Judge throws out lawsuit over nude scene in 1968 film Romeo and Juliet

A Los Angeles County judge said Thursday he will dismiss the 1968 star’s lawsuit Romeo and Juliet submitted the film’s silent scenes, finding that the depiction could not be considered child pornography and he filed his claim too late.

Superior Court Judge Alison Mackenzie ordered a motion by the defendant Paramount Pictures to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Olivia Hussey, who played Juliet when she was 15 and is now 72, and Leonard Whiting, who played Romeo when she was 16 and is also 72.

Mackenzie determined that the scene was protected by the First Amendment, finding that the actors “did not authorize the showing of the film here to be considered sufficiently sexual as a matter of law to be considered illegal.”

In his written decision, he also found that the suit does not fall within the scope of the California law that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, and that the February re-release of the film does not change that.

The actor’s lawyers contested the decision and said they would file another version of the suit in federal court.

“We believe that the exploitation and sexualization of minors in the film industry must be confronted and dealt with legally to protect vulnerable individuals from harm and ensure the enforcement of existing laws,” attorney Solomon Gresen said in a statement.

The scene was shot without his knowledge, the actor claimed

The film and its theme song were major hits at the time, and it was played for generations of high school students learning Shakespeare’s tragedies, even as a brief silent scene showing Whiting’s bare buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts.

Director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019 at the age of 96, initially told the two that they would wear flesh-colored underwear in the film’s final bedroom scene and that it was shot in the final days of filming, according to the suit.

But on the morning of the shoot, Zeffirelli told Whiting and Hussey they were wearing only body makeup, while still ensuring the camera would be positioned in a way that wouldn’t show the nakedness, according to the suit.

Despite the guarantee, they were filmed in silence without knowledge, in violation of California and federal laws against indecency and child exploitation, according to the alleged.

Zeffirelli told her she had to act mute “or the picture would fail,” and her career would be harmed, the suit said.

The plaintiff is ‘chosen’ from the law of the land: the judge

The actors said that the incident happened, that no career was suggested by the success of the film, and that the fraud, sexual abuse and sexual harassment they suffered caused emotional damage and mental pain for decades. They are asking for more than 500 million US dollars in damages.

However, the judge found that the plaintiffs “chosen” from the law and failed to provide legal authority for why it should apply to “considered works of art, such as the award-winning film at issue here.”

He cited an appeals court precedent that said child pornography was “primarily offensive,” but that “not all images of naked children are pornography.”

The ruling rests on a California law intended to protect defendants’ free speech from being suppressed by lawsuits, and is often the first line of defense when a lawsuit is filed.

A lawyer for Paramount declined to comment on the decision.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they go public, which Hussey and Whiting did.