Olivia Hussey: The Girl on the Balcony (Rebroadcast)
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare UnlimitedShow Notes
Olivia Hussey, whose spirited portrayal of Juliet when she was just a teenager herself became iconic for generations of people watching the 1968 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, died on December 27, 2024. In 2019, we were lucky enough to record an interview with Hussey. To honor her life and work, we’re bringing it to you again.
Olivia Hussey was just fifteen when Franco Zeffirelli cast her in Romeo and Juliet. When the film was released in October 1968, it catapulted her and Leonard Whiting, the young actor playing Romeo, to global stardom. For many Shakespeare lovers, Zeffirelli’s film is still the definitive film adaptation of the play. Fifty years after the movie’s release, Hussey’s memoir, The Girl on the Balcony: Olivia Hussey Finds Life After Romeo and Juliet, told the story of the actress’s life before, during, and after Romeo and Juliet.
We talked with Hussey and asked her how she felt about Shakespeare before making the movie (“very boring”), filming the balcony scene (“I’d bump my teeth into his chin”), the endless press tour, and whether she’d do it all again. Barbara Bogaev interviews Olivia Hussey.
From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Originally published on January 22, 2019, and rebroadcast on January 13, 2025 © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Speak Again, Bright Angel,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the Associate Producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer; updated by Paola García Acuña. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at VoiceTrax West in Studio City, California.
More from Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Who can explain the alchemical transformation that is rehearsal? Actors begin with words on a page and emerge with a fully formed theater production. In her documentary, Acting, director Sophie Fiennes captures the magic of actors connecting with their text and characters during a workshop with the world-renowned Cheek by Jowl theater company.
Long before his iconic portrayal of Logan Roy in Succession, Brian Cox trod the boards as a Shakespearean actor.
How do you write a “complete” life of Shakespeare when very little complete information about his life exists? Four centuries after Shakespeare’s death, the legends that have grown up around him have taken on a cultural significance of their own. As Inaugural Folger Chair in Shakespeare Studies Paul Menzer puts it, “the verifiable facts of his life would fit on the back of a postcard. But the stories that we have told about them would fill a dozen phone books.”
In 1597, the first published edition of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet rolled off the printing press. Only a year later, the Spanish colony of Santa Fe was established. While you might not immediately think Shakespeare had much to do with the Latinx experience, Shakespeare’s career and the Spanish conquest of the Americas fit into a similar timeline.
If you were Hamlet’s lawyer, would you advise he plead not guilty by reason of insanity? Would you consider his accidental slaying of Polonius to be murder or manslaughter? These are the kinds of questions that University of Michigan Law professor Len Niehoff asks his students to consider.