Actress Olivia Hussey, who rose to international fame as a teenager for her role in the famous 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet, has died at the age of 73.
A statement posted on Instagram said that the Argentine-born actress, who grew up in London, died on Friday surrounded by her loved ones.
Hussey won a Golden Globe for Best New Actress for her role as Juliet, but decades later she sued Paramount Pictures for sexual assault when she was just 15 years old when she filmed the film's nude scene.
Her other most famous screen role was that of Mary, mother of Jesus, in the 1977 television series Jesus of Nazareth.
“As we mourn this tremendous loss, we also celebrate Olivia’s lasting impact on our lives and the industry,” the statement read.
Hussey was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1951, before moving to London at the age of seven and studying at the Accademia Italia Conti drama school.
She was 15 when Romeo and Juliet director Franco Zeffirelli discovered her on stage, playing opposite Vanessa Redgrave in The Prime of Miss Joan Brodie.
Zeffirelli was looking for someone young enough to be a convincing Juliet in what he intended to be the definitive film version of Shakespeare's play.
He cast Hussey alongside 16-year-old Briton Leonard Whiting as Romeo in the film.
The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture and Director. Hussey missed out on an Oscar nomination herself in a strong year in which Barbra Streisand won the main award for Funny Girl.
But at the Golden Globes that year, Hussey won Best New Star.
Decades later, she and Whiting filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures alleging that Zeffirelli — who died in 2019 — had She encouraged them to film nude scenes Despite previous assurances that they wouldn't have to.
The duo are seeking damages of more than $500 million (£417 million), based on the suffering they said they endured and the revenues the film has generated since its release.
But last year a The judge dismissed the casefinding the scene was not “sexually suggestive enough”.
In 1977, Hussey reunited with Zeffirelli to play Jesus of Nazareth as the Virgin Mary, before appearing in Death on the Nile a year later based on the Agatha Christie novel.
Her roles in the early slasher film Black Christmas (1974) and the TV film Psycho IV: The Beginning earned her fame as a scream queen. Finally, she played Norman Bates' mother in a prequel story.
In later years, she also worked as a voice actress, and made frequent appearances in video games.
But she did meet one last time with her ex Romeo, as she and Whiting appeared together in the 2015 British film Social Suicide, which was loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, albeit set in the age of social media.
