Actress Olivia Hussey, who gained international fame as a teenager for her role in the acclaimed 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, has died aged 73.

The actress, who was born in Argentina and grew up in London, died on Friday surrounded by her loved ones, according to a statement posted on her Instagram.

Hussey won the Golden Globe for Best New Actress for her role as Julia, but decades later she sued Paramount Pictures for sexual abuse because she was just 15 when she filmed the film’s nude scene.

Her other most notable film role was as Mary, mother of Jesus, in the 1977 TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth.

“As we mourn this immense loss, we also celebrate Olivia’s enduring impact on our lives and the industry,” the statement said.

Hussey was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1951 before moving to London at the age of seven and studying at the Italia Conti Academy acting school.

She was 15 when Franco Zeffirelli, director of Romeo and Juliet, spotted her on stage, starring opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the play The Prime of Miss Joan Brodie

Zeffirelli was looking for someone young enough to play a convincing Juliet in what he believed to be the definitive theatrical version of the Shakespeare play.

He cast Hussey alongside 16-year-old Briton Leonard Whiting as Romeo in the film.

The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director. Hussey himself missed out on an Oscar nomination in a strong year that saw Barbra Streisand win the top prize for “Funny Girl.”

But at this year’s Golden Globes, Hussey won Best New Star.

Decades later, she and Whiting sued Paramount Pictures, claiming that Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, did this encouraged her to film nude scenes Despite previous assurances, they would not have to do this.

The couple sought more than $500 million (£417 million) in damages based on the suffering suffered and the revenue the film had brought in since its release.

But last year a The judge dismissed the casethat the scene was not “sufficiently sexually suggestive.”

In 1977, Hussey had reunited with Zeffirelli for Jesus of Nazareth to play the Virgin Mary, before appearing a year later in Death on the Nile, based on the Agatha Christie novel.

Her roles in the early slasher film Black Christmas (1974) and the television film Psycho IV: The Beginning earned her recognition as a scream queen. In the latter, she played Norman Bates’ mother in a prequel story.

In later years she also worked as a voice actress and appeared frequently in video games.

But she had one final reunion with her former Romeo – when she and Whiting appeared together in the 2015 British film “Social Suicide,” which was loosely based on Romeo and Juliet but set in the age of social media.