Olivia Hussey

Olivia Hussey (née Osuna; 17 April 1951 – 27 December 2024) was an Argentine and British actress. The daughter of Argentine singer Osvaldo Ribó, Hussey was born in Buenos Aires and spent most of her early life in her mother's native England. She aspired to become an actress at a young age and studied drama at London's Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.

Hussey began acting professionally as an adolescent, appearing in a 1966 London production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. This led to her being scouted for the role of Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, gaining acclaim and wide recognition for her performance. In 1974, she appeared as the lead character Jess Bradford in the cult slasher film Black Christmas. Hussey reunited with Zeffirelli in the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977) as Mary and appeared as Rosalie Otterbourne in John Guillermin's Agatha Christie adaptation Death on the Nile (1978).

Hussey appeared in several international productions throughout the 1980s, including the Japanese production Virus (1980) and the Australian dystopian action film Turkey Shoot (1982). In 1990, she appeared in two horror productions, Stephen King's It and Psycho IV: The Beginning, in which she portrayed Norman Bates's mother. She also worked as a voice actress, providing voice roles in Star Wars video games including Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (1998), Star Wars: Force Commander (2000), and Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011).

Early life and education

Hussey was born Olivia Osuna on 17 April 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the first child of Argentine tango singer Andrés Osuna (stage name Osvaldo Ribó) and Joy Hussey, a legal secretary. Her mother was from England, of Scottish and English descent. Her parents were Roman Catholics, and she was raised in that faith. Hussey recalled, "I grew up with a mini-altar at home that [my mother] had; a candle was always alight on it. She always had a great love for God, and she instilled that in me." Hussey was fascinated by acting from a young age, and as a child, would dress up as a nun.

Aged seven, she moved with her mother and younger brother Andrew to London. There, Hussey was accepted into the Italia Conti Academy drama school, which she attended for five years, taking modeling and walk-on parts to help pay her fees. At 13, she began acting professionally on stage, assuming her mother's maiden name as her stage name. In 1964, she appeared in an episode of the television series Drama, followed by minor roles in two films the following year: The Battle of the Villa Fiorita and Cup Fever.

Career

Hussey appeared in a West End production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, playing Jenny opposite Vanessa Redgrave. Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli noticed her performance because "she was the only choice mature enough with experience and natural beauty to play Juliet while still looking 14." She was chosen out of 500 actresses to star in Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet film, opposite 16-year-old Leonard Whiting's Romeo. Derek Smith of Slant said Hussey's performance "captures the passion and yearning of love-struck teens in a very contemporary manner". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian agreed, and said Hussey "has an otherworldly purity". Roger Ebert also gave her and Whiting high praise. She won a special David di Donatello Award and the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1969.

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 the co-starring role with John Wayne in True Grit (1969). In her 2018 memoir, Hussey recalled that she had "mumbled something about being interested in Anne of the Thousand Days" but that she "couldn't see herself with Wayne", concluding that this "adolescent and opinionated" remark ended her professional relationship with Wallis, who immediately withdrew his offer.

In 1971, Hussey appeared in the British drama All the Right Noises, followed by The Summertime Killer (1972), and the musical Lost Horizon. In 1974, Hussey played the lead 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). In 1979, she starred as Esther in the television film The Thirteenth Day: The Story of Esther.

She starred as Marit in the Japanese film Virus (1980), 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, along with several well-known actors, made a cameo appearance in a clip for the Michael Jackson video "Liberian Girl". She was next offered the role of Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction. When she read the screenplay and came across the rabbit in the boiling pot sequence, she was so disturbed that she quickly turned the role down.

In 1990, Hussey played Norma Bates, the mother of Norman Bates, in Psycho IV: The Beginning, a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), and appeared in the miniseries It, an adaptation of the Stephen King novel. These two roles along with Black Christmas earned her the label of scream queen.

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 to portray the role of Mother Teresa of Calcutta ever since she finished her role as the Virgin Mary in Jesus of Nazareth. Hussey later reunited with Whiting as on-screen partners in the film Social Suicide (2015), the only film that they both appeared in since Romeo and Juliet. In the project, Hussey's daughter, actress India Eisley, played their fictional daughter, Julia Coulson.

Hussey 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 64 game, 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 was slated to reprise her role as Jess Bradford in the Black Christmas fan film It's Me, Billy: Chapter 2, but withdrew from the project in November 2023 for health reasons. She was replaced with Lisa Kovack.

Personal life

Hussey had agoraphobia, which was aggravated by the fame she achieved after Romeo and Juliet. A memoir, The Girl on the Balcony: Olivia Hussey Finds Life After Romeo and Juliet, was published on 31 July 2018.

Relationships and marriages

She briefly dated Leonard Whiting in 1968. They remained friends throughout her life, reportedly communicating "at least once every 10 days."

Hussey also dated actor Christopher Jones in 1968 but ended the relationship due to him being abusive towards her. The following year, Jones allegedly attacked, raped, and impregnated Hussey, who underwent an abortion.

Hussey began dating Terry Melcher at some point in 1969, while she lived at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles after the Manson Murders.

In 1971, Hussey married Dean Paul Martin, the son of Dean Martin. They had one child. They divorced in 1978 but remained friends. Martin died in 1987 when the California Air National Guard F-4 Phantom jet fighter he was piloting crashed.

From 1980 to 1989, Hussey was married to Japanese singer Akira Fuse, the two met while she was filming a commercial in Japan. They divorced after he was unable to find work in the U.S. and she was unable to relocate her first born son, Alexander Gunther Martin, to Japan. They also have one son together, Maximilian Fuse.

In 1991, she married American musician David Glen Eisley, the son of actor Anthony Eisley. They had one daughter, actress India Eisley.

Romeo and Juliet lawsuit

In an August 2018 interview for Fox News to promote the release of her autobiography Girl on the Balcony, Hussey discussed filming the controversial nude scene in Romeo and Juliet: "We shot it at the end of the film. So by that time...we've become one big family. It wasn't that big of a deal. And Leonard wasn't shy at all! In the middle of shooting I just completely forgot I didn't have clothes on." In another 2018 interview with Variety, Hussey defended the nude scene, saying, "Nobody my age had done that before," adding that Zeffirelli shot it tastefully. "It was needed for the film. Everyone thinks they were so young they didn't realize what they were doing. But we were very aware. We both came from drama schools and when you work you take your work very seriously."