The Girl on the Balcony Read online

  The Girl

  on the

  Balcony

  Olivia Hussey Finds Life After Romeo & Juliet

  OLIVIA HUSSEY

  WITH

  ALEXANDER MARTIN

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by Frozen Flame Enterprises, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2018932845

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1707-8

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1515-2

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: August 2018

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1517-3

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1517-9

  To:

  My beloved guru swami Muktananda, thank you

  for saving my life.

  Howard Wills, my dear friend and teacher,

  thank you for your prayers of love and forgiveness.

  I am eternally grateful to you both.

  Thank you, Dean Paul, for our son, Alex.

  Thank you, Akira, for our son, Max.

  Thank you, David, for our daughter, India, for 28 years

  of love and loyalty, and for being my rock. I love you.

  And to Kevin for . . . (Well, you know why.)

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Part I

  A Rough Start

  White Shoes

  Under a Slate-Gray Sky

  On the Boards

  Part II

  The Audition

  Romeo and Juliet Go to the Movies

  Italy

  Cinecittà Studios

  Temper, Temper

  Miss Mayfair and a Very Sick Girl

  One-Take Hussey

  Boobs O’Mina

  Late Nights

  Was There Anything Between Romeo and Juliet Offscreen?

  Roman Holiday

  Meanwhile, Back on the Balcony

  Actors

  Acting

  Live, to the World

  Teenage Heartbreak

  Last, but Not Least

  The End; Now Comes the Work

  The Tour

  Boys

  So I Became a Movie Star

  Christopher Jones

  Part III

  America

  The End of the Long Beginning

  Love

  Vegas, Dean, and a Wedding

  Homemaker

  Back to Work

  Guns

  An Apple and a Flower

  You Have to Go There to Come Back

  My Mary and My Vice

  Death on the Nile

  India

  What’s My Line?

  Japan with the Toad

  Akira

  Long-Distance Love

  Up, Up, and Away

  Let the ’80s Be Over

  Part IV

  A Song, a Harley, and That Hair

  Reality

  Under Siege

  Mother Teresa

  Cancer

  Taking a Backseat

  Today

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword

  When I first glimpsed Olivia I saw—no, I felt—the true innocence and passion I was looking for in “my Juliet.” During the testing phase I paired couples together amongst the hundreds of young actors who were auditioning. I was immediately drawn to the look of Olivia and the young Leonard Whiting. And so it began. They were laboring with the dialog of the “balcony scene,” and as they stood there reciting their words, I thought, “Intense diction lessons would take care of that.” For me, what was most important was the feeling: I wanted to see their true young passion. I remember Olivia began one of her long monologues and seemed nervous. I sat behind the camera rolling tiny bits of paper in my fingers and began flicking them at her while she was speaking. One hit her right on her forehead, and she immediately turned to me and said angrily, “Don’t do that, I’m trying to act!” I burst into laughter and teased her. At that moment I saw the passion I needed!

  Later I asked, “Do you like the balcony scene, Olivia?”

  “Yes, it’s all right,” she replied.

  “Is there another scene you would rather test with? One you love?”

  “Yes,” she replied, “the potion scene. That one is my favorite!” I told her to learn it and come back in three weeks. She returned as planned and did it for me. When she was done, lying there on the floor crying behind the prop bed, we were all just standing there in amazed silence. Michael York, who had come along to watch the testing that day, quietly turned to me and said, “You have to cast her!” But Michael needn’t have said a thing: I knew THAT day I had found my Juliet! And, over the years, what fun we had working together.

  Olivia, we have always shared a special bond. Even as the years passed, I thought of you and hoped you were well and happy—as you deserved to be. So, in closing, my dear Olivia, you have always been and always will be the image of that woman that you resurrected in my life . . . “the image of my own mother.” I think you are the object of my adoration . . . Always alive!

  God bless you!

  Love, Franco Zeffirelli (2016)

  Prologue

  My oldest son’s godmother was getting married, and Fifth Avenue was lined with light blue police barricades. As the long line of limousines inched closer to Marble Collegiate Church at West 29th Street, the crowds thickened. Through the tinted windows they seemed like exotic aquarium creatures: close, but a world away. I began to hear the familiar shouts of “Over here! Over here!” and catch the blinding white pop of flashbulbs.

  I was getting nervous; I hadn’t been involved in anything like this in years. It took me back to the premiere of Romeo & Juliet. My God, I thought, that was thirty-five years ago. (It was 1968, to be exact; now it was 2002.)

  The limo stopped. I heard the click of the doors unlocking. My husband took my hand. “Okay, love,” he said. “It’s time.”

  I could feel the anxiety running up my spine and down my arms, making my hands tingle. I’ve always panicked when I feel I’m on display, and when I stepped out of the limo my vision narrowed and the muscles in my throat tightened.

  “Olivia! Olivia! Over here! Over here!” photographers yelled, hustling for a shot. Across the street was a blur of waving arms and excited faces. David and I moved with the line of guests toward the cluster of policemen checking bags. It was only six months since 9/11, and New York City was on edge. I saw it in the stern expressions of the cops, in the deliberate way they moved through the crowd, scanning faces.

  I felt a hand grab my elbow and tug for attention: an old friend, Sally Kirkland. “Olivia,” she said, “you should step over here and say hi to people.”

  She pulled me out of the line and over to a small group of fans corralled behind a barricade, calling out to me:

  “Oh my God, Mrs. Hussey, you look wonderful!”

  “Olivia, where have you been?”

  “Juliet, we’ve missed you!”

  I smiled my automatic smile. I signed some pictures. I posed for some shots. And as I made my way up the church steps on David’s arm, I repeated to myself, “Where have you been? Juliet, we’ve missed you.”

  Inside, the church was a galaxy of stars: Teenage supermodels sat in narrow pews fanning themselves, while old-guard actors like Kirk Douglas and Anthony Hopkins watched in stony silence, wondering perhaps why on earth they themselves were in attendance. A well-known singer, clearly drunk, lurched down the aisle, shadowed by her music exec partner. Above us in the balcony, I caught Donald Trump craning his neck over the edge, comparing his seat to others’ and calculating his distance to the altar. All around us, people famous merely for being famous flittered between directors I had worked with and producers I had read for; some things, it seemed, never changed.

  Liz Taylor walked in, leaving a hushed reverence in her wake. She wore a necklace of huge pearls and a birdcage veil of French netting over her legendary eyes.

  “Do you think she’ll remember me?” I whispered. I didn’t think David had heard me, but he answered, “Of course, Livi, she’ll be thrilled to see you.”

  I wasn’t so sure; it had all been so long ago. I hadn’t spoken to today’s bride, Liza Minnelli, since Dino’s funeral in 1985. That had been a hard day. Standing under a bright, cloudless sky with hundreds of other mourners, I kept my arm firmly around my young son as he was handed a huge, folded American flag. I remember thinking how small it made him look.

  Liza had called me that morning: “I’m so sorry, Olivia,” she’d said. “I just . . . I wanted to call.”

  “I know, Liza. Thank you.”

  “He was such a special man.”

  “He was Dino.”

  We hung up, not knowing what more to say.

  Now, from our seats in the center pew, I saw faces from the past looking back at me. People I hadn’t thought about in years waved as if it had been days and not decades since we’d last seen each other. What was more surprising, I found myself waving back.

  If you knew me, you’d know I don’t do trips down memory lane, but now I was really enjoying myself. My agoraphobia had apparently stayed at the hotel, leaving me free to relax and have a good time. I delighted in spotting old friends, people I had worked with, even a few old flames.

  It helped that the wedding proved to be kind of nuts. The best man—Michael Jackson—struggled to maneuver Liza’s dress down the aisle. The maid of honor—Liz Taylor—kicked off her shoes and stood barefoot during the ceremony. As Liza would say, “Go big, darling, or go home. I mean, why be boring?” Indeed, Liza, you crazy, fabulous star.

  Toward the end of the night, after the balloons had dropped at the reception and there was no more confetti to throw, I sat quietly, watching my nine-year-old daughter, India, as she moved from table to table, laughing, bits of half-eaten cake stuck to her fingers. The night had reminded me of something I had forgotten—or, perhaps, had told myself wasn’t important: I had a story to tell, a story worth remembering. And I had a question to answer, asked long ago by a girl standing on a balcony.

  I promised myself that when I got home, I’d tell that story and answer that question.

  That was fifteen years ago. My promise to myself lasted as long as Liza’s marriage. The voice in my head was too strong: “A memoir? Really, honey? And just who do we think we are?” I convinced myself that, if I was remembered at all, it was as a single image: Juliet standing on the balcony.

  And that should really be enough. What more was there to tell?

  Well, according to my family and friends, there was more. A lot more. And they urged me to start writing. Honestly, they insisted on it.

  Mine’s not been a simple story, but perhaps it’s been about a simple girl. A life far from ordinary, but lived in an ordinary way. For sure, it’s been a hell of a ride.

  Now it’s time to tell that story, time to answer the question that girl on the balcony keeps asking: “Has the life I’ve given you been worth it?”

  Part I

  A Rough Start

  Alma Joy Hussey loved to dance the tango. She was twenty-three, the daughter of British expats living in Buenos Aires, and on Friday nights she would dance. Armin-arm with a couple of girlfriends, she would head to the Avenida de Mayo in the heart of the city. It was 1948, and the milongas, dance clubs, were packed with beautiful young people dying to see and hear their favorite singers. One of the best singers was a twenty-one-year-old man from Victoria, just outside Buenos Aires, who had moved to the city five years before. On one of those festive Friday nights, in one of those packed milongas, when the lights went down and the orchestra started up, Osvaldo Ribo walked out onto the stage to sing, and my mother fell in love.

  At least, that’s the story she told me. The truth may be very different. Memories are fluid; without firm context to anchor them, they can slip and slide. For my mum, that context shifted over the years, and she began to remember things as she believed they ought to have been rather than as they actually happened. As for me—at best, I think my parents were a pair of star-crossed lovers from disapproving families. At worst, I see them through the eyes of the girl who came from their broken home.

  My father’s real name was Andres Osuna. He was born in 1927, into a family that had originally emigrated from Northern Spain. His father died before I was born, but I remember my grandmother clearly enough: She disapproved of my mother.

  I think there might have been quite a few disapproving faces in the Buenos Aires of the 1950s. As it remains today, the city was broken up into different communities: Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, and English. All Argentinean, of course, but each fiercely proud of its own cultural heritage. Before 1940, these groups mixed easily with one another. In marketplaces, Portuguese grocers sold to French chefs, Spanish families walked along boulevards chatting with German friends, and in corner pubs English bartenders poured glasses of Fernet for all.

  But World War II changed everything. As Europe spiraled into darkness, the various ethnicities in Buenos Aires retreated into the security of their tribes. Lines were drawn, sides were taken. What’s more, the war brought out old grudges and deep resentments. Words like “colonialism” and “assimilation” began to creep into conversations around the city, fostering an atmosphere of distrust and clannishness that lingered long after the war was over.

  For my grandmother, who ruled my father’s side of the family with an iron fist, even the idea that her grandson should love an English woman was not to be countenanced. She saw the English as nothing more than poor, vulgar potato farmers who should all be sent packing. For my mom’s family, this condescension cut deep. First, they were not English; they were from strong Scottish stock. Second, they had been in Argentina for three generations and felt entitled to call the place home. It was into these dark waters my parents waded. They were in love and, despite their families’ disapproval, they married.

  I was born on April 17, 1951. I only have a few memories of my mum and dad together. I do know that they were very different. My mother was all kinetic energy: four feet ten, with a tiny hummingbird body and short brown hair. She loved to party, and was always laughing. In many ways, she looked at the world as a child might: as a place of simple truths requiring direct action.

  My father was, shall we say, more relaxed, with the indolence that sometimes comes to those blessed with tremendous good looks. In fact, he was striking, with hooded eyes; high, chiseled cheekbones; a sharp jawline; and long, narrow nose—noble features that could have belonged to the captain of a fifteenth-century Spanish treasure ship had they not been softened by his kind, carefree expression and deeply sensitive soul.

  My father never drank. He never smoked. He loathed parties. He was happiest sitting around his kitchen table with his brothers, singing and playing guitar. He was a gentle man.

  Their marriage didn’t last two years. They split when I was one and my mum was pregnant with their second child, my brother, Andrew.

  At times I’ve thought, how sad to have your love destroyed by family pressure, Montague versus Capulet. But maybe my father and mother were just too different. There are parts of our parents that must always be a mystery to us. I can tell you, though, that I carr ied the pain of their separation and the trauma of its aftermath for a long, long time.

  After my father left, my mother worked as a secretary somewhere in the city. Six months pregnant, she would leave early in the morning and come home after five, exhausted but uncomplaining. Most mornings, she would drop Drew and me off at her sister’s on her way to work. I adored both of my mother’s siblings: Uncle Bungie—a nickname for Barry—and Auntie Linni, short for Leonore. Linni was very much like my mother, small and strong. I remember spending hours snuggled up with her in the late afternoon, watching the headlights reflect off the blinds in her little apartment, hoping they shone from the bus that was bringing my mother home. The sisters even sounded alike; for years after my mother died, I would call Linni just to hear my mother’s voice.

  Some days, Uncle Bungie would come by Linni’s flat. Tall and lean, he would walk through the front door carefully so as not to hit his head. I would throw myself over the back of the couch and rush to him. He never came empty-handed; as I bobbed and weaved around him, he would keep his hands firmly behind his back to conceal whatever little treasure he had brought me. Of all my early memories it’s these weekdays spent with Bungie and Linni that I cherish most.

  When he wasn’t being “Uncle Bungie” to his hyperactive niece, my uncle was Captain Barry Melbourne Hussey of the Argentine navy, a dedicated, lifelong navy man. (In a huge historical irony, thirty years later, in 1982, Captain Hussey was a key negotiator in the surrender of the Falkland Islands to the British.)

  On weekends, my mother and I would visit her parents. They lived in the English quarter of the city, in a lovely little house that sat snugly on a corner surrounded by hedges and tall trees. I loved spending Saturdays in the garden with my grandfather, watching frogs leap from hedge to hedge.