‘Rome of Juliet’ child actors sue studio after five and half decades

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting have now in their 70s have filed a sexual exploitation lawsuit against Paramount pictures for distributing their adolescent nude scene images.

Hussey was 15 and Whiting 16 when they starred in the Oscar winning 1968 film.

According to the suit, director Franco Zeffirelli -- who died in 2019 -- cajoled them into performing the scene.

He told them without it "the picture would fail", although original discussion was no actual nudity, with both actors covered by flesh-coloured underwear.

"Defendants were dishonest and secretly filmed the nude or partially nude minor children without their knowledge,” says the suit.

It is a violation of the state and federal laws regulating indecency and exploitation of minors for profit according to the suit.

The complaint has claimed damages of hundreds of millions of dollars.

A 2018 interview of Hussey with Variety says she defended the nude scene, which she insisted Zeffirelli had done tastefully.