O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright
I felt a catch in my throat when I heard that Olivia Hussey had died at 73. She will always be Juliet to me, a role I saw her play in a movie theater in 1968 when the Zefferelli film first came out.
I was already very familiar with “Romeo and Juliet,” because we had studied it in depth in junior high school, acting out every scene in classroom readings. I described the process in this 2007 post:
[Our teacher] Mr. Jones tackled the whole thing by making us read every single word aloud. He called on some students to act out each part for a few pages, then switched to other students, and on and on, right to the last line. It took months. No matter how embarrassed we were, or what poor actors we were, or how we stumbled and faltered, we had to read those words. And he was big on non-traditional casting, too; he’d sometimes call on the boys to read the female parts and vice-versa. Talk about embarrassment!
One boy, Carl Anderson, who had the platinum hair and fair skin of his Norwegian forebearers, blushed scarlet every time he was called on to read. Then he’d blush even more startlingly scarlet as embarrassing words were revealed (“Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast! Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!”). But read he did.
Some read in monotones, some gave it pizazz. And then, after every couple of lines, Mr. Jones would have them pause and try to explain the meaning. If they couldn’t guess, the class would tackle it. If all else failed, Mr. Jones would tell us. But, line by line, the wonderful and sorrowful story emerged, and we slowly got better at deciphering it.
As the characters came alive for us, line by line, Shakespeare (and Mr. Jones) managed that feat at which the writers of so many modern movies fail abysmally: making us care about the characters, and making us believe the lovers actually love each other, and showing us why. We loved Romeo and Juliet, too; and we could see that they were exceptionally well-suited to one another, each able to express emotions in ways no other teenagers ever have or ever will.
But when I saw the 1968 movie I was stunned at how beautiful both Hussey and her Romeo, Leonard Whiting, were. They were good actors, too, and the movie was heartrending at conveying the desperate intensity and joy of young love. I cried a great deal when I watched it, and you know what? I still cry when I watch it. Zefferelli cut some of the lines to make the movie’s pace quicker, but it’s a brilliant movie and the casting of Hussey and Whiting was especially so.
Here’s the scene where Romeo and Juliet first see each other:
And of course there’s the death scene. I can’t find a video that shows all the parts I want, so I’ll post this in two segments:
RIP, Olivia Hussey.
I had a similar reaction to the movie. RIP.
Seeing that movie in a theater when it came out was an elevating experience. I agree entirely with your assessment. Everything about that movie was superlative. More importantly, it holds up. Try watching The Matrix today.
I was too young to see the film when it came out, but my older sister and all her friends (junior high) were gaga over the film, and especially Leonard Whiting. I remember how crazy they got.
It’s a wonderful film, though at times the cinematography gets a little dated. I keep expecting it to be banned — she was fifteen when it was made.
On a not unrelated note: I still hate “Lost Horizon” to this day. When I was a kid, the radio station my mom kept her clock radio on played the sound track from the film ALMOST EVERY DAY. Ugh.
I finally watched the film sometime in my thirties — not really as bad as critics said it was. But the music still drove me NUTS. And Olivia Hussey was beautiful in it.
I honestly don’t think it’s one of his better plays, but it is the one that most people know.
But he didn’t like A Midsummer Night’s Dream either.
What’s really silly is that Verona has an early-twentieth-century statue of Juliet in front of “her house” with a balcony made from an old sarcophagus added in 1920, but she wasn’t a real person and so it’s not her house, and the earliest versions of the story had nothing to do with Verona at all. But after a couple hundred years or so even a fake tradition becomes real enough, and lots of people visit it, and molest the statue (which is also part of the tradition).
I’d love to give Twain’s description but he skipped Verona when he visited Italy. However, Dickens went to see it:
O brave new world,
That has such Party Poopers in’t…
Mr. Kissell, 9th grade English class, Amherst (MA) Regional High School, early 1970s. The Signet paperback edition, with the cover by Milton Glaser. Mr. Kissell made us read passages out loud too but couldn’t resist taking over. He also explained all the dirty parts, in great detail. And he cried when he showed the movie–the real movie, with a film projector and low-fidelity speakers–in class.
Mr. Kissell, if you’re still out there, thank you from a former student from way back.
Hubert:
A good teacher is a wonderful thing.
RIP, Ms. Hussey. What a touching movie.
Neo: “A good teacher is a wonderful thing.” A wonderful sentiment, that needs perhaps a little refinement.
I remember three teachers from my K-12 years. Three GOOD teachers, I would add.
Alas, I was not a good student. Even the best teacher would very likely have failed with me, I’m sorry to say. At four score and two I can now say I did ok, but how much better would I have done if only I had allowed those teachers — and a few others who were possibly not as memorable — to touch me.
I have read somewhere (paraphrasing) that the secret to being a good teacher is not to get in the way of a child’s inclination to learn. I missed that somehow.
We were shown the movie in High School, after it was out of the theaters; the entire senior class (maybe juniors too) was sent to the auditorium to watch it together. I suspect we were not the only town that did this.
It was as great as Neo said, and not only made a lot of young fans for Shakespeare, but for “culture” movies in general (not that there were a lot of them, then or now).
My mother was a middle-school English teacher, and our HS teacher was among her best friends (they went to school together themselves IIRC), and Mrs. D was known to have gone to the original showing several times. Mom asked her why she went so often, and Mrs. D replied that she kept hoping that this time it would end differently!
PS Nino Rota didn’t win an Academy Award but I can personally attest that the soundtrack made a big contribution to the appeal of the production.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet_(1968_film_soundtrack)
Working with a foreign student in his sophomore year, we had to read this play. What struck me was that, when I explained the opening language in such English as he had, he got that there was a bunch of guys ramping for a fight. That’s how skillful Shakespeare is.
Hussey had fantastic eyes in close ups. Heard that, in much earlier movies, female stars had eyedrops to expand their pupils. Wonder about that, now….
But, otherwise, couple of good-looking kids. Having the Homecoming Queen up there with the football captain–who moonlights as a model for upscale clothing–wouldn’t have worked.
They had to be fantastic-looking to each other. Blowing the audience’ minds with ihhuman beauty would have messed up the “take away” from the relationship illustrated.
In an officers club once, a guy who’d been a tenor in the Cornell choir got up and silenced the room with one of the songs from the movie. Lot of Infantry and Airborne guys listening hard.
I know I shouldn’t be surprised that she was 73 (which is not that old) but in my mind she will was still young. Another reminder that time marches on.
It’s too bad she didn’t have anyone advocate for her as a child actress.
I think her lawsuit had merit…from a grooming & sexual exploitation perspective, but a court deemed otherwise.
She was a majestic on screen presence.
OH, my dear Mrs. Burnside, how we loved thee–well the girls at least! She was our eighth grade English teacher and we were required to read aloud some scenes from Hamlet. I particularly remember one of our humorous young lads read his interpretation of a very famous line–“et tu Brutus” became “eat you brute!” We all had a good giggle at that one–even our dear Mrs. Burnside.
My daughter’s HS English class borrowed our copy of the movie, to show in class – and my daughter said afterwards that all the girls (this was a Catholic all-girls school) had mad crushes on Leonard Whiting … not quite realizing that the movie had been made so many years before that the actor was now the age of their fathers…
Neo: indeed. We were lucky.
Funny: I was reminiscing about our teachers with a couple of high school classmates last month–three guys on the sunset side of 65 with all that that implies. One recently moved back to our hometown with his wife; the other was visiting from Seattle, where he has lived for over forty years. I’ve known both of them for 50 and 60 years respectively (Seattle guy and I were in nursery school and kindergarten together). One thing we marveled at was how easy-going and informal things were in the 1970s–the acid after-belch of the 1960s–compared with today. And genuinely tolerant of eccentrics. One of our most beloved HS teachers was an openly–flamboyantly, actually–gay guy who did Mae West and Marlene Dietrich impersonations in class. To liven things up. He was also the respected leader of the HS bicycle club. Nobody cared about his “identity”. Another teacher used to get so excited that he would yell and throw books across the classroom. He was a great teacher even though (make that because) he hadn’t been through a school of ed and didn’t have the credential. Whatever their flaws as people–and having to teach a bunch of grubby adolescents was sure to bring them out–our best teachers had two cardinal virtues: they loved their subjects and they gave a sh*t. They also demanded that we give a sh*t and would call us out publicly if we didn’t. Today they’d be fired, assuming they could get hired in the first place.
My “most amazing son” wrote a play based on Romeo & Juliet in his junior year in High School. He called it Sunrise to Eternity, I called it Romeo & Juliet, part 2. It was a play in 3 acts for 3 characters. Romen, Juliet, and Snake. As the first two characters had killed themselves, for whatever reason, ‘God’s just laws send them away’. You can guess who Snake was. It’s interesting that after death the kids (R&J) develop a better understanding of love and maturity while Snake cannot grow. My son never followed up on that talent. He’s an accountant now and almost 40.
@ Christopher > “My “most amazing son” wrote a play based on Romeo & Juliet in his junior year in High School.”
That play sounds quite interesting!
More so than the one in which Justice Ketanji Brown recently appeared.
https://nypost.com/2024/12/16/us-news/supreme-court-justice-ketanji-brown-jackson-debuts-in-queer-broadway-musical-knockoff-of-romeo-and-juliet/
One of our sons was tasked with doing some kind of project about the play, not just a “book report” thing, and decided that the Queen Mab speech by Mercutio could be edited to fit to Webber’s “Angel of Music” tune from his “Phantom of the Opera.”
I’m not sure now how he did it, but it worked.
Coincidentally, the Justice played Queen Mab, a character who doesn’t actually appear in Shakespeare’s cast.
“Jackson, who told members of the Senate during her 2022 confirmation that she can’t define what is a woman because she’s not a biologist, portrayed Queen Mab — described as a “she/her” character on a production poster — during her brief Broadway stint on Saturday.”
Fun fact: Zefferelli thought of casting Paul McCartney to play Romeo, and had quite a few meetings with him, but then decided against it because he thought 25 year old McCartney had aged out of the part.
@AesopFan:
I thought Justice Brown’s performance in “And Juliet” was charming. It brings to mind Justice Scalia’s and Justice Ginsberg’s walk on parts as extras in one of their favorite operas.
The legal definition of “a woman” is not always the same as the biological definition. A girl may be considered “a woman” when she turns 14 in some jurisdictions (like Juliet was), while other places say she isn’t “a woman” until she’s 18. Most people would say that a woman has two X chromosomes, but there are some people who have XXY chromosomes are considered women. If a girl loses her virginity, is she any more of a woman than a girl who hasn’t? The issue isn’t black or white, it’s many shades of grey.