It’s been 50 years since actress Olivia Hussey shot to fame in her role as doomed lover Juliet in 1968’sRomeo and Julietand now the legendary star is opening up about memories, both happy and painful, in a new book,The Girl on the Balcony.
“It’s been quite a life,” Hussey, 67, tells PEOPLE of her journey. “I feel grateful that I survived it all.”
Born in Buenos Aires and raised in London, Hussey was just 15 years old when she nabbed the coveted role of Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s film, which became an international hit.
“So much happened so fast,” says Hussey. “It was overnight superstardom and I wasn’t prepared for it.”
Coral Von Zumwalt
Around the same time, Hussey recalls her brief conversation with a pregnantSharon Tate, who, along with her husband, Roman Polanski, was renting the Los Angeles home of Altobelli in the summer of 1969.
The call was to deliver the shocking news that Tate, along with four others, was murdered at Altobelli’s home on August 9 while he was away.
“I’ll never forget Rudi telling me,” says Hussey. “He said, ‘They’re all dead.’ It was terrible.”
But just five weeks after the murders, Hussey, who had summoned up the courage to break up with Jones, moved into the house.
“People would say, ‘How could you live there?'” she says. “I’d say, ‘In England, most of the houses have horrible memories. It’s not that big of a deal.'”
Says Hussey: “All I felt was Sharon’s vibration. And it was lovely. She’d left an orange scarf and I kept it on my prayer table for years.”
Everett
But Hussey’s own nightmare had yet to happen.
One night, Jones showed up at the house and brutally attacked and raped her. “I didn’t know if he was going to kill me,” says Hussey. “My face was like a balloon. I had a bloody nose, my lip was split open, and I had a black eye. It was terrifying.”
Weeks later, Hussey, who told very few people about the attack (Jones died in 2014), discovered she was pregnant.
Still, Hussey says now that the silver lining was falling in love with her future husband, Dean Paul Martin, the son of singer Dean Martin.
“I fell for him because of the way he treated me and took care of me,” says Hussey. The couple wed in 1971 and had one son, Alex, now 45. They split in 1979 but remained close friends until his tragic death in a plane crash in 1987.
Hussey had another son, 35-year-old Max, with her second husband, Japanese singer Akira Fuse, before meeting her current husband of 29 years, rocker David Glen Eisley, with whom she has a daughter India, 24.
“Everyone has their issues and their problems,” Hussey says of getting through dark times. “But I’m so happy to be where I am now.”
source: people.com
