Farewell to Olivia Hussey, Zeffirelli's Unforgettable Juliet
He was 73 years old: he also shone on the stage in Black Christmas and Death on the Nile
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The film world mourns Olivia Hussey, who died at the age of 73 in Burbank (Los Angeles), after a long battle with breast cancer.
At just 14 years old, in It Happened One Summer she played Donna, Lorenzo's (Rossano Brazzi) daughter: from that moment on she acted in dozens of films, until 2008 in Chinaman's Chance: America's Other Slaves in which she played Mrs. Duncan.
Her graceful beauty and tonal balance are inextricably linked to Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's masterpiece, for which she was chosen by the director from among 500 candidates alongside Leonard Whiting in the role of Romeo.
"Olivia was an extraordinary person whose warmth, wisdom and pure kindness touched the lives of all who knew her," announced on social media her family members to whom she was very close. In particular, her children India Eisley (also an actress), Alexander Martin, Maximillian Fuse from her three marriages in her life with David Glen Eisley married in 1991, with Akira Fuse (from 1980 to 1989), and with Dean Paul Martin, son of Dean Martin (from 1971 to 1978), all linked to the world of music and cinema.
Daughter of the Argentine opera singer, Andrés Osuna (also known as Osvaldo Ribo), and the Anglo-Argentine legal secretary Alma Joy Hussey, Hussey landed in England at the age of seven and, after attending the Drama School for five years, made her debut on the big screen and in the theatre as a teenager in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - based on the novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - with Vanessa Redgrave.
Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, winner of two Oscars, brought her great fame and numerous awards including the David di Donatello and the Golden Globe as the best actress of 1968. But it also brought her some turmoil, especially related to the nude scene she did with her co-star, when both were minors. Last year, the two actors filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures accusing the studio of child abuse, but the proceedings were dismissed by the judge. At the time, it did not cause a scandal, even if the protagonist was not allowed to attend the film's premiere because of the nudity.
Olivia Hussey's career has incontrovertibly demonstrated her talent and unique versatility. She shone in the Canadian horror film Black Christmas (1974) and in the thriller Death on the Nile (1978) alongside Peter Ustinov. But she was also a wonderful Mary in the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977), again directed by Zeffirelli, and a convincing Rebecca of York in the TV remake of Ivanhoe (1982). She starred in the cast of the cult horror film It (1990), playing the character of Audra Phillips Denbrough, and in 2003 in the TV drama Mother Teresa. With other Hollywood colleagues in 1989 she appeared in the music video for Michael Jackson's Liberian Girl.
(Online Union)
