Olivia Hussey

Assuming her mother's maiden name as her stage name, Hussey appeared on the London stage in a West End production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, playing the role of Jenny opposite Vanessa Redgrave.[11] During the run of this play, Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli noticed her because "she was the only choice mature enough with experience and natural beauty to play Juliet while still looking 14."[12] In 1964, Hussey appeared in an episode of the television series Drama. The following year, she appeared in minor roles in two films: The Battle of the Villa Fiorita and Cup Fever.[13]

At 15,[14] Hussey was chosen out of 500 actresses to star as Juliet in Zeffirelli's film version of Romeo and Juliet (1968), opposite 16-year-old Leonard Whiting's Romeo.[15][16] Her performance won her a special David di Donatello Award and the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actress in 1969.[17]

In a August 2018 interview with Stephanie Nolasco for Fox News to promote the release of her autobiography Girl on the Balcony, Hussey discussed how she felt at ease on the set when filming the nude scene: "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."[18][19]

In another 2018 interview with Variety, Hussey defended the nude scene, saying, "Nobody my age had done that before," she said, 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."[20][21]

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).[22] In her 2018 memoir Hussey stated 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 stated that this "adolescent and opinionated" remark inevitably ended her professional relationship with Wallis, and he immediately withdrew his offer from her, explaining, "It had taken me less than a minute to talk my way out of it".[23]

Hussey in 1979

In 1971, she appeared in the British drama All the Right Noises, followed by the crime film The Summertime Killer (1972),[13] and the musical Lost Horizon (1973), opposite Liv Ullmann, John Gielgud, and Sally Kellerman.[24] In 1974, she played the leading 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).[25] In 1978, she played Rosalie Otterbourne in Death on the Nile with Peter Ustinov,[5] and appeared in The Cat and the Canary (1979).[26] She also starred as Marit in the Japanese film Virus (1980),[27] 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).[28]

In 1987, Hussey appeared in a clip for the Michael Jackson video Liberian Girl, among others, who also included Steven Spielberg, John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Whoopi Goldberg, Lou Ferrigno, and Billy Dee Williams.[29] In 1990, Hussey appeared in two horror projects, playing Norma Bates, the mother of Norman Bates, in Psycho IV: The Beginning, a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960),[30][31] and in the miniseries It, an adaptation of the Stephen King novel.[32]

Hussey at the 2008 Cinema City Film Festival

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.[5] She stated in an interview that it had been her dream and wish to portray the role of Mother Teresa of Calcutta since she finished her role as the Virgin Mary in Jesus of Nazareth.[33] Hussey and Leonard Whiting reunited as on-screen partners in the film Social Suicide (2015), the only film that they both appeared in since Romeo and Juliet (1968). In the project, Hussey's daughter, actress India Eisley, played their fictional daughter, Julia Coulson.[34]

Hussey has 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, daughter of Ra's al Ghul. She voiced the character of Kasan Moor in the PC/Nintendo 64 game, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (1998)[35] and was also in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011) as Jedi Master Yuon Par.[36] She also lent her voice to Star Wars: Force Commander in 2000.