Her passionate portrayal of Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 adaptation won enduring acclaim. In 2023, she sued over the circumstances of a nude scene.
Olivia Hussey, whose performance as the female lead in a 1968 film adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” became its own Shakespearean tale, encompassing glory improbably achieved, helplessness with newfound power and memories that darkened over the years, died on Friday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 73.
The cause was breast cancer, her publicist, Natalie Beita, said.
Ms. Hussey’s lifelong association with Juliet came from how rapturously that movie was received. Much of the reaction concentrated on the decision of its director, Franco Zeffirelli, to cast two unknown teenagers as his leads. Ms. Hussey was 15 when filming began; her co-star, Leonard Whiting, was 17.
It was standard at the time to give the roles of the desperate lovers to established stars. The actor Leslie Howard had been 43 when he made his debut as Romeo for a 1936 adaptation.
What Ms. Hussey and Mr. Whiting lacked in practiced elocution they more than made up for in an emotional intensity that suggested total identification with their characters.
Mr. Whiting sprinted from Juliet’s bedroom with a wild but innocent exuberance. Ms. Hussey responded to the suggestion of Juliet’s nursemaid (Pat Heywood) that she go through with a pragmatic marriage to a man other than Romeo with an extraordinary facial expression — wide-eyed, horrified, stupefied — that occurred in just an instant, yet suggested her first encounter with the possibility of betraying love.
In a review for The Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert wrote, “I believe Franco Zeffirelli’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is the most exciting film of Shakespeare ever made,” crediting the film with “the passion, the sweat, the violence, the poetry, the love and the tragedy in the most immediate terms I can imagine.”
