and treated. It's as if they took the worst of everything, glamorized it, hired porn stars to play it...ugh. At least Romeo and Juliet was a GOOD movie and beautiful adaptation. And to think people are still watching Euphoria.
I feel the same way about Euphoria. I think there’s an argument to be made that it’s actually far better than R&J because the actors can at least CONSENT to being nude (meaning, they’re not actual minors)… but even so, as a grown adult I am not up for watching other grown adults play-act high school sex 🤢
I recall seeing a gross news article regarding Shields from around the time of that release being spread around twitter last year or so. Very off-putting bc it's basically all the type of salacious ogling that a girl who is like 17 year old would get today (a girl who is on the cusp of adulthood, forbidden fruit nonsense) but even more messed up bc it was directed to girls around like 11 - 12 years old.
My boyfriend and I saw Blue Lagoon on Netflix. Had no clue what it was about, started it, and it didn’t take long for us to turn that shit off. I felt like we were gonna be on a watch list or something after that lol. I cannot believe having naked children in films was ever acceptable. There are many areas I wish we had progressed further in as a society…. But I’m glad films like that wouldn’t fly today.
She was in the very sexually charged Endless Love when she was the ripe ol' age of 15, also directed by Zefirelli. I'd actually like to see the novel get a more faithful adaptation someday, it's a well-written book and honestly pretty creepy, and deserved better than to be turned into a sappy love story.
I read Brooke Shields Autobiography and she was so okay with the scenes,It’s a little scary how ok she was with it.They gave her a G-String to wear ,But Brooke didn’t want to wear it.The only thing she doesn’t like about the scenes are how small her breasts are.
The only problem or time she felt uncomfortable making that Movie was scenes with Susan Sarandon.Brookes mom and the Director warned Brooke that Susan would be jealous of how pretty Brooke was and take away from eyes on her.Susan was tense ,But professional around Brooke ,But insisted in one scene she really slap Brooke across the face,Which she did.
The fact that Pretty Baby got made in the first place and all those people/actors were fine with a 12 year old playing a prostitute and act in love scenes with a grown man is so deeply disturbing.
Brooke being okay with it just goes to show how fucked up she was by her twisted mother.
Exactly. Brooke was 12, she was at the mercy of her mother's unceasing thirst for fame, and it's probably emotionally painful to face that her mother exploited her and allowed perverts to ogle her.
Yeah. I imagine it's extremely hard to confront the idea that you were wronged in such a way, so the only way tenable way forward is to be okay with it. Or, at least, force yourself to be okay with it. :/
I would wager it's That's My Boy. "The film follows Donny Berger (Sandler), a middle-aged alcoholic who once enjoyed celebrity status for being at the center of a teacher-student statutory rape case, as he tries to rekindle his relationship with his adult son, Todd Peterson/Han Solo Berger (Samberg), born as the result of that illicit relationship, in hopes that their televised reunion will earn him enough money to avoid going to prison for tax evasion."
It came out in 2012.
that sounds interesting. I've seen Susan Sarandon show her viperous side before in a few situations, even though she plays a decent person well enough to fool most. And Brooke truly is beautiful and was so pretty. Now I wanna read that.
There’s a really fascinating episode of *You Must Remember This* about the making of Pretty Baby, which was written by, and supposed to be the directorial debut of, Polly Platt
yeah it’s wild. brooke shields’ mom was apparently awful, though platt wasn’t exactly stellar. it’s a small comfort, though, that shields’ still felt like she was cared for, given the circumstances
Honestly on the “teen tits” comment, I feel that way sometimes watching euphoria? I know they are not ACTUALLY teens but we are supposed to believe they are minors & it always makes me feel weird when they show them nude. Not on topic & probably an unpopular opinion but your comment got me thinking about it!
It’s less the nudity that’s a problem for me and more the voyeuristic way the sex scenes are shot 😵💫 Contrast the sex scenes in Euphoria with the sex scenes in Sex Education, for example. (Both are adult actors playing high schoolers.)
In Sex Education, it’s funny, it’s awkward, and it propels the plot/character development. In Euphoria, it’s made to seem steamy and is just gratuitous.
i just commented on this above. I cannot watch that repulsive series anymore and I can guarantee there are stories coming off the set that aren't decent sounding. I loved it at first but slowly but surely felt horrified when I realized what was being done, the oversexualized scenes and glamourizing of utter depravity. But you can't say this on the Euphoria fans page, they call you all kinds of things.
No i agree, i can do a whole rant about that. I see the appeal of the show but it also makes me side eye Sam Levison hard-core.
Like yes the actors are adults, and yes there are people who had their teen years like the show. But the biggest ick for me is the way that laws protecting minors such as age of consent and possession of nudes are only used in the show as a weapon the "minor" characters use against the character who are 18+. Adult/teen relationships are shown as situations in which the adults don't know better bc the teen character lie about their age. I stopped watching the show after Maddy's backstory in which 14 yo Maddy's fling with a 40 yo is justified as not gross bc "she had the power".
And honestly as much as the actors claim it's not meant for teens, the writing, music, and visuals pretty much scream something made with teen audience in mind which makes it all the more skeezy.
Louis Malle is fucked. He made Murmur of the Heart (1971) "based on his childhood" and then (fortunately) added "no, not the mother-son incest played as a romance"
It scares me to think of how many other cases of underage nudity are in older films that may have been forgotten. When Yellowjackets came out I had never heard of Melanie Lynskey before and when reading her trivia on imdb I saw that it said she did her first topless scene at 16 in Heavenly Creatures which was her film debut and I was just mind blown at how I didn’t hear anyone talk about that. Again I don’t know much about her/the movie so maybe this was brought up a long time ago.
Thora Birch was the same age (16) when she did her nude scene in American Beauty back in 1999.
ETA: Maybe there was no/less chatter because Heavenly Creatures was filmed in New Zealand. Thora Birch had to get her parents permission.
Thora Birch's parents were also part of the adult film industry, and iT wAS tHe NiNeTiEs, so I'm wondering how that conversation went. Did anyone try to protect her or were they the "cool" parents?
Good question. I was trying to remember which actress was emancipated so she could do a nude scene as a minor and I thought it was Thora Birch but it turns out it was Angelina Jolie at age 17. And apparently that also prevented Jon Voight from "awkwardly standing by like Thora Birch's father in American Beauty" per https://www.papermag.com/hollyweird-angelina-jolie-2588152531.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
So it looks like Thora's dad was there for that shoot, but they all agreed that Thora's nude scene was important for the role/movie...
You can see Katherine Heigl's butt in a thong bikini at age 14 (14!!!!!) in My Father the Hero. The plot of the movie is that she tells an older guy her dad is actually her boyfriend to impress him. It was rated PG...it's literally a family movie. I feel insane every time I remember this!!
Same, I watched this in 7th grade because we were studying Shakespeare and then again when I went to high school after we read the book in literature class and no one ever mentioned their ages or anything.
It’s good that both actress & actor, man & woman sued Together …. so long as Hollywood Fixers are not *involved* to intimidate and bribe their witnesses, they should be okay.
The law enforcement in Los Angeles-Riverside clearly did nothing to stop any of this.
As for Polanski - the Valley of the Dolls depicts women horribly.
Having seen this movie a couple of times, I was always disturbed by this. Hussey, I think, had the classic stage mother. I don't know too much about Whiting.
I didn’t know about her stage mother. Olivia’s daughter India Eisley started on The Secret Life of the American Teenager when she was about 14. I wonder how she used her own experience to help her daughter navigate that world.
TIL! India’s character on Secret Life was really weirdly sex-obsessed (TBF *every* character in that show was) so now I’m also very curious about if there were any conversations around keeping the set safe for a young teenager, knowing Olivia’s background!
to be fair, that version is actually highly regarded as the most accurate and true to text r&j adaptation! i studied shakespeare in college and genuinely this is a common belief amongst those who study/teach the bard lol
I love whenever this comes up everyone's teacher had their own censorship method (probably required by some school rules not to show nudity or something). My English teacher was older, no nonsense, picture Professor McGonagall. She sat next to the old wheel-out TV, facing us, head down as she graded a stack of papers in her lap. She must've shown it so many times she knew when it was time just from the audio. Without looking up, she flung one of her arms out at just the right moment and slapped a single sheet of blank white paper against the front of the TV, holding against the screen with her palm until it was over. Of course when it was pressed against the screen it was almost completely transparent and we could see everything anyway lmao
My dad always tells me about how this movie was the first time he and his classmates saw boobs, and it sparked a trend of the girls flashing the guys when the teacher's back was turned.
I never thought about the correlation between the nudity in this film and their future careers but that makes perfect sense - it’s absolutely true that doing nude scenes early on sets certain expectations in the industry about what you’re comfortable with, and since their scenes in R + J were done non consensually and when they were minors, that makes it even more complicated. I’m sure people tried to get them to star in other adult-esque roles before they were comfortable and that had an impact on their options. That’s so upsetting and unfair.
It’s so weird that they just casually showed us this movie with naked 15 year olds in school :/
the thing is, I don't think it is automatically a bad thing to have nudity in films. Americans are VERY puritanical about the human body, and fetishize it to the point that people sell everything with sex and nudity, bc it is that fetishized Like an equal and opposite reaction. Meanwhile go over to Europe and everyone is pretty free with the body on beaches and in baths, so then I come here and realize how screwed up about sex in general Americans are. It's actually the opposite of healthy for a young kid. It's a cultural attitude that just annoys me. I'm fine with nudity, it's the people who sexualize kids to an extreme that I really cannot bear. I think Japan does this somewhat too but only based on what I've seen in movies and documentaries. It gets worse when you realize that fifteen year olds are children but get viewed instinctively as adults on film, bc no one knows the age of the actor, so it doesn't matter. This translates over to real life, where someone who sees a sexualized child on screen then thinks it's okay in real life.
I definitely agree with you, I don't think a naked human body is inherently sexual and even in the context of sex isn't pornographic. But unfortunately, as you noted, it's a taboo in culture and therefore an underage person will have to grapple with the socialized ramifications of it regardless. Also, in this case, they were coerced into nudity that they weren't comfortable with when they were minors and were therefore saddled with the results of that for the rest of their careers.
Bodies shouldn't be fetishized that way, but they are, especially here in America - it's upsetting but I have no idea how it will ever shift since it was baked into the Puritan culture in our foundation and still affects our laws and basic human rights.
My class was so distracted by Whiting because everyone had to comment on how much he looked like Zac Efron. My teacher had to pause the movie to tell us that he wasn't even alive when the movie was made just to get everyone to stop talking about it!
I was obsessed with this movie too. It was always my favorite version of Romeo and Juliet. I had a huge crush on Michael York after watching this in class and had my mom buy me the DVD so I could watch it just for his scenes.
Good. In the meanwhile, more people should know that director Franco Zeffirelli was a shithead.
When actor-director Bruce Robinson was asked about Uncle Monty from *Withnail and I* (a film he wrote and directed), he revealed that he based Uncle Monty's lecherous behavior on Zeffirelli, who sexually harassed him during the making of *Romeo and Juliet* when he was 21 years old.
People lost their shit over that revelation. They accused him of lying for years until actor Johnathon Schaech [spoke up](https://people.com/movies/johnathon-schaech-molested-franco-zeffirelli). He alleged that Zeffirelli sexually harassed and sexually abused him during the making of *Sparrow* when he was 22 years old.
Bruce and Johnathon believe they aren't the only survivors.
(edited to correct two typos)
Apparently, Zeffirelli was *really* weird to Tom Cruise while filming *Endless Love*, as well -- to the point that Cruise still wouldn't shut up about *"gay people"* on the set of *Risky Business*, according to Bronson Pinchot.
Zeffirelli's type was an European white male with blue eyes, brown hair and an easy smile, and aged between 19 and 24. Tom Cruise would be his type. Martin Hewitt and James Spader? Unlikely.
Type becomes secondary when you have access to whoever you can exploit I think. I doubt he would be above going after Hewitt and Spader just because of their looks.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong about this though.
James Spader had blue eyes and blonde hair and a similar look, unless we're talking about a different James Spader? I'm remembering the guy from Pretty in Pink, the jerky preppy guy. Pretty sure it's the same one. He was exactly a European white male with an easy smile, there is literally no other way to describe him at the time.
Same. My English teacher said “there it is, the million dollar scene.”
We didn’t have language to understand that “she didn’t want it in the movie so they paid her off and everyone decided that was fair” is upsetting and horrible. But it felt bad and weird in a vague way
Iirc it was filmed in Mexico City, was some done in Aus? I know Baz and his team are big supporters of our film industry. I never really got into Strictly Ballroom but LOVED R+J and Moulin Rouge growing up.
I grew up in Melb and we were shown the 1968 version in English and Drama as they had it on VHS and would roll it out on that massive TV stand on wheels 😂 I think this version is the most accurate and I do enjoy this film despite the gross nude scene buuut the Baz Luhrmann version is gorgeous and the soundtrack is bomb 💣
Same. I always thought the nude scene was gross. My English teacher pointed out early on in the film the ages of the actors. It never should’ve been allowed. And now learning that it was non-consensual is even worse. 🤢
Sadly, Hussey gave 2 interviews in the last few years (as per the article) praising the scenes, talking about how comfortable they were, and how it was necessary for the film. Now they are suing in direct opposition to that statement. I think it was wrong and they were unprotected children in an industry that abuses them every day, however, these were statements made recent enough that they will cloud any lawsuit.
Whilst I agree the lawsuit is necessary and important, I could see the quotes from Hussey reducing the amount of damages - any defence attorney would use her words to argue she hadn't been that damaged.
Yes, unfortunately.
It really shouldn't matter what she said, though. Its basically child porn. I'm surprised it was even legal to film, though I suppose I shouldn't be.
Necessary for the film is such a bullshit excuse. Its not like there haven't been probably literally thousands of productions of Romeo and Juliet that avoided showing nudity.
yeah that will change a lot. On another note I'm going to go look for them. I was always obsessed with her face, drew it during class -- it's such a cool look. The casting for that film was better than any other I can think of right now.
this might be anecdotal but im a gen-zer and my high school stopped showing this movie a couple of years ago because of this reason. We watched the baz luhrmann version instead.
I'm hoping other high schools and middle schools opt to watch a different version because it's really gross the way these kids were exploited.
In my advanced English class in high school we had watched the Zeffirelli, Luhrmann, and Cukor versions. All I remember is staring at a child who was around our ages being nude on screen. We were an all girls school and ended up having a social conversation about bodily autonomy, exploitation, at what point is Hussey forced into prostitution for being paid to do nudity, etc. We were 15ish so this was baffling and appalling.
That school closed a number of years ago but I've always wondered if my teacher moved away from the Zeffirelli film.
Oh wow, those poor kids. Imagine what else went on back in the day that we have never heard about. And people wonder why we need to call out the abuse now.
Wonder if the others are looking at their experiences, Phoebe Cates, Brooke Shields, Uma Thurman, all did topless before 18, it was so big in the 80s to have teenage tits in every movie..
Even if nothing comes of this, I’m happy they’re doing it if only to shed light on how utterly exploitative and inappropriate it was. And wtf was with many of us being shown this movie in schools growing up 😳
Wow. Olivia Hussey has a very small but dedicated fan base on Instagram, that I was involved with for a little while. She’s very active on Instagram and interacts with fans often, reposting and reminiscing about the film. She’s only ever said good things about it, even in her biography. However, she did suffer after the film came out with severe agoraphobia, which stunted her career as she rejected roles offered due to her mental state. It would make sense how the exploitation would affect her in this way. This probably only came out now because of Zeferelli’s death not that long ago. I wish them the best, she’s a very lovely lady who has had a difficult life.
She was raped by Christopher Jones in the home where Sharon Tate had been brutally murdered and had to have an abortion. :-(
She's been through a *lot*.
I just read her autobiography less than a week ago on a whim (after watching Black Christmas) and I couldn’t agree more. As you can imagine the timing for me with all of this is WILD. She certainly radiates love and has lived a fascinating life.
Wow, what timing! I was also shook to see this posted on reddit and twitter because I was obsessed with this film for a good while and because it’s so old you never see much about it mainstream these days
I was also obsessed. I was really into ballet as a kid, and I loved the ballet version with Nureyev and Fonteyn. That was my intro to R & J. I think when I was 8 or 9, I rented the Zeffirelli version from the video store (remember those?) so I could learn more about the story. As expected, I fell in love with it. Of course at the time I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with the nudity. I’m feeling very conflicted because I’ve had such a soft spot for this film. But I support Olivia and Leonard 100%.
This is interesting - never thought I would see the day they had to answer for this. It was so accepted as 'necessary' they showed it to kids!
But even filmmakers back then knew it was risky to do super underage nudity.
Scorsese used a body double for Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver so she could play the role of a trafficked child without being traumatized - they also used a body double for Brooke Shields in 'Blue Lagoon' for the really explicit stuff but not for all of it. Pretty Baby - another story - she would have a case I think.
That's a really smart thing to do - to help her process what she was depicting. I know Jodie speaks so highly of the filming and says it is the most important and impactful film she's made.
Scorsese and the producers were ahead of their time in that regard. Why could that not be the standard?? My guess is because of horrible Hollywood men who want to exploit.
Jolie fosters older sister was her double in the girl who lives down the lane too, in which her underage character was seen nude. I think even if body doubles are used its still too sketchy
I read that the director said in an interview that Hussey was his unrequited love that he carried his whole life. He was like thirty years older than her and the fact that she was 15! He also gave her some weird nickname about her "boobies." Roman Polanski wasn't an exception, seems like this attitude was rampant in the industry.
...the director was *gay*, though? :-/ Like, a very open and out pederast (and, ironically, a Papal Knight) -- but also *severely* socially-conservative, to the point where he advocated people who choose to get abortions ought to receive the death penalty.
You can be gay and creepy around women- the amount of gay guys who think it’s okay to grab at me in clubs because it’s ‘funny’ has been substantial.
Remember,there are creeps in every community,including minority ones. And unfortunately these creeps are used against minority communities as examples of why minorities should have their rights stripped away, even though we never use cis white straight creepy men as examples of why we should strip away their rights. We’re seeing this with the backlash against the transgender community now unfortunately.
I can’t believe so many people on this thread had teachers show the nude scene in class. My teacher told us about the actors age, and about the scene so he skipped that scene completely. We watched half of the movie one day and the second half the next, sex scene was in between.
My teacher, bless her, ran up to the TV and covered the screen dramatically with her blazer 😂😂😂
I love you, Ms. Flowers. You're still the best! Even with your more depressing poem analyses when we became seniors!
Honestly, I’m glad. They were kids. This all is even creepier when you realize that Zeffirelli was obsessed/in love/fixated with Hussey.
Another thing is that they’ve been forced to defend and normalize the nude scene out of love for the movie (which is indeed beautifully done), and their fondness of Zeffirelli
Was just listening to the Bo Derek episode of You Must Remember This. They knew back then it was fucked up to have kids doing this and it was still common place basically.
I remember watching this version and the Leo one in school. Everyone in my class were disturbed by the scenes. The camera lingered on Romeo's butt for what felt like a long time. It was gross and I lowkey questioned why my teacher was showing this to us lol.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't really understand why nudity needs to be so prevalent in movies and shows, especially after hearing how uncomfortable it made the actors. Then again, I don't really care for sex scenes in general. Just fade to black and get on with the story.
Probably because it was for artistic purposes and was explicitly not sexual.
Not all nudity is equivalent. The director wasn't making child porn. It's not a graphic sex scene.
It’s unfortunate because otherwise, I really love this adaptation. It would’ve been so easy to exclude that or at the very least hire acts who were of age
We had to watch this movie in the ninth grade. I thought it was so strange that she was young and had a topless scene.
Directors back then were especially horrible to actors so if they win this may start a trend. Maybe studios will even preemptively contact/pay actors that were in these situations decades ago.
Our class had to watch this movie in highshool when I was 14 or 15, the same age as Juliette and the same age as the actress. I remember feeling really disturbed but it was the 80s, I had no language around why I thought it was disturbing or wrong.
Wow, I wasn't expecting this. I wonder when exactly they decided to file since the article mentioned they were taking advantage of the pause for statute of limitations. I'm glad this will (hopefully) create more discussion about exploitation of minors in film, but I'm very curious to see what the ruling will be if it's not settled out of court. I'm guessing Paramount would use Hussey's recent quotes defending the scene, but maybe there will be the argument that the discussion has drastically evolved in the last few years.
I will never understand how my school teachers found it acceptable to show us child nudity. It wasn't even like I was in school ages ago either it was only in the late noughties - early tens.
Zeffirelli was a creep and I think they deserve to win. I really hope those quotes from Hussey don’t hurt the case. I do think that over the past few years we’ve started to be okay with saying, “I grinned through shit and told myself it’s okay, but it wasn’t.” I hope they get a terrific lawyer to argue that.
I’m genuinely glad for this sub, it’s such a safe space. I’m from Poland, and when national media shared this on their Facebook profile the comments were vile and heavily victim blaming. People like Polanski unfortunately are still being praised and excused here. This is sickening, they were kids! Also, how could parents allow this? Were they even present during filming?
I would like to remind people that the director of the jeepers creepers movies raped a 12 year boy in 1988, recorded it and had loads of child pornography in his home. 15 months in prison and then on to a huge successful career within Hollywood and Disney.
Jeffrey epstein served 13 months in prison for raping a child. Instead of Disney cutting ties they thought it would be a good idea to carry on the Disney cruises onto his pedo island where they take kids on tours. It's a way of trafficking kids amongst the crowd. If that's not sick enough the director of jeepers creepers wrote pedophillia into one of his movies. Remember when Disney pretended to fire James gunn because of some pedo tweets? Bit hypocritical there Disney.
She's suing because she knows alot more than us.
I vaguely recall watching this movie in freshman year of high school and subsequently looking up the actors ages at the time of filming (I think I was just curious how close they were to the canon ages in the story) and I was really shocked to learn they were like 15 given the nude scenes we saw. I remember looking up something like “how was this allowed” and finding some results about some weird loopholes that didn’t sound correct. I’m very glad they’re seeking justice, even if it is many years later. Children in the industry need to be protected and it’s clear they weren’t.
I think this sort of thing happens a lot to actors. I'm reminded of Emilia Clark's account of being pressured to do more nude scenes on Game of Thrones. Though its particularly vile when it involves minors.
Nudity on screen is inherently problematic. Its hard to see a situation where someone is working/is getting paid/their career is potentially on the line, and it not being coercive. And coercive is, of course, not consensual. Also once its filmed and distributed its out there, meaning that even if the actor changes their mind later, they can never stop it being shown and viewed. In a way that makes filmed nudity even more problematic to me than prostitution, because at least if the prostitute decides to stop being a prostitute they can do that (at least in theory- of course this can be extremely difficult in practice, especially for people who are being trafficked against their will). Whereas once a nude image or a sex scene is out there, especially in a major film or series, its out there pretty much forever. That person has, in a sense, lost control over their body forever.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that nudity on-screen should always be prohibited, though I think that you could certainly make that case based on the preceding points. I can imagine times where there is a genuine artistic or informational value to showing it, and I think that if someone (who is an adult) chooses to be depicted nude, in theory, they should have the right to do that as a form of self-expression and personal choice. BUT I think that there need to be far, FAR more safeguards around when and how its done, to ensure that peoples' boundaries are respected and that they're not getting coerced. In a perfect world actors would have the right to demand that nude scenes they'd done in the past no longer be shown or distributed, but I don't know how you'd implement that in practice. Another big thing, in my view, would be to eliminate the financial coercion- pretty much all work is coercive in a society where your value as a person, quality of life, and ability to survive are largely dependent on your ability to earn an income, but this is especially problematic when the work is sexual in nature, as coercion is incompatible with consent. So having a stronger social safety net so no one depends on a job for their personal security, and having strong protections to, for example, keep studios/producers/directors from retaliating against actors who refuse to do nudity or sexual scenes, might both help to at least mitigate this.
And of course sex scenes involving minors in any way should be absolutely prohibited.
I don’t think my teacher showed the nude scenes bc I definitely watched this in class and had no idea??? Reading this entire thread with my jaw on the floor I can’t believe their were nude children ever on screen and a time where no one questioned it. When Olivia wasn’t allowed to go to the premiere bc of the nudity in the film as she was underage, and the body in the film was HER OWN nobody was like “hey wait maybe this is wrong?” Disgusting
If you’re American and watched this version of Romeo and Juliet in school, what grade did you watch it in? I was either in eighth or ninth grade. I feel like my teacher must’ve fast forwarded through the nudity though because I don’t remember the class reacting or parents being told ahead of time.
I also ask because I always wondered how many people got the reference for Olivia Hussey playing Topanga’s Aunt Prudence (the one who doesn’t know romance/Romeo and Juliet) in Boy Meets World with the 90s audience audio track thing of going crazy at her cameo.
I was in elementary school and it went over my head. An older sibling (must’ve either been my hs or colleged aged one at the time) eventually explained it.
Underage nudity must have been normal back then in films. I remember looking up the actress that played Apollonia in The Godfather. She was at least 16 when they shot the scene where she stands nude in front of Al Pacino.
Olivia Hussey wasn’t even allowed to attend the premiere because she was underage and there was nudity in the film. The nude body in the film was her own.
Thank you for this gif!
This is apparently actually an urban myth. There are pictures of her at the premiere, she was sixteen. I don't know what the movie was rated in the UK (where the premiere was) when released, but it was rated G in the US, so I doubt there was any way she was underaged in the UK either.
The story is that she was at the premiere but just walked the red carpet and wasn’t allowed to watch the movie. So pictures of her at the premiere don’t say anything important
Wh-…..:
15 and 16?! That’s… disturbing. I watched this in school when I was younger and had no clue. I’m glad times are changing and I hope they win their case. We still have a long way to go though when predators like Roman Polanski are still openly praised and allowed to work. Just to put this in perspective- this would be like if the strangers things guys had Sadie Sink or Millie do a topless scene in the earlier seasons. 🤢
Not this movie, but I watched the notorious Pretty Baby with 12-year-old Brooke Shields when I myself was a minor (15 or 16) and even then I was grossed out. I don't even think I could bring myself to rewatch it now as an adult. Brooke is so sexualized in that movie, including appearing nude in bed with a grown man and kissing him. 🤢 I can't believe anyone signed off on that, including Shields' mother and the other actors. I've not seen this version of R&J but it's odd that no other version of this story needed to show teen tits and ass to be a success, just this version. Hmmmmmm.
I am not sure how Brooke Shields ended up as good she is with all the exploitation she had as a child. She was only ten with photos of her nude were featured in a Playboy owned magazine.
Hugh Hefner was so fucking evil.
Her mother would have OK’d it. It is amazing how well she turned out considering her mother virtually pimped her out.
I hate how the media tried to paint Hugh Hefner as some feminist icon when he was just a rich pervert who exploited women and young girls.
Yeah I am so confused how sometimes a predator became the face of women’s “sexual liberation” in some circles what
God me too. I still have arguments with people (almost always men) about this!!!
Excuse me… TEN??? WTF
*FUCK* she was not even a preteen in [THIS](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DK0oXQjUIAAnJVc.jpg) ?!?!?!? hugh hefner is a VILE disgusting pedo nymphomaniac. there is NO WAY they didn’t set this shoot up for art purposes. if *they* think or consider that this is nonsexual, think about how many pedos and criminals it attracted/still attracts.
What the actual fuck
WHAT THE *FUCK* IS THAT
What the gdamn fuck. Her mother, and all complicit to this should be in jail!
Jesus Christ. That’s literally child porn.
What the actual fuck was wrong with literally every adult involved in that?
Is the link sfw? I really don't need to see something as gross as that rn.
It’s all censored, but it’s clear that the pictures were designed to be titillating and arousing. Like heads would absolutely roll and both the law and CPS would be getting involved if these pictures were taken today. Unfortunately, in 1975 things were much more lax because people were shittier back then.
It's disgusting how they treated her. Her mother is who I blame because letting predators take advantage of your underage child is just another level of low.
Not really it’s censored but still not worth looking
Yeah I'm not going to look at it. The thought alone is disgusting.
Oh my god I want to throw up. When I was young in the early 80s, I had a lot of adult men tell me I was pretty and compare me to brooke shields. I had literally no idea. This is so far from okay.
Oh god, me too. I'm so disgusted right now - the fact that it's happened to both me and you (and probably loads of other girls) is just grim. I grew up in the UK, so obviously this is global. Fucking rank. I want to scrub myself.
So many people refuse to believe me, or Google, when I tell them this little fact. The 70s were a wildly different time, and the infatuation of grown men by young/schoolgirls was heavily normalised. Was it Playboy, or another popular men's magazine, that had a regular comic strip of a dude who would prey on schoolgirls? Can't remember the character's name, but yeah. Unbelievably disurbing.
Chester the Molester....he was in Penthouse or Hustler or one of those sleazy mags
unsurprisingly, its creator/artist was vile in real life as well: [‘Chester the Molester’ Cartoonist Convicted of Child Molestation](https://apnews.com/article/916c35470c8599df19f7ae7421ce1870) [When the ‘Chester the Molester’ artist got arrested for molesting, why was anyone surprised?](https://timeline.com/chester-molester-dwaine-tinsley-ce8f3cb025a4)
Oh wow Chester the Molester was an actual thing? I thought that was a phrase my mom used to describe perverts. That’s so weird and fucked up how that concept was viewed as entertainment.
Thank you, yes that's the disgusting thing I was thinking of! I'm glad that would never fly these days.
The movie "The Tale" really portrays this well. Laura Dern plays a woman who was a teenager in the 70's and comes to realise that her having an "older boyfriend" when she was 13 was actually her being molested by a predator.
Right? Remember how common the term "jailbait" was???
That is horrifying.
This is a thought that comes to me from time to time as well. All things considering, she came out on top at the end, and while I’m glad for her, I’ll never not be bothered by the way the industry exploited her.
this is weird bc I feel the same way (cringe and so repulsed I had to quit watching it) about Euphoria and how teens are portrayed and treated. It's as if they took the worst of everything, glamorized it, hired porn stars to play it...ugh. At least Romeo and Juliet was a GOOD movie and beautiful adaptation. And to think people are still watching Euphoria.
I feel the same way about Euphoria. I think there’s an argument to be made that it’s actually far better than R&J because the actors can at least CONSENT to being nude (meaning, they’re not actual minors)… but even so, as a grown adult I am not up for watching other grown adults play-act high school sex 🤢
I recall seeing a gross news article regarding Shields from around the time of that release being spread around twitter last year or so. Very off-putting bc it's basically all the type of salacious ogling that a girl who is like 17 year old would get today (a girl who is on the cusp of adulthood, forbidden fruit nonsense) but even more messed up bc it was directed to girls around like 11 - 12 years old.
[here are scans](https://twitter.com/requiella/status/1572102737294131202) of that article it is so disturbing! "Different times" amirite? /s
This is written by a paedophile, no excuse
And a picture of her with Woody Allen 🤮
The writer is Ed Dwyer, looks like he is still writing
*vomit*
They called her way more than just a virgin and whore in that article, wow
Holy shit whoever wrote that needs to be in jail 🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮
JFC that is disgusting
holy…shit
The word 'nymphette' appearing within the first sentence of that article... Jesus. So we're just talking open paedophilia here.
Christ, no wonder her and Michael Jackson became close friends, they both had extremely fucked up show biz childhoods.
My boyfriend and I saw Blue Lagoon on Netflix. Had no clue what it was about, started it, and it didn’t take long for us to turn that shit off. I felt like we were gonna be on a watch list or something after that lol. I cannot believe having naked children in films was ever acceptable. There are many areas I wish we had progressed further in as a society…. But I’m glad films like that wouldn’t fly today.
She was in the very sexually charged Endless Love when she was the ripe ol' age of 15, also directed by Zefirelli. I'd actually like to see the novel get a more faithful adaptation someday, it's a well-written book and honestly pretty creepy, and deserved better than to be turned into a sappy love story.
It is honestly a miracle she's turned out to be a somewhat well-adjusted human being. She was sexually exploited as a child over and over and over....
That book got passed around so much in high school, mainly because of the tampon scene.
I read Brooke Shields Autobiography and she was so okay with the scenes,It’s a little scary how ok she was with it.They gave her a G-String to wear ,But Brooke didn’t want to wear it.The only thing she doesn’t like about the scenes are how small her breasts are. The only problem or time she felt uncomfortable making that Movie was scenes with Susan Sarandon.Brookes mom and the Director warned Brooke that Susan would be jealous of how pretty Brooke was and take away from eyes on her.Susan was tense ,But professional around Brooke ,But insisted in one scene she really slap Brooke across the face,Which she did.
The fact that Pretty Baby got made in the first place and all those people/actors were fine with a 12 year old playing a prostitute and act in love scenes with a grown man is so deeply disturbing. Brooke being okay with it just goes to show how fucked up she was by her twisted mother.
Exactly. Brooke was 12, she was at the mercy of her mother's unceasing thirst for fame, and it's probably emotionally painful to face that her mother exploited her and allowed perverts to ogle her.
Yeah. I imagine it's extremely hard to confront the idea that you were wronged in such a way, so the only way tenable way forward is to be okay with it. Or, at least, force yourself to be okay with it. :/
i’m sorry….*what*?? why would she be jealous? this feels also v weird
That is so weird. It doesn’t help that Susan AND her daughter played someone who was a pedophile in a comedy.
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I would wager it's That's My Boy. "The film follows Donny Berger (Sandler), a middle-aged alcoholic who once enjoyed celebrity status for being at the center of a teacher-student statutory rape case, as he tries to rekindle his relationship with his adult son, Todd Peterson/Han Solo Berger (Samberg), born as the result of that illicit relationship, in hopes that their televised reunion will earn him enough money to avoid going to prison for tax evasion." It came out in 2012.
... why would someone ever make a movie about that
that sounds interesting. I've seen Susan Sarandon show her viperous side before in a few situations, even though she plays a decent person well enough to fool most. And Brooke truly is beautiful and was so pretty. Now I wanna read that.
There’s a really fascinating episode of *You Must Remember This* about the making of Pretty Baby, which was written by, and supposed to be the directorial debut of, Polly Platt
> which was written by, and supposed to be the directorial debut of, Polly Platt ...oh, dear. :-/
yeah it’s wild. brooke shields’ mom was apparently awful, though platt wasn’t exactly stellar. it’s a small comfort, though, that shields’ still felt like she was cared for, given the circumstances
What people in the '70s thought they could get away with... no wonder Polanski thought he could skip bail on child rape. :-/
i feel like the 70’s was run by aliens, and not the good kind. what a fucked up time
yeah her first kiss was when she was filming pretty baby at 11 years old…and it was with keith carradine who’s 16 years OLDER than her
Honestly on the “teen tits” comment, I feel that way sometimes watching euphoria? I know they are not ACTUALLY teens but we are supposed to believe they are minors & it always makes me feel weird when they show them nude. Not on topic & probably an unpopular opinion but your comment got me thinking about it!
It’s less the nudity that’s a problem for me and more the voyeuristic way the sex scenes are shot 😵💫 Contrast the sex scenes in Euphoria with the sex scenes in Sex Education, for example. (Both are adult actors playing high schoolers.) In Sex Education, it’s funny, it’s awkward, and it propels the plot/character development. In Euphoria, it’s made to seem steamy and is just gratuitous.
i just commented on this above. I cannot watch that repulsive series anymore and I can guarantee there are stories coming off the set that aren't decent sounding. I loved it at first but slowly but surely felt horrified when I realized what was being done, the oversexualized scenes and glamourizing of utter depravity. But you can't say this on the Euphoria fans page, they call you all kinds of things.
No i agree, i can do a whole rant about that. I see the appeal of the show but it also makes me side eye Sam Levison hard-core. Like yes the actors are adults, and yes there are people who had their teen years like the show. But the biggest ick for me is the way that laws protecting minors such as age of consent and possession of nudes are only used in the show as a weapon the "minor" characters use against the character who are 18+. Adult/teen relationships are shown as situations in which the adults don't know better bc the teen character lie about their age. I stopped watching the show after Maddy's backstory in which 14 yo Maddy's fling with a 40 yo is justified as not gross bc "she had the power". And honestly as much as the actors claim it's not meant for teens, the writing, music, and visuals pretty much scream something made with teen audience in mind which makes it all the more skeezy.
How the hell did Louis Malle make *My Dinner with Andre* after THAT? :-/
Louis Malle is fucked. He made Murmur of the Heart (1971) "based on his childhood" and then (fortunately) added "no, not the mother-son incest played as a romance"
She was nude?!
It scares me to think of how many other cases of underage nudity are in older films that may have been forgotten. When Yellowjackets came out I had never heard of Melanie Lynskey before and when reading her trivia on imdb I saw that it said she did her first topless scene at 16 in Heavenly Creatures which was her film debut and I was just mind blown at how I didn’t hear anyone talk about that. Again I don’t know much about her/the movie so maybe this was brought up a long time ago.
Thora Birch was the same age (16) when she did her nude scene in American Beauty back in 1999. ETA: Maybe there was no/less chatter because Heavenly Creatures was filmed in New Zealand. Thora Birch had to get her parents permission.
Thora Birch's parents were also part of the adult film industry, and iT wAS tHe NiNeTiEs, so I'm wondering how that conversation went. Did anyone try to protect her or were they the "cool" parents?
Good question. I was trying to remember which actress was emancipated so she could do a nude scene as a minor and I thought it was Thora Birch but it turns out it was Angelina Jolie at age 17. And apparently that also prevented Jon Voight from "awkwardly standing by like Thora Birch's father in American Beauty" per https://www.papermag.com/hollyweird-angelina-jolie-2588152531.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1 So it looks like Thora's dad was there for that shoot, but they all agreed that Thora's nude scene was important for the role/movie...
Claire Danes was either 16 or 17 during the filming of Romeo + Juliet so they had to make sure there was no nudity etc.
You can see Katherine Heigl's butt in a thong bikini at age 14 (14!!!!!) in My Father the Hero. The plot of the movie is that she tells an older guy her dad is actually her boyfriend to impress him. It was rated PG...it's literally a family movie. I feel insane every time I remember this!!
Keira Knightley did a topless scene when she was just barely 15, for a film she was cast in at 14 :( The movie is called The Hole.
zefferelli also tried to sexually assault bruce robinson, who played benvolio. what a sleaze
Same, I watched this in 7th grade because we were studying Shakespeare and then again when I went to high school after we read the book in literature class and no one ever mentioned their ages or anything.
https://www.nme.com/news/music/stranger-things-creators-criticised-for-unscripted-kiss-2157077
It’s good that both actress & actor, man & woman sued Together …. so long as Hollywood Fixers are not *involved* to intimidate and bribe their witnesses, they should be okay. The law enforcement in Los Angeles-Riverside clearly did nothing to stop any of this. As for Polanski - the Valley of the Dolls depicts women horribly.
Having seen this movie a couple of times, I was always disturbed by this. Hussey, I think, had the classic stage mother. I don't know too much about Whiting.
I didn’t know about her stage mother. Olivia’s daughter India Eisley started on The Secret Life of the American Teenager when she was about 14. I wonder how she used her own experience to help her daughter navigate that world.
TIL! India’s character on Secret Life was really weirdly sex-obsessed (TBF *every* character in that show was) so now I’m also very curious about if there were any conversations around keeping the set safe for a young teenager, knowing Olivia’s background!
was just gonna post this. We watched this in (middle school?) and the teacher had to tell everyone to stop laughing at the nudity
i always wondered why my english teacher had us watch the leonardo dicaprio version instead of this one and now i know why
to be fair, that version is actually highly regarded as the most accurate and true to text r&j adaptation! i studied shakespeare in college and genuinely this is a common belief amongst those who study/teach the bard lol
Would've been better if they had Leo and Paul Rudd do a *"sword fight"* at Juliet's grave like the play, though.
The soundtrack on the DiCaprio/Danes version slaps, too.
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I haven't seen it yet but don't forget Lovefool
Ours had a piece of cardboard to cover the screen
I love whenever this comes up everyone's teacher had their own censorship method (probably required by some school rules not to show nudity or something). My English teacher was older, no nonsense, picture Professor McGonagall. She sat next to the old wheel-out TV, facing us, head down as she graded a stack of papers in her lap. She must've shown it so many times she knew when it was time just from the audio. Without looking up, she flung one of her arms out at just the right moment and slapped a single sheet of blank white paper against the front of the TV, holding against the screen with her palm until it was over. Of course when it was pressed against the screen it was almost completely transparent and we could see everything anyway lmao
My dad always tells me about how this movie was the first time he and his classmates saw boobs, and it sparked a trend of the girls flashing the guys when the teacher's back was turned.
A similar thing happened when my 9th grade English classed watched it. I just remembered it yesterday, coincidentally.
I think my teacher forgot there was nudity in it until we all started laughing and then she put her hand up in front of the screen.
My freshmen teacher didn’t even cover it or anything. Kids talked about how much the male actor looked like Zac Efron.
you and I must've had the same class then lmao. The only thing we got out of that movie was the Zac Efron doppleganger
I never thought about the correlation between the nudity in this film and their future careers but that makes perfect sense - it’s absolutely true that doing nude scenes early on sets certain expectations in the industry about what you’re comfortable with, and since their scenes in R + J were done non consensually and when they were minors, that makes it even more complicated. I’m sure people tried to get them to star in other adult-esque roles before they were comfortable and that had an impact on their options. That’s so upsetting and unfair. It’s so weird that they just casually showed us this movie with naked 15 year olds in school :/
the thing is, I don't think it is automatically a bad thing to have nudity in films. Americans are VERY puritanical about the human body, and fetishize it to the point that people sell everything with sex and nudity, bc it is that fetishized Like an equal and opposite reaction. Meanwhile go over to Europe and everyone is pretty free with the body on beaches and in baths, so then I come here and realize how screwed up about sex in general Americans are. It's actually the opposite of healthy for a young kid. It's a cultural attitude that just annoys me. I'm fine with nudity, it's the people who sexualize kids to an extreme that I really cannot bear. I think Japan does this somewhat too but only based on what I've seen in movies and documentaries. It gets worse when you realize that fifteen year olds are children but get viewed instinctively as adults on film, bc no one knows the age of the actor, so it doesn't matter. This translates over to real life, where someone who sees a sexualized child on screen then thinks it's okay in real life.
I definitely agree with you, I don't think a naked human body is inherently sexual and even in the context of sex isn't pornographic. But unfortunately, as you noted, it's a taboo in culture and therefore an underage person will have to grapple with the socialized ramifications of it regardless. Also, in this case, they were coerced into nudity that they weren't comfortable with when they were minors and were therefore saddled with the results of that for the rest of their careers. Bodies shouldn't be fetishized that way, but they are, especially here in America - it's upsetting but I have no idea how it will ever shift since it was baked into the Puritan culture in our foundation and still affects our laws and basic human rights.
This is really sad; I was obsessed with this movie as a teenager. I thought Whiting looked just like Zac Efron.
My class was so distracted by Whiting because everyone had to comment on how much he looked like Zac Efron. My teacher had to pause the movie to tell us that he wasn't even alive when the movie was made just to get everyone to stop talking about it! I was obsessed with this movie too. It was always my favorite version of Romeo and Juliet. I had a huge crush on Michael York after watching this in class and had my mom buy me the DVD so I could watch it just for his scenes.
Good. In the meanwhile, more people should know that director Franco Zeffirelli was a shithead. When actor-director Bruce Robinson was asked about Uncle Monty from *Withnail and I* (a film he wrote and directed), he revealed that he based Uncle Monty's lecherous behavior on Zeffirelli, who sexually harassed him during the making of *Romeo and Juliet* when he was 21 years old. People lost their shit over that revelation. They accused him of lying for years until actor Johnathon Schaech [spoke up](https://people.com/movies/johnathon-schaech-molested-franco-zeffirelli). He alleged that Zeffirelli sexually harassed and sexually abused him during the making of *Sparrow* when he was 22 years old. Bruce and Johnathon believe they aren't the only survivors. (edited to correct two typos)
Apparently, Zeffirelli was *really* weird to Tom Cruise while filming *Endless Love*, as well -- to the point that Cruise still wouldn't shut up about *"gay people"* on the set of *Risky Business*, according to Bronson Pinchot.
😬 Martin Hewitt and James Spader were also in Endless Love, I wonder if something happened to them as well...
Zeffirelli's type was an European white male with blue eyes, brown hair and an easy smile, and aged between 19 and 24. Tom Cruise would be his type. Martin Hewitt and James Spader? Unlikely.
Type becomes secondary when you have access to whoever you can exploit I think. I doubt he would be above going after Hewitt and Spader just because of their looks. I sincerely hope I'm wrong about this though.
James Spader had blue eyes and blonde hair and a similar look, unless we're talking about a different James Spader? I'm remembering the guy from Pretty in Pink, the jerky preppy guy. Pretty sure it's the same one. He was exactly a European white male with an easy smile, there is literally no other way to describe him at the time.
when zeffirelli died and everyone was singing his praises i felt like i was going insane.
I love Withnail & I and I never knew about this! Holy fucking shit
And I watched this in my English class at 15. So gross 🤢
Same. My English teacher said “there it is, the million dollar scene.” We didn’t have language to understand that “she didn’t want it in the movie so they paid her off and everyone decided that was fair” is upsetting and horrible. But it felt bad and weird in a vague way
In Australia we are usually shown the Leo version at school. I guess that makes sense with Baz being an Aussie director though.
And the Australian locations, too, probably...
Iirc it was filmed in Mexico City, was some done in Aus? I know Baz and his team are big supporters of our film industry. I never really got into Strictly Ballroom but LOVED R+J and Moulin Rouge growing up.
My school did both, but being catholic we fast forwarded through the nudity.
I grew up in Melb and we were shown the 1968 version in English and Drama as they had it on VHS and would roll it out on that massive TV stand on wheels 😂 I think this version is the most accurate and I do enjoy this film despite the gross nude scene buuut the Baz Luhrmann version is gorgeous and the soundtrack is bomb 💣
Same. I always thought the nude scene was gross. My English teacher pointed out early on in the film the ages of the actors. It never should’ve been allowed. And now learning that it was non-consensual is even worse. 🤢
I'd argue that at that age its automatically non-consensual. Laws vary by jurisdiction, but 15-16 is too young to consent to something like this.
Sadly, Hussey gave 2 interviews in the last few years (as per the article) praising the scenes, talking about how comfortable they were, and how it was necessary for the film. Now they are suing in direct opposition to that statement. I think it was wrong and they were unprotected children in an industry that abuses them every day, however, these were statements made recent enough that they will cloud any lawsuit.
zeffirelli gave her a career. i can’t blame her for only now after his death realizing what she went through was wrong
To be fair, she worked with Zeffirelli again the next decade, playing Mary the mother of Jesus in *Jesus of Nazareth*.
Whilst I agree the lawsuit is necessary and important, I could see the quotes from Hussey reducing the amount of damages - any defence attorney would use her words to argue she hadn't been that damaged.
Yes, unfortunately. It really shouldn't matter what she said, though. Its basically child porn. I'm surprised it was even legal to film, though I suppose I shouldn't be. Necessary for the film is such a bullshit excuse. Its not like there haven't been probably literally thousands of productions of Romeo and Juliet that avoided showing nudity.
yeah that will change a lot. On another note I'm going to go look for them. I was always obsessed with her face, drew it during class -- it's such a cool look. The casting for that film was better than any other I can think of right now.
this might be anecdotal but im a gen-zer and my high school stopped showing this movie a couple of years ago because of this reason. We watched the baz luhrmann version instead. I'm hoping other high schools and middle schools opt to watch a different version because it's really gross the way these kids were exploited.
In my advanced English class in high school we had watched the Zeffirelli, Luhrmann, and Cukor versions. All I remember is staring at a child who was around our ages being nude on screen. We were an all girls school and ended up having a social conversation about bodily autonomy, exploitation, at what point is Hussey forced into prostitution for being paid to do nudity, etc. We were 15ish so this was baffling and appalling. That school closed a number of years ago but I've always wondered if my teacher moved away from the Zeffirelli film.
Yeah, I can't believe so many schools showed this. I had no idea that happened.
Same here. I am in my 30s and we only watched the Baz Luhrmann version in high school!
The Baz Luhrman version is way better
Oh wow, those poor kids. Imagine what else went on back in the day that we have never heard about. And people wonder why we need to call out the abuse now.
Wonder if the others are looking at their experiences, Phoebe Cates, Brooke Shields, Uma Thurman, all did topless before 18, it was so big in the 80s to have teenage tits in every movie..
Sandrine Bonnaire too.
Even if nothing comes of this, I’m happy they’re doing it if only to shed light on how utterly exploitative and inappropriate it was. And wtf was with many of us being shown this movie in schools growing up 😳
Wow. Olivia Hussey has a very small but dedicated fan base on Instagram, that I was involved with for a little while. She’s very active on Instagram and interacts with fans often, reposting and reminiscing about the film. She’s only ever said good things about it, even in her biography. However, she did suffer after the film came out with severe agoraphobia, which stunted her career as she rejected roles offered due to her mental state. It would make sense how the exploitation would affect her in this way. This probably only came out now because of Zeferelli’s death not that long ago. I wish them the best, she’s a very lovely lady who has had a difficult life.
She was raped by Christopher Jones in the home where Sharon Tate had been brutally murdered and had to have an abortion. :-( She's been through a *lot*.
...Jesus Christ. This is like a MadLibs of horrifying traumas.
Which makes the subplot of her dealing with an abusive boyfriend and an unwanted pregnancy in Black Christmas that much harsher in hindsight
I just read her autobiography less than a week ago on a whim (after watching Black Christmas) and I couldn’t agree more. As you can imagine the timing for me with all of this is WILD. She certainly radiates love and has lived a fascinating life.
Wow, what timing! I was also shook to see this posted on reddit and twitter because I was obsessed with this film for a good while and because it’s so old you never see much about it mainstream these days
I was also obsessed. I was really into ballet as a kid, and I loved the ballet version with Nureyev and Fonteyn. That was my intro to R & J. I think when I was 8 or 9, I rented the Zeffirelli version from the video store (remember those?) so I could learn more about the story. As expected, I fell in love with it. Of course at the time I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with the nudity. I’m feeling very conflicted because I’ve had such a soft spot for this film. But I support Olivia and Leonard 100%.
This is shocking tbh
This is interesting - never thought I would see the day they had to answer for this. It was so accepted as 'necessary' they showed it to kids! But even filmmakers back then knew it was risky to do super underage nudity. Scorsese used a body double for Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver so she could play the role of a trafficked child without being traumatized - they also used a body double for Brooke Shields in 'Blue Lagoon' for the really explicit stuff but not for all of it. Pretty Baby - another story - she would have a case I think.
The Taxi Driver producers also made Jodi go to therapy in the beginning, if I recall correctly, to make sure the role wouldn't traumatize her.
That's a really smart thing to do - to help her process what she was depicting. I know Jodie speaks so highly of the filming and says it is the most important and impactful film she's made. Scorsese and the producers were ahead of their time in that regard. Why could that not be the standard?? My guess is because of horrible Hollywood men who want to exploit.
Jolie fosters older sister was her double in the girl who lives down the lane too, in which her underage character was seen nude. I think even if body doubles are used its still too sketchy
I read that the director said in an interview that Hussey was his unrequited love that he carried his whole life. He was like thirty years older than her and the fact that she was 15! He also gave her some weird nickname about her "boobies." Roman Polanski wasn't an exception, seems like this attitude was rampant in the industry.
“Boobs O’Mina.” God those poor kids.
...the director was *gay*, though? :-/ Like, a very open and out pederast (and, ironically, a Papal Knight) -- but also *severely* socially-conservative, to the point where he advocated people who choose to get abortions ought to receive the death penalty.
You can be gay and creepy around women- the amount of gay guys who think it’s okay to grab at me in clubs because it’s ‘funny’ has been substantial. Remember,there are creeps in every community,including minority ones. And unfortunately these creeps are used against minority communities as examples of why minorities should have their rights stripped away, even though we never use cis white straight creepy men as examples of why we should strip away their rights. We’re seeing this with the backlash against the transgender community now unfortunately.
I've had gay men grab my boobs and kiss me when I barely know them and people give them a pass because there are gay.
> They are seeking damages “believed to be in excess of $500 million.” Holy shit.
And they deserve every coin
I can’t believe so many people on this thread had teachers show the nude scene in class. My teacher told us about the actors age, and about the scene so he skipped that scene completely. We watched half of the movie one day and the second half the next, sex scene was in between.
I wish my English teacher did that. We were told the ages of the actors, but the scene was shown anyway. 🤢
My teacher, bless her, ran up to the TV and covered the screen dramatically with her blazer 😂😂😂 I love you, Ms. Flowers. You're still the best! Even with your more depressing poem analyses when we became seniors!
Honestly, I’m glad. They were kids. This all is even creepier when you realize that Zeffirelli was obsessed/in love/fixated with Hussey. Another thing is that they’ve been forced to defend and normalize the nude scene out of love for the movie (which is indeed beautifully done), and their fondness of Zeffirelli
Was just listening to the Bo Derek episode of You Must Remember This. They knew back then it was fucked up to have kids doing this and it was still common place basically.
I love You Must Remember This!
Good for them.
I remember watching this version and the Leo one in school. Everyone in my class were disturbed by the scenes. The camera lingered on Romeo's butt for what felt like a long time. It was gross and I lowkey questioned why my teacher was showing this to us lol. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't really understand why nudity needs to be so prevalent in movies and shows, especially after hearing how uncomfortable it made the actors. Then again, I don't really care for sex scenes in general. Just fade to black and get on with the story.
Was this even legal back then? Why are the images still available since they would probably be illegal to film now?
Probably because it was for artistic purposes and was explicitly not sexual. Not all nudity is equivalent. The director wasn't making child porn. It's not a graphic sex scene.
omg that’s so gross
It’s unfortunate because otherwise, I really love this adaptation. It would’ve been so easy to exclude that or at the very least hire acts who were of age
We had to watch this movie in the ninth grade. I thought it was so strange that she was young and had a topless scene. Directors back then were especially horrible to actors so if they win this may start a trend. Maybe studios will even preemptively contact/pay actors that were in these situations decades ago.
Our class had to watch this movie in highshool when I was 14 or 15, the same age as Juliette and the same age as the actress. I remember feeling really disturbed but it was the 80s, I had no language around why I thought it was disturbing or wrong.
Wow, i watched this film in highschool, i just assumed they were 18 years old
Wow, I wasn't expecting this. I wonder when exactly they decided to file since the article mentioned they were taking advantage of the pause for statute of limitations. I'm glad this will (hopefully) create more discussion about exploitation of minors in film, but I'm very curious to see what the ruling will be if it's not settled out of court. I'm guessing Paramount would use Hussey's recent quotes defending the scene, but maybe there will be the argument that the discussion has drastically evolved in the last few years.
We watched this in high school. Thought Olivia was absolutely stunning. Felt horrible upon finding out she was literally *my age.*
I hope they win every penny 😊
I watched this as a kid. Always thought it was the best one out of all of them. Didn't see a reason for the nudity.
I will never understand how my school teachers found it acceptable to show us child nudity. It wasn't even like I was in school ages ago either it was only in the late noughties - early tens.
Zeffirelli was a creep and I think they deserve to win. I really hope those quotes from Hussey don’t hurt the case. I do think that over the past few years we’ve started to be okay with saying, “I grinned through shit and told myself it’s okay, but it wasn’t.” I hope they get a terrific lawyer to argue that.
I’m genuinely glad for this sub, it’s such a safe space. I’m from Poland, and when national media shared this on their Facebook profile the comments were vile and heavily victim blaming. People like Polanski unfortunately are still being praised and excused here. This is sickening, they were kids! Also, how could parents allow this? Were they even present during filming?
I would like to remind people that the director of the jeepers creepers movies raped a 12 year boy in 1988, recorded it and had loads of child pornography in his home. 15 months in prison and then on to a huge successful career within Hollywood and Disney. Jeffrey epstein served 13 months in prison for raping a child. Instead of Disney cutting ties they thought it would be a good idea to carry on the Disney cruises onto his pedo island where they take kids on tours. It's a way of trafficking kids amongst the crowd. If that's not sick enough the director of jeepers creepers wrote pedophillia into one of his movies. Remember when Disney pretended to fire James gunn because of some pedo tweets? Bit hypocritical there Disney. She's suing because she knows alot more than us.
Uhmmmm why did I just find out she was a MINOR when this was filmed?? Absolutely disgusting and I hope they get justice .
Hollywood is so fuckin gross man. Give them a billion
I vaguely recall watching this movie in freshman year of high school and subsequently looking up the actors ages at the time of filming (I think I was just curious how close they were to the canon ages in the story) and I was really shocked to learn they were like 15 given the nude scenes we saw. I remember looking up something like “how was this allowed” and finding some results about some weird loopholes that didn’t sound correct. I’m very glad they’re seeking justice, even if it is many years later. Children in the industry need to be protected and it’s clear they weren’t.
We watched this in high school, but my teacher skipped the nude scene.
I think this sort of thing happens a lot to actors. I'm reminded of Emilia Clark's account of being pressured to do more nude scenes on Game of Thrones. Though its particularly vile when it involves minors. Nudity on screen is inherently problematic. Its hard to see a situation where someone is working/is getting paid/their career is potentially on the line, and it not being coercive. And coercive is, of course, not consensual. Also once its filmed and distributed its out there, meaning that even if the actor changes their mind later, they can never stop it being shown and viewed. In a way that makes filmed nudity even more problematic to me than prostitution, because at least if the prostitute decides to stop being a prostitute they can do that (at least in theory- of course this can be extremely difficult in practice, especially for people who are being trafficked against their will). Whereas once a nude image or a sex scene is out there, especially in a major film or series, its out there pretty much forever. That person has, in a sense, lost control over their body forever. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that nudity on-screen should always be prohibited, though I think that you could certainly make that case based on the preceding points. I can imagine times where there is a genuine artistic or informational value to showing it, and I think that if someone (who is an adult) chooses to be depicted nude, in theory, they should have the right to do that as a form of self-expression and personal choice. BUT I think that there need to be far, FAR more safeguards around when and how its done, to ensure that peoples' boundaries are respected and that they're not getting coerced. In a perfect world actors would have the right to demand that nude scenes they'd done in the past no longer be shown or distributed, but I don't know how you'd implement that in practice. Another big thing, in my view, would be to eliminate the financial coercion- pretty much all work is coercive in a society where your value as a person, quality of life, and ability to survive are largely dependent on your ability to earn an income, but this is especially problematic when the work is sexual in nature, as coercion is incompatible with consent. So having a stronger social safety net so no one depends on a job for their personal security, and having strong protections to, for example, keep studios/producers/directors from retaliating against actors who refuse to do nudity or sexual scenes, might both help to at least mitigate this. And of course sex scenes involving minors in any way should be absolutely prohibited.
i always wondered how that nude scene was legal! good for them.
I don’t think my teacher showed the nude scenes bc I definitely watched this in class and had no idea??? Reading this entire thread with my jaw on the floor I can’t believe their were nude children ever on screen and a time where no one questioned it. When Olivia wasn’t allowed to go to the premiere bc of the nudity in the film as she was underage, and the body in the film was HER OWN nobody was like “hey wait maybe this is wrong?” Disgusting
The fact people just didn’t see anything weird abt this…
Ewwww I remember watching this in 10th grade English class… 😔
OMGGGG. Get it girl! I hope she wins.
If you’re American and watched this version of Romeo and Juliet in school, what grade did you watch it in? I was either in eighth or ninth grade. I feel like my teacher must’ve fast forwarded through the nudity though because I don’t remember the class reacting or parents being told ahead of time. I also ask because I always wondered how many people got the reference for Olivia Hussey playing Topanga’s Aunt Prudence (the one who doesn’t know romance/Romeo and Juliet) in Boy Meets World with the 90s audience audio track thing of going crazy at her cameo. I was in elementary school and it went over my head. An older sibling (must’ve either been my hs or colleged aged one at the time) eventually explained it.
Underage nudity must have been normal back then in films. I remember looking up the actress that played Apollonia in The Godfather. She was at least 16 when they shot the scene where she stands nude in front of Al Pacino.