Skip to content

Actress in Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” dies of cancer aged 73

# Cancer was revealed as the cause of death of 73-year-old British actress Olivia Hussey, who shot to fame in the 1968 version of the classic Shakespeare tale “Romeo and Juliet”. Hussey and Leonard Whiting played the lead roles in Franco Zeffirelli’s award-winning film about the tragic love story of two Italian teenagers from feuding families. She won a Golden Globe. Hussey and Whiting unsuccessfully sued Paramount Pictures decades later for sexual abuse because they were only 15 and 16 respectively when they appeared in a nude scene.