Olivia Hussey (born Olivia Osuna on April 17, 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is an Anglo-Argentine actress perhaps best known for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet.
Olivia was born to Andreas Osuna (aka Isvaldo Ribo), an Argentine opera and tango singer and his English wife Joy Hussey. When she was seven years old, Olivia and her younger brother went with their mother to live in England, where she attended the Italia Conti Academy drama school for five years.
She appeared on the London stage as Jenny in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" opposite Vanessa Redgrave, where Franco Zeffirelli first saw her. Chosen out of 500 other actresses, she appeared in her first starring role as Juliet in Zeffirelli's 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet opposite Leonard Whiting's Romeo. In 1969, she won a David di Donatello award for Best Actress.
She has appeared in over 40 films in her career. Notable roles include Jessica Bradford in the 1974 Canadian horror movie Black Christmas, Mary, the mother of Jesus in the 1977 Zeffirelli TV production of Jesus of Nazareth, and as Rosalie Otterbourne in Death on the Nile (1978) with Peter Ustinov. One of her other great performances was as Rebecca of York in the 1982 remake of Ivanhoe made for TV. In 2003, Hussey played the lead in a film adaptation on the life of Mother Teresa. She is known for her natural beauty, reportedly wearing little or no makeup in her roles[citation needed].
Hussey was married first to actor Dean Paul Martin (son of the famous Rat Pack singer/actor, Dean Martin) from 1971 until 1978. They had a son, Alexander Dean Martin, in 1973. In 1980 she married Japanese musician Akira Fuse and bore one son, Maximillian Fuse. After their divorce in 1989 Hussey married a third time to David Glen Eisley, an American musician. Together they had Hussey's third child, daughter India Eisley who is also an aspiring young actress.
