Olivia Hussey (Wikipedia)
Olivia Hussey is an English actress. After appearing in theatre in London, Hussey was chosen to play the role of Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli‘s film version of Romeo and Juliet (1968). She won a Golden Globe and the David di Donatello Awardfor her performance, and gained international recognition.
In 1974, she appeared as the lead character, Jess Bradford, in the cult slasher film Black Christmas. She reunited with Zeffirelli in the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977), as Mary, mother of Jesus, and appeared in John Guillermin‘s Agatha Christie adaptation Death on the Nile (1978). She appeared in several international productions throughout the 1980s, including the Japanese production Virus (1980), and the Australian horror film Turkey Shoot (1982). She appeared in two made-for-television horror productions: Psycho IV: The Beginning and Stephen King‘s It, both first screened in 1990.
In addition to screen acting, Hussey has worked as a voice actress, providing voice roles in multiple Star Wars video games, including Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Star Wars: Force Commander, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Hussey was born Olivia Osuna in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the first child of Andrés Osuna, an Argentine opera singer, and Joy Hussey, a secretary originally from England. Her parents divorced when she was 2 years old. At age of seven, Hussey moved with her mother and younger brother to London where she spent the remainder of her early life. Her parents were Catholic, and she was raised as a Roman Catholic.
In London, she attended the Italia Conti Academy drama school for five years. At 13, she began acting professionally on the stage.[3]
Assuming her mother’s maiden name as her stage name, Hussey appeared on the London stage as Jenny in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, opposite Vanessa Redgrave. During the run of this play, Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli first spotted her because of her beauty and theatrical skill[clarify]. At 15, she was chosen out of 500 actresses to star as Juliet in Zeffirelli’s film version of Romeo and Juliet (1968), opposite Leonard Whiting‘s Romeo. Prior to her role in Romeo and Juliet, she had appeared in minor roles in two films: The Battle of the Villa Fiorita and Cup Fever (both 1965), and an episode of the television series Drama 61–67 (1964). In 1969, she won a special David di Donatello Award and the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress for her performance in Romeo and Juliet.
After the success of Romeo and Juliet, Hollywood producer, Hal B. Wallis, offered her the title role in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), and to co-star with John Wayne in True Grit (1969). In her 2018 memoir Hussey stated that she had “mumbled something about being interested in Anne of the Thousand Days” but added that she “couldn’t see herself with Wayne”. She claims that this “adolescent and opinionated” remark inevitably ended her professional relationship with Wallis and he immediately withdrew his offer from her. “It had taken me less than a minute to talk my way out of it” Hussey stated.
In 1971, she appeared in the British drama All the Right Noises, followed by the crime film The Summertime Killer (1972),and the musical Lost Horizon (1973), opposite Liv Ullmann, John Gielgud, and Sally Kellerman. In 1974, she played the leading role of Jess Bradford in the Canadian horror film, Black Christmas (1974), which became influential as a forerunner of the slasher film genre of horror films. She played Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the 1977 television production of Jesus of Nazareth (her second work for director Zeffirelli). In 1978 she played Rosalie Otterbourne in Death on the Nile with Peter Ustinov, and appeared in The Cat and the Canary(1979). She also starred as Marit in the Japanese film Virus (1980),[16] and played Rebecca of York in the 1982 remake of Ivanhoe(1982); the same year, she had a lead role in the Australian horror film Turkey Shoot (1982).
In 1987, Hussey appeared in a clip for the Michael Jackson video Liberian Girl, among others, who also included Steven Spielberg, John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Whoopi Goldberg, Lou Ferrigno, and Billy Dee Williams. In 1990, Hussey appeared in two horror projects, playing Norma Bates, the mother of Norman Bates, in Psycho IV: The Beginning, a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho(1960), and in the miniseries It, an adaptation of the Stephen King novel.
Hussey played the lead in Mother Teresa of Calcutta (2003), a biographical film about Mother Teresa, for which she was presented with a Character & Morality in Entertainment Award on 12 May 2007 in Hollywood. She stated in an interview that it had been her dream and wish to portray the role of Mother Teresa of Calcutta since she finished her role as the Virgin Mary in Jesus of Nazareth. Hussey and Leonard Whiting reunited as on-screen partners in the film Social Suicide (2015), the only film that they both appeared in since Romeo and Juliet (1968).
Hussey has also worked as a voice actress, and was nominated for “Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Female Performer in an Animated Television Production” at the Annie Awards for her work in the DC animated universe, as Talia al Ghul. She voiced the character of Kasan Moor in the PC/Nintendo 64game, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (1998) and was also in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011) as Jedi Master Yuon Par . She also lent her voice to Star Wars: Force Commander in 2000.
Hussey quit acting for two years following the success of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. In 1971, Hussey married actor Dean Paul Martin, the son of the singer Dean Martin. They had a son, Alexander Gunther Martin (who became an actor), in 1973, before divorcing in 1978. Dean Paul Martin died in 1987, when his National Guard F-4 Phantom jet fighter crashed in California’s San Bernardino Mountains during a snowstorm.
In 1980, Hussey married the Japanese singer Akira Fuse, in two ceremonies: one at home in Los Angeles, and a second, an Indian wedding, in Miami. She gave birth to their son Max in 1983 and divorced Fuse in 1989.
In 1991, Hussey married the American rock musician David Glen Eisley, a son of the late actor Anthony Eisley. In October 1993, she gave birth to their daughter, India Eisley. India, also an actress, played her first major role in the American teen drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008).
Hussey’s memoir, The Girl on the Balcony: Olivia Hussey Finds Life After Romeo and Juliet, was released on 31 July 2018.
Guardian obituary in december 2024
When Franco Zeffirelli’s film version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was released in 1968, it made the two lead actors, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, into instant stars. Hussey, who has died aged 73, later said that “while it brought me fame – for whatever that’s worth – and glamour, it also thrust me into a spotlight that, while intoxicating, was at times too bright and too revealing”.
At the time of the filming in Italy of Romeo and Juliet, Whiting was 17 years old, Hussey 16 (in the 1936 Hollywood version, the lead actors were 43 and 34). Zeffirelli was determined that his star-crossed lovers be credible teenagers. In his autobiography, Zeffirelli remembered that he was not immediately impressed with Hussey, saying “she was unfortunately overweight, clumsy-looking and bit her nails constantly”. But later he took a second look, and found that “she was a new woman: she had lost weight dramatically. Her magnificent bone structure was becoming apparent, with those wide expressive eyes and her whole angular self. She was now the real Juliet, a gawky colt of a girl waiting for life to begin.
While Zeffirelli’s young cast may not have equalled more experienced theatre actors when it came to verse-speaking, judicious cutting of the text combined with close-ups of their luminous faces were more than compensation. The film was an international success, making at least 40 times its budget at the box office. Its timing was perfect, with a fresh interpretation of a 400-year-old play capturing the spirit of youthful rebellion that was then at its height. Hussey was widely acclaimed for her innate delicacy and determination, and she won a Golden Globe award for most promising newcomer.
Hussey was born in Buenos Aires. Her father, Andrés Osuna, an Argentinian tango singer whose stage name was Osvaldo Ribó, was absent for most of her life, as her British mother, Joy Hussey, a legal secretary, took Olivia and her brother, Andrew, to London for their education. Olivia soon displayed a passion for acting, training at the Italia Conti school and making brief appearances in films and television dramas.
In 1966 she won a role in the stage production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, but once cast as Juliet, Hussey never returned to the theatre. In 1969, she settled in Hollywood, moving into the house in Cielo Drive that only five weeks before had been the site of Sharon Tate’s murder by members of the Manson family. It was here, Hussey later said, that she was raped by her then boyfriend, the actor Christopher Jones, and subsequently had an abortion.
Hussey’s career never really fulfilled the promise of her success as Juliet. The producer Hal B Wallis offered her the title role in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) and the chance to appear opposite John Wayne in True Grit (1969). Her reaction was that “John Wayne doesn’t really do anything for me”. Hussey starred in Bob Clark’s seminal horror film Black Christmas (1974), as the most resourceful member of a university sorority subject to attacks by a mystery murderer. In 1977 she reunited with Zeffirelli to play Mary in his television epic Jesus of Nazareth, and then played Rosalie Otterbourne in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (1978).
In 1971 she married Dean Martin’s eldest son, Dean Paul (Dino), who introduced her to movie royalty past and present. They had a son, Alexander, but by 1978 had divorced, although they remained friends until his death in 1987. During this period Hussey found herself hugely popular in Japan, and despite not speaking the language, married the Japanese singer Akira Fuse. They had a son, Maximillian, but another divorce soon followed. By her own account, Hussey’s most important encounter was with the Indian spiritual guru Swami Muktananda, about whom she later said: “When I met him, the world stopped … I loved him so much and in the end he helped me love myself.
A third marriage proved longer lasting. She met the rocker David Glen Eisley at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Los Angeles, and they wed in 1991, had a daughter, India, and settled in the San Fernando Valley, where Hussey’s interest in animal rights activism resulted in a growing menagerie. By now the film roles were rarely distinguished, and included a return to horror as Norma Bates in the television movie Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990). She also became a regular voice artist in animation, as well as for the Star Wars video games. In 2003 she played the title role in Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and in 2015 she was reunited with Whiting, her Romeo, in the film Social Suicide.
In 2018, Hussey wrote an autobiography, The Girl on the Balcony, in collaboration with her elder son. In this she was candid about her troubled life of eating disorders, sexual abuse and bankruptcy. She was also effusive in declaring her love for Zeffirelli, who had felt himself a father-figure during the making of Romeo and Juliet. She continued to defend the nude scenes in the film, but in 2022, three years after the director’s death, Hussey and Whiting filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures, alleging that Zeffirelli had subjected them to sexual harassment and had filmed them naked without their knowledge. That suit was dismissed by a judge in 2023, as was a second complaining that the Criterion Blu-ray of the film exposed them even further.