Olivia Hussey

Olivia Hussey (born Olivia Osuna; 17 April 1951) is an English film, stage, and television actress.

Her awards include a Golden Globe Award and a David di Donatello Award.

The daughter of Argentine opera singer Andrés Osuna, Hussey was born in Buenos Aires but 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 for five years at Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London.

Hussey began acting professionally as an adolescent.

Hussey was born Olivia Osuna on 17 April 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the first child of Argentine opera singer Andrés Osuna (stage name Osvaldo Ribó), and Joy (née Hussey), a legal secretary from England.

Her parents were Roman Catholics, and she was raised in that denomination.

Hussey recalled.

"I grew up with a mini-altar at home that she had; a candle was always alight on it. She always had a great love for God, and she instilled that in me."

When Hussey was two years old, her parents separated but never divorced.

Hussey was fascinated by acting from a young age, and as a child, would dress up as a nun.

At age seven, she moved with her mother and younger brother 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.

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 film, opposite 16-year-old Leonard Whiting's Romeo.

She appeared in a 1966 London production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, opposite Vanessa Redgrave; this led to her being scouted for the role of Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

Hussey received widespread acclaim and international recognition for her performance.

Her performance won her 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 1971, she appeared in the British drama All the Right Noises, followed by The Summertime Killer (1972), and the musical Lost Horizon.

In 1974, she appeared as the lead character Jess Bradford in the cult slasher film Black Christmas.

This and subsequent horror films earned her the label of scream queen.

In 1974, she 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 reunited with Zeffirelli in the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977) as Mary and appeared in John Guillermin's Agatha Christie adaptation Death on the Nile (1978).

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).

She appeared in several international productions throughout the 1980s, including the Japanese production Virus (1980) and the Australian dystopian action film Turkey Shoot (1982).

She also 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 appeared in two made-for-television horror productions: Psycho IV: The Beginning and Stephen King's It, both first screened in 1990.

In addition to screen acting, Hussey has worked as a voice actress, providing voice roles in Star Wars video games including Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Star Wars: Force Commander, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

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 in the miniseries It, an adaptation of the Stephen King novel.

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 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.

In her 2018 memoir Hussey stated she "mumbled something about being interested in "Anne of the Thousand Days" but that she "couldn't see herself with Wayne". She stated that this "adolescent and opinionated" remark ended her professional relationship with Wallis,who immediately withdrew his offer.