27 thoughts on “WCW: Olivia Hussey

  1. I love Romeo and Juliet. My mom saw it in theaters and I watched it on repeat growing up. She’s wonderful in it.

  2. Reminds me a bit of Amy Irving (although I think Irving the better actress). Speaking of whom, has A.I. done any frock flicks?

      1. OMG, of course “Yentl”! I really liked it, apart from the songs; I wanted a more traditional musical-comedy style (and Mandy P. singing, since he’s rather good at doing that), but Streisand failed to consult me.

  3. Re the Egyptian headdress: that’s actually a very big and clunky version of the headdress of the goddess Isis/Hathor: cow horns enclosing a sun disc.

    https://www.lot-art.com/auction-lots/Ancient-Egyptian-Bronze-Big-solid-Sculpture-Goddess-Isis-with-the-Horus-Child-with-a-Vulture-Head-192-cm-H/43570353-ancient_egyptian-03.1.21-catawiki

    I don’t know if any priestesses of Isis ever wore the goddess’s headdress as in that statue: there are several extant Roman statues of such priestesses (the cult of Isis was BIG in imperial Rome), and all the ones I’ve seen have a veil or part of their robe covering their heads and a quite small image of the horns-&-sun-disc above the brow, as here:
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Life-size_marble_statue_of_a_priestess_of_Isis%2C_2nd_century_AD%2C_found_in_the_monumental_nymphaeum_at_Laodicea_on_the_Lycus%2C_Hierapolis_Archaeology_Museum%2C_Turkey_%2831753700700%29.jpg
    So the headdress is a daft over-enlargement. But they clearly did do some research, because the knotting of the corners of the robe together over the diaphragm is something that crops up in a lot of the Roman representations of Isis’ priestesses.

    1. My goodness that crown is clunky. And as you say inappropriate. She’s a priestess not the goddess! That leopard skin looks pretty ratty too.

  4. Re: Jeweler’s Shop, yup, it’s Poland, 1930s/1940s. I’ve read the play but I’ve never seen the movie.

    1. I just read on Wikipedia that the play was written by Pope John Paul II when he was still Karol Józef Wojtyła.

    2. Was written I believe by Saint John Paul II as Caril Wotyla. And my favourite Olivia Hussey is Romeo and Juliet. None of the later versions comes close.

  5. She has such an expressive face! When she is still she looks serene and Madonna like, but frown and it’s all going on! I love R&J, and J of N, probably because I saw it at an impressionable age, and seeing that story with dark haired people was a revelation. They may have not used actual Middle Eastern actors in 1977, but they weren’t blue eyed blondes either, so progress!

    1. Well, Robert Powell had blue eyes (which bummed me out as a brown-eyed teenager, since apparently the film considered blue eyes more…”spiritual”? “Godly?”)…

  6. Letter perfect casting of everyone in Romeo and Juliet (1968). To me, she is Juliet. Love her.

  7. Understandable why you completely ignored Lost Horizon (1973). It had so many other big names in it too.

  8. Ah yes, the Romeo and Juliet we all watched at school back in the day! I know Hussey chiefly from that and loved her as Juliet. Honestly didn’t know about the rest of them, but she was Audra Denbrough in the 1990 “It” and played comatose well.

  9. R&J unbeatable for adapting that play (even though I prefer others of Shakespeare’s works). I read something from Zefferelli that actually he had another actress in mind who he’d seen previously, with beautiful long blonde hair and what he considered a classic English beauty I think, but when she came for an audition it was shorter and he couldn’t see her as Juliet anymore and Hussey got the role. I know the black clothes were unlikely but her portrayal of grief after the crucifixion is one of the most affecting in film that I’ve seen. I want to see her Death on the Nile now–she looks great. Also today I learned there was a significant cult of Isis in Pompeii! Jeweler’s Shop was pre-WWII and I think post also; I have the play (by Pope JPII when he was still a priest) but haven’t read it. Would love to see Olivia Hussey in more things.

  10. Of course, my fave is Romeo and Juliet. But I also loved as the Virgin Mary. Whenever I see her I think, “Jesus’s mom!” She really is heartachingly beautiful. Now I want to seek out some of her other Frock Flicks. Great choice!

  11. You know India Eisley from The Secret Life of the American Teenager
    and Eve in Underworld: Awakening is her daughter, right? My kids told me that.

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