'올리비아 핫세' 향년 73세, 캘리포니아 자택서 사망... '로미오와 줄리엣'으로 세기의 연인 돼Olivia Hussey, teena

[정승남세기영어교육연구회장]

Olivia Hussey, teenage star of Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet who struggled with sudden fame

갑작스러운 명성에 시달리던 제피렐리의 로미오와 줄리엣의 10대 스타 올리비아 핫세

Olivia Hussey, born April 17 1951, died December 27 2024

Olivia Hussey, who has died aged 73, found fame as a teenager when she was cast as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in 1968

73세의 나이로 세상을 떠난 올리비아 핫세는 1968년 프랑코 제피렐리의 영화 '로미오와 줄리엣'에 줄리엣 역으로 캐스팅되면서 10대 시절 명성을 얻었습니다

영원한 줄리엣, '올리비아 핫세' 하늘의 별 되다

향년 73세, 캘리포니아 자택서 사망... '로미오와 줄리엣'으로 세기의 연인 돼

Telegraph Obituaries

Sat, December 28, 2024 at 6:18 PM GMT+96 min read Yahoo

Olivia Hussey as Juliet: Zeffirelli chose her over 500 hopefuls because she was ‘mature enough with experience and natural beauty... while still looking 14’ - Alamy

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Olivia Hussey, who has died aged 73, found fame as a teenager when she was cast as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in 1968, but although acclaimed a stunning screen presence she never caught the wave that might have swept her to Hollywood stardom.

With her soulful eyes and dark, silky hair framing a perfectly oval face, she was ravishing as Juliet, declared the Telegraph. Zeffirelli was determined to make the film appeal to a young audience, and screen-tested dozens of youthful hopefuls for the two principal roles.

When Zeffirelli showed the final six contenders for each to George Ornstein, Paramount’s European production chief, both men instantly picked Olivia Hussey, then 15, with another unknown teenager, Leonard Whiting, a year older, for Romeo.

Before filming began, Zeffirelli closeted both his fresh-faced new stars at his villa outside Rome. When the famous balcony scene was shot, the American critic Roger Ebert, invited on to the set, noted “the heedless energy that Hussey threw into it, take after take, hurling herself almost off the balcony for hungry kisses.”

With Leonard Whiting in Rome and Juliet - Bettmann

“Hussey and Whiting were so good,” Ebert wrote later, “because they didn’t know any better. Another year or two of experience, perhaps, and they would have been too intimidated to play the roles.”

Not everything went to plan. Zeffirelli needed special permission to film his underage Juliet topless and he had to reshoot Hussey’s first appearance in the wedding sequence because, by some accident of lighting or costume, she looked slightly pregnant. But the finished movie was an outstanding success, and was chosen for the Royal Film Performance attended by the Queen and Prince Philip in March 1968. (Olivia Hussey later said she was so nervous that she wet her couture dress.)

Finding herself internationally famous, Olivia Hussey toured the world promoting the film before returning exhausted and spending a year hiding at her mother’s house in Wimbledon, a virtual recluse. “It all happened so fast, I never had the chance to adapt to the fame,” she recalled. “It overwhelmed me, so I just ran away from it.”

As Juliet in 1968 - alamy

As one of the world’s most promising actresses she was offered big parts opposite John Wayne, Richard Burton and other major stars, all of which she turned down. Instead, her big films were few and far between, and included such forgettable pictures as Death on the Nile (1978), a remake of the musical Lost Horizon (1973) and, at nearly 50, an appearance as Norman Bates’s mother in the made-for-television Psycho IV (1999).

Having embraced meditation through the guru Swami Muktananda, she fell out with Bette Davis while filming Death on the Nile when the older star complained about Olivia Hussey playing “East Indian chants” on her dressing-room sound system at 6am. They did not speak for the rest of the shoot.

After Juliet her two most successful appearances were on television, in Zeffirelli’s acclaimed mini-series Jesus of Nazareth (1977), in which she played Christ’s mother Mary (although she was actually seven years younger than Robert Powell), and the title role in Mother Teresa of Calcutta (2003), also made for TV and shot entirely on location in Sri Lanka and Italy, in which she delivered an earnest, almost reverential, portrayal.

Even then, as a mother of three in her 50s, she was still receiving regular letters from smitten teenage boys who had been shown Romeo and Juliet at school.

As Mary in Zeffirelli’s 1977 mini-series Jesus of Nazareth - ITV / Rex Features

She was born Olivia Osuna on April 17 1951 in Buenos Aires, the daughter of Andrés Osuna, an Argentine opera singer, and his wife Joy Hussey, the daughter of Scottish expats, who worked as a secretary. Olivia’s first language was Spanish.

The Blast

Her father left when she was two, and at the age of seven she moved with her mother and younger brother to London, where Olivia enrolled at Penge primary. From 1962 she attended the Italia Conti Academy drama school.

At 13 she began acting professionally, taking her mother’s maiden name, and was cast as Jenny in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Wyndhams, 1966), opposite Vanessa Redgrave. Zeffirelli saw her and thought she might be right for Juliet: “mature enough with experience and natural beauty... while still looking 14.”

Having chosen Olivia Hussey from some 500 hopefuls, Zeffirelli discovered that his Juliet was something of a wild child with a weakness for good-looking young men – including her co-star Whiting, although she later denied that they had a passionate fling.

After her triumph as Juliet, she was offered the title role in the Boleyn biopic Anne of the Thousand Days opposite Richard Burton and the chance to co-star with John Wayne in True Grit (both 1969) by the Hollywood producer Hal B Wallis.

With Mia Farrow in Death on the Nile - Paramount/Getty Images

In her 2018 memoir she recalled 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 later claimed that this “adolescent and opinionated” remark inevitably ended her professional relationship with Wallis, who withdrew his offer on the spot. “It had taken me less than a minute to talk my way out of it” she wrote. The part of Anne Boleyn went instead to the French-Canadian actress Geneviève Bujold.

Olivia Hussey enjoyed a big following among priests and nuns, who knew her as the Virgin Mary in her second big Zeffirelli production, Jesus of Nazareth, said to have been one of Pope John Paul II’s favourite films.

For her transformation into the dour Mother Teresa, the veteran Hollywood director William Riead hired the Oscar-winning Kevin Haney to create the elaborate make-up. But at 5ft 2in, Olivia Hussey had to stoop to appear five inches shorter, Mother Teresa standing a mere 4ft 7in.

In the 2003 television film Teresa of Calcutta - AP/LUX

She moved to Los Angeles in 1969, a month after Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson family and into the same house on Cielo Drive, owned by her then boyfriend’s manager, where the massacre had taken place.

In 1969, Olivia Hussey won a special David di Donatello Award and a Golden Globe for her performance in Romeo and Juliet. For Mother Teresa of Calcutta, she was presented with a Character and Morality in Entertainment Award in 2007.

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting reunited on screen in the film Social Suicide (2015), in which her daughter, the actress India Eisley, played their fictional daughter Julia Coulson.

She overcame lifelong agoraphobia but in 2008 was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer. Her memoir, The Girl on the Balcony, appeared in 2018.

Olivia Hussey was four times married, firstly, in 1971, to Dean Paul Martin, son of the American crooner Dean Martin, with whom she had a son. After they divorced in 1978, she was married briefly to the British singer-songwriter Paul Ryan, then in 1980 she married Akira Fuse, known as the “Japanese Frank Sinatra”, and with whom she had another son before they divorced in 1989. Her fourth husband, David Eisley, a former rock singer with the band Dirty White Boy, survives her with their daughter and her sons from her first two marriages.

Olivia Hussey, born April 17 1951, died December 27 2024

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영원한 줄리엣, '올리비아 핫세' 하늘의 별 되다

최호림2024. 12. 29. 오마이뉴스

향년 73세, 캘리포니아 자택서 사망... '로미오와 줄리엣'으로 세기의 연인 돼

[최호림 기자]

배우 올리비아 핫세(Olivia Hussey)가 별세했다. 1951년 4월 17일 아르헨티나 부에노스아이레스에서 태어난 그녀는 2024년 12월 27일 향년, 73세의 나이로 캘리포니아 자택에서 세상을 떠났다.

1964년 영화 '더 크런치'로 데뷔했고 그녀를 세기의 연인으로 만들어준 작품은 1968년 프랑코 제피렐리 감독의 영화 '로미오와 줄리엣'으로 역사상 셰익스피어를 가장 널리 알린 작품이었다.

줄리엣으로 세계적인 배우 도약

▲ 배우 올리비아 핫세(가운데)

ⓒ 연합뉴스/AP

당시 15세였던 올리비아 핫세는 청순한 줄리엣 역을 맡았고 이 역할로 1969년 골든 글로브 신인상을 수상하며 세계적인 배우로 도약했다. 당시 감독은 영화 촬영 1년 전부터 원작과 흡사한 배우의 선발을 위해 500회가량의 오디션 끝에 올리비아 핫세를 캐스팅했다.

하지만 2022년, 올리비아 핫세는 '로미오와 줄리엣'의 남자 주인공 레오나드 위팅과 함께 영화의 제작사였던 파라마운트 픽처스에 소송을 제기하기도 했다. 이유는 당시 미성년자였던 본인들에게 사전 동의 없이 누드 촬영을 진행했다는 이유였고 이 소송은 그들의 의사와는 달리 소멸시효로 인해 기각됐다.

그녀는 자신의 대표작 '로미오와 줄리엣' (1968) 이후에도 '블랙 크리스마스' (1974), 'Jesus of Nazareth' (1977) ,'나일강의 죽음' (1981), '마더 테레사' (2005)에 출연하며 배우 활동을 이어갔지만 대중에 큰 호흥은 받지 못했다. 1960년대부터 2000년대까지 꾸준히 활동하며 시대의 변화에 따라 다양한 역할을 소화했고 특히 1990년대에는 TV 영화와 미니시리즈에도 활발히 출연했다.

영국, 미국, 이탈리아 등 여러 국가의 작품에 출연하며 국제적인 배우로서의 입지를 다졌다. 또 어린 시절 출연한 그녀의 대표작 '로미오와 줄리엣'으로 인해 핫세는 세대를 초월한 '영원한 줄리엣' 이미지로 각인됐다.

그녀의 별세 소식은 올리비아 핫세의 소셜 미디어 계정을 통해 전해졌다. 그녀는 사랑하는 사람들과 함께 평화롭게 세상을 떠났으며 암 투병 중이었던 것으로 알려졌다. 유족으로는 남편인 미국 음악가 데이비드 글렌 아이슬리와 자녀 알렉스, 맥스, 인디아, 그리고 손자 그레이슨이 있고 특히 딸 인디아 아이슬리는 미국에서 배우로 활동 중이다.

인디아 아이슬리는 어머니 올리비아 핫세의 눈매를 닮은 외모로 화제가 되었고 2005년에는 앤드류 반 덴 호우텐이 감독한 심리 공포 영화 'Headspace'에서 엄마 올리비아 핫세와 함께 출연하기도 했다. 인디아 아이슬리는 한국의 유명가수 차은우의 뮤직비디오에 출연해 국내에서 화제가 되기도 했다.

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