Leonard Whiting''s ass

How would you evaluate it?\ \ NSFW

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/RyanO1977/Leonard_Whiting1968.jpg


Franco Zeffirelli
• Where''s the bubble?

• That scene didn''t make me gay, but it sure helped confirm that I was gay.

• Six feet under and worm food?

• I remember that. Our English teacher circa 1981 showed us the Zeffirelli Romeo & Juliet in class and turned the television set around during this scene so the class couldn''t see Leonard''s ass and Olivia''s tits. Luckily it was showing on HBO around the same time so I got to see it all. It is a nice ass.

• I remember seeing Romeo and Juliet in the 1960''s. I loved his ass.

• [quote]Six feet under and worm food?%0D\ %0D\ Nope. He''s still kicking and will be 60 at the end of the month.%0D\ %0D

• Yeah, he''s not THAT old yet, R3.\ \ Although his ass probably doesn''t look the same.

• Our English teacher also showed the Zeffirelli version and did NOT turn the TV around. I was entranced.

• I would have loved to evaluate it with my tongue.

  The very old Ma Joad

• A time for ass\ \ Some day there''ll be...

• flat and bland like potato pancakes in the cafeteria of an old rest home.

• My teacher made us get permission slips from home. We got to take a field trip to see it on the big screen of an old deco theater. this was 1978, I can''t remember if my jr high even had VCRs yet.

• It seems only fat asses are allowed to be discussed here.

  http://youtu.be/xz3zBK_FwgU

• Zeffirelli wrote in his bio that Whiting was the most beautiful teenager he has ever seen. And Zeffi has seen A LOT of them.

• This ass stopped my in my tracks recently. Surprisingly it belongs to Kaleb Scott, the young piss guzzler.

  http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BU0FWu_i51Q/TLdxl_bXW8I/AAAAAAAAB7A/JLpg-5SkVJc/s400/viewimg.php.jpeg

• My English teacher too showed us the Zeffirelli version but didn''t block the nudity though a couple guys did express disgust at having to see a man''s butt. This was in 1994. I suppose now they show that Leo/Danes version with all that violence.

• Why did ALL of us see that movie in English class?%0D\ %0D\ I know we all read R&J...but why is it that every English teacher felt the need to show this version of this film to their classes??%0D\ %0D\ Just curious.

• Actors weren''t as body-concious back in the 60s; they didn''t have rockin'' bodies like we see today with guys like Ryan Reynolds (it looks like that Green Lantern costume was sprayed onto him.)%0D\ %0D\ So all in all, Leonard had a rockin'' body and a hot ass.%0D\ %0D

• "... a couple guys did express disgust at having to see a man''s butt."\ \ Love it... "disgust"... But they don''t mind a guy''s butt shoved in their face in the locker room. I don''t get it. Guess Romeo set their "homosexual panic" off.

• "Where''s the bubble?"\ \ Here''s your bubble...

  http://lh4.ggpht.com/joypink88/R9npekDUxXI/AAAAAAAAHOc/wI1ZNMg8Lxc/s400/Leonard+Whiting.JPG

• I would need closer inspection to be sure, but I would say it would look better with my cock in it

• They showed that movie in my JUNIOR high school English class, nudity and all. Yes, back in the day they showed naked people to twelve-year-olds.%0D\ %0D\ Or naked men, at least. Juliet was wearing a flesh-toned leotard, if I recall correctly.

• Field trip to the local movie house in jr. high. First release, 1968. Didn''t know I was gay yet.

  barkley

• The reason that this version was shown in high school is that it was delivered in a manner that younger students could understand; more conversational than the "shouting Shakespeare" oraculations of Olivier and his generation.

• [quote]They showed that movie in my JUNIOR high school English class, nudity and all. Yes, back in the day they showed naked people to twelve-year-olds.%0D\ %0D\ And if Frothy Santorum were ever elected President, that teacher would be boiled in oil or burned at the stake.

• Yesterday I saw the Leslie Howard/Norma Shearer Romeo and Juliet. Leslie is 40 and Norma looks 35 and when they spout the lines about adolescent love it made me laugh and laugh. Leslie is physically wrong but at least he was a good actor. Shearer is just ridiculously bad.

• "Zeffirelli wrote in his bio that Whiting was the most beautiful teenager he has ever seen."\ \ Do you think he slept with him?

• Didn''t he put him in "Zabriskie Point"? And what about the guy in that endless movie "Endless Love"?

• Apparently, both Whiting and Martin Hewitt (the star-lad of "Endless Love") were and are practicing heterosexuals. Doesn''t mean Franco didn''t make a pass or two. Doesn''t mean he was rebuffed, either.

• "Do you think he slept with him?"\ \ No, but Zeffi sexually harrassed the guy who played Romeo''s sidekick (Benvolio?)\ \ Leonard said in an interview that he fell deeply in love with Olivia and they had an affair, but she broke it off for some other guy.

• Leonard and Olivia slept together?\ \ And yes, it was Milo O''Shea who claimed he was sexually harassed by Zef.

• LOL, R31, re: O''Shea. Must have been his eyebrows which gave Zef an uncontrollable urge to ravish him.%0D\ %0D\ Uhhh, Martin Hewitt was definitely required to take a tumble with Zef prior to being cast in ENDLESS LOVE. Tom Cruise was, too, but got the consolation prize of one small scene.%0D\ %0D\ Poor Len lost his looks relatively quickly after ROMEO & JULIET. He''s been bald and fat for many years.

• "Martin Hewitt was definitely required to take a tumble with Zef prior to being cast in ENDLESS LOVE. Tom Cruise was, too"\ \ How do we know this?

• Bruce Robinson, who played Benvolio, claims that he was sexually abused by Zeffirelli during the making of this film. He later became a writer and used his experiences with Zeffirelli as the basis for the character of Monty in his semi-autobiographical film Withnail and I.

• interview with Bruce Robinson:

  http://www.laurahird.com/newreview/brucerobinson.html

• "Leonard and Olivia slept together?"\ \ Well, I assume they did. He said he wanted to marry her and all.

• Wasn''t she underage when they first worked together?

• she was 15 and he was 17.

• I have mentioned here before that I was at the urinal next to Leonard at London''s National Film Theatre back in 1970, when I was a hot 24. I was there first actually urinating when someone came in and did his next to me - it was Leonard in a lovely blue crushed velvet suit, he had been appearing on stage there in a discussion about nudity in films. Back then actors had to strip off regularly ... to think that lovely butt was right next to me! I knew he was straight so ignored him, but if he was rumoured to have been gay....

• Did you see his cock, R39?

• I also saw this in English class back in the late 90s. We also watched Polanski''s Macbeth, uncensored.

  Canaduh

• I''ve often wondered if Martin Hewitt had to sleep with Zef to get the lead in Endless Love, considering he was reportedly picked out of 2,000 actors auditioning for the role.%0D\ %0D\ Hewitt is married now, with 2 kids and runs a home inspection company in Central California.%0D\ %0D\ He still looks good.

  http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5mxw-sYc_F0/SWp3H2lyYaI/AAAAAAAAbQQ/HqfpJmtAc3A/s400/Martin.gif

• He was beautiful and his butt was sexy. Although, as a child, I remember it being more memorable, adorable and sexy in the prone position as he and Olivia woke to the lark ("not the nightingale") than when he stood up.%0D\ %0D\ Zefirelli knew what he was doing.%0D\ %0D\ I have to also say that the movie has stood the test of time. It may not be great Shakespeare, perhaps far from it (with McEnery''s and Heywood''s performances being the exceptions), but it remains fun, passionate, vibrant and sumptuous. The best thing Zefirelli ever did on screen, by far.

• Another of Zeff''s boys. Graham Faulkner.

  http://www.filmski.net/sw4i/thumbnail/thumb?thumbId=38073&fileSize=19227&lastModified=1280216281000&contentType=image/jpeg

• Unfortunately, Leonard Whiting has not aged well, he now looks like Phil Collins.\ \ He''s definitely a guy who looks much better with a full head of hair.\ \ Olivia Hussey, meanwhile, looks gorgeous and she still has all her gorgeous hair!

  http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-naI5kVy_PJM/TWmyeqMXLwI/AAAAAAAAbSA/KuGc3pEp5KI/s400/scrapb43.jpg

  hairstylist

• "They showed that movie in my JUNIOR high school English class, nudity and all. Yes, back in the day they showed naked people to twelve-year-olds."\ \ I went to a Catholic grammar school, where our teacher, a nun no less, showed us the 1960s version of a "Midsummer''s Night''s Dream".\ \ It featured a young Judy Dench running around completely naked in green fluorescent body paint! Every time she was onscreen the audience giggled.\ \ I guess our dizzy teacher didn''t make the time to view the film, before screening it to an auditorium of kids under the age of 10, ha-ha!

• Actually, judging from R45''s pic, Whiting looks pretty good for 60-something.

• It was a masterpiece to a 14-year old me. We watched it in English class half way through reading Romeo & Juliet. It brought Shakespeare alive in a way that I wouldn''t have understood had I merely read it for the first time. I thank my teacher for that, and in fact, I ended up a literature major in college.%0D\ %0D\ I remember it used to air on the Late, Late Movie, and my sister and I would stay up to watch it. We both swooned over Leonard''s ass, although I will attest to Olivia''s spectacular tits - no body suit there!

• In his auto bio Zeff said he had to "audition" personally over 100 16 yr old boys. Tough job but somebodys gotta... well ya get the picture. Apparently Lenny was quite the lil diva on set and did not take direction well ( at least while vertical). Acually Zeff found him a pain in the arse ( figuratively) and was smitten with Michael York ( Tybalt) and used him again in the Burton''s Taming of Shrew. Lenord apparently still has a big fan club in Russia ( 50 some thing babushka''s) who reqularly fly him out to Moscow. R & J was the only western film sanctioned for viewing by the Soviets. Oliva went on to have a nevous breakdown playing the Virgin Mary in Zeff 80"s bible epic.. Anne Bancroft actually had to slap her when Livy had some sort of religious ecstay attack holding up production.

  a rose will bloom , it then will fade

• "Yesterday I saw the Leslie Howard/Norma Shearer Romeo and Juliet. Leslie is 40 and Norma looks 35 and when they spout the lines about adolescent love it made me laugh and laugh. Leslie is physically wrong but at least he was a good actor. Shearer is just ridiculously bad."%0D\ %0D\ Couldn''t agree more. Shearer''s Juliet is perhaps the worst performance by an actress, and likely the worst performance by a major star, in movie history. It''s embarrassing.%0D\ %0D

• Milo O''Shea, the great Irish actor, played the friar in Romeo and Juliet. I would doubt very much that he would have been sexually harrased by Franco Zefirelli.%0D\ %0D\ The extremely adorable kid who played Benvolio, on the other hand....

• My 11th grade English class was taken to see this by in a movie theater in 1969 by our teacher - a nun.(My class was basically told to get over it re the nudity, the school was fairly enlightened for a Catholic school back then.) I''ve been a fan of Shakespeare ever since.

• Bruce Robinson (Benvolio) was gorgeous, he went on to work behind the scenes. As someone else mentioned here, he wrote and and I think directed "Withnail and I".\ \ He lived with the equally gorgeous Leslie Anne Down for a few years, this was when they were still young. She''s another actress who moved to the US and ruined her face with bad plastic surgery.

• Its amazing now what autocratic directors like Visconti and his ex-boyfriend Zeffirelli got away with with all these young actors they discovered and auditioned. There would almost be an outcry if it were women being harrassed - and what happens to all these discoveries ? Where is Graham Faulkner now, or the lovey Martin Potter from Fellini''s Satyricon. (the other Satyricon guy Hiran Keller is dead). Helmut Berger obviously fared best - is he a wealthy or druggie recluse these days?%0D\ %0D\ Potter like Whiting got a few other minor roles and then what ? They hardly make enough money to retire for life.

• R22 Olivia Hussey didn''t wear a flesh-colored leotard. In that same scene where Romeo gets up nude and walks to the window, Juliet flashes her boobs (nipples and all) when she suddenly turns toward the camera when they''re interrupted by the nurse.

• Yes, and because Olivia was under 18, she was not allowed to see the movie when it premiered because of the nudity. As she said, the nudity was her own breasts!

• Olivia had quite a rack

• Olivia was stunningly beautiful.

  http://image.xyface.com/image/o/artist-olivia-hussey/olivia-hussey-119098.jpg

• In R45''s pic, which is very sweet of both Whiting and Hussey, Whiting looks pretty good. But he really looked like shit for many years. I guess he got his act together. He really wss only a beauty until he was 25 or so.

• "Beauty fades, dumb is forever".

  Judge Judy

• Apparently Whiting has written a play - Romeo and Juliet Part 2, that he''s hoping to get produced some day. Also a murder mystery musical or something like that, 4 novels, 2 children''s book (one published as an audio book in 2010 with him narrating and Derek Jacobi also providing some narration.)\ \ I think he looks pretty good in the pic with Olivia but I can''t figure out the main thing that went wrong. Thinning hair - got too chubby? Reminds me a little bit of Jude Law''s issues. Hmmm.\ \ Apparently a boatload of fangirls think Leonard Whiting and Zac Efron look uncannily alike but I don''t really see it.

• Is he uncut?\ \ Anyone seen his cock?

• He''s apparently on his 2nd marriage according to his bio.

• His first wife was a supermodel from the 60''s named Cathee Dahman. There are some pictures of her with him on a Facebook tribute page to her (she died in ''97). He''s got two grown daughters.\ \ It doesn''t sound like he''s done that bad if he''s managed to live mostly on residuals and has a place in London, even if it''s Camden or whatever.

• Do actors get a lot of money from residuals and royalties and re-broadcasts? I''m often surprised that actors who have hardly worked for years are still able to maintain a decent standard of living.

• He said in a People article in ''92 that he''d lived mostly on residuals. Link below.\ \ Also on whether he''s cut or not: In 1949, a lack of consensus in the medical community as to whether circumcision carried with it any notable health benefit motivated the United Kingdom''s newly-formed National Health Service to remove infant circumcision from its list of covered services. Since then, circumcision has been an out-of-pocket cost to parents, and the proportion of newborns circumcised in the hospital has fallen to less than one percent.\ \ Leonard was born in June 1950 to a Catholic mother (don''t know about his dad''s religion but he was raised Catholic.) So I''m assuming maybe not? \ \ I can''t believe this thread has gotten me back to a long forgotten obsession with a beautiful boy in 1968. No fool like an old one, I guess.

  http://www.danahuff.net/images/people_1992.jpg

• Cathee Dahmen was totally a Olivia Hussey lookalike.\ \ From what I''ve read on several of Len''s interviews, he lives a very modest life. He mostly lives off R&J residuals, but it''s not much.

  http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/203483_122767957759493_6921190_n.jpg

• He''s very candid in the interview at R66 - he admits that he''s aged a lot.

• It''s not like he could deny it, anyway, isn''t it.

• [quote]He still looks good.%0D\ %0D\ r42, I think your picture does not qualify for use of the word "still" (it must be 20 years old!)%0D\ %0D\ It''s all in the eye of the beholder, but here''s a pic from 2005. %0D\ %0D

  http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/021005/images021005/f05-3.jpg

• Oops never mind, got mixed up and thought you were showing a picture of Whiting, r42. My apologies.

• You certainly wouldn''t recognize him today if someone didn''t tell you who he was.

• [quote]Didn''t he put him in "Zabriskie Point"? %0D\ %0D\ Zabriskie Point wasn''t a Zefferelli film. It was an Antonini film. And the guy who was cast in that (Mark ?? forgot his last name) went to prison and later he died.%0D\ %0D\ Seriously.

• Mark Frechette was the actor in Zabriskie Point%0D %0D %0D Mark Frechette was an American actor in the film Zabriskie Point, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, in which he was cast despite having no previous acting experience.%0D %0D He appeared in two other films made in Italy, Many Wars Ago (Uomini Contro, 1970) and La Grande Scrofa Nera (1971).%0D %0D He tithed his $60,000 earnings from Zabriskie Point and other films to Mel Lyman's commune.%0D %0D Frechette, who had no formal acting experience, was selected from among thousands during a casting process that lasted nearly a year. He was discovered in Boston by Sally Dennison, Antonioni's assistant and casting director, while in the middle of a violent shouting match at a Charles Street bus-stop.%0D %0D Despite the film being a critical and box office failure, Frechette enjoyed a period of considerable publicity, his face gracing the covers of Look Magazine [2] in November 1969 and Rolling Stone magazine on March 7, 1970 [3].%0D %0D On August 29, 1973, he and two members of the commune attempted to rob the New England Merchant's Bank in the in the Fort Hill section of Roxbury, a poor neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts where they had their commune. One of the members of the commune was killed by police and Frechette was arrested and sentenced to the minimum security state prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts. He died under highly suspicious circumstances during an apparent weightlifting accident when a 150-pound bar fell on his neck, choking him to death. Prison officials did not suspect foul play; however, questions arose whether Frechette had been suffering from depression[4].%0D %0D %0D

• I would guess "warm" and "tight."

• Sounds like Frechette was getting gang-banged or something.

• Apparently, the actor who played "Benvolio" - Bruce Robinson - was the object of Zeffirelli''s lust and gave poor little Bruce such a fright that he had post traumatic stress syndrome - I don''t know if Zeffirelli raped him or what - but it was traumatic for him. He gave up acting and became a writer - he wrote "Withnail and I" (a cult movie) and the screenplay for "The Killing Fields".\ \ While dubbing R&J in London (they dubbed the whole thing later), Olivia wandered into a nearby office and sat in the lap of director Michelangelo Antonioni, who directed Blow Up and much more - he was quite taken with the little 17 year old cute girl - though as Olivia put it, Zeffirelli had a crush on one of the players but it most certainly was not her! (It wasn''t Leonard Whiting either - he and Olivia had a puppy-love affair during and after R&J - he calls her his ''first love'')

• So Whiting is the equivalent of the Hugh Grant character in ABOUT A BOY-at least they''re his own residuals from work he did.

• Oh - Franco fussed at Olivia for eating - he thought she was chubby and worried about everything she put in her mouth. He also called her "Boobsamina" because her boobs were so big she was bulging out of the costumes and they didn''t want to spend more money to cut them to fit so they let her bulge out of the top - notice the balcony scenes - she''s about to bust out of that gown.

• Leonard Whiting started as a singer in "Oliver" and some play he toured with in Russia, etc., with Laurence Olivier.\ \ There''s a youtube of him singing a song at the link - he was a visiting lecturer at a college in America (on acting I guess) and someone wrote a song and had Leonard record it, with him playing the guitar and some strings accompanying. \ \ I think his voice is quite good, technically, but then I don''t know much about singing. Anyhow, that''s how he got his start - playing the Artful Dodger or something in Oliver on stage in London for a couple years, even before he did Romeo when he was 17.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnX22HIqXSI

• [quote]How would you evaluate it?\ \ By taste, via a time machine.

  Late to class, but enjoying your discussion.

• Oh Lord I just watched Leonard Whiting''s last "major" movie, Rachel''s Man (1975.) Made in Israel, it''s the story of Jacob (Whiting) and his acquiring 4 wives and 13 children (or maybe it was more?) and yet the poor man only really loved Rachel - those other women were forced upon him, time and time again... \ \ Not really his fault but it was painful. You do get to see him kiss two men on the lips, but one was Mickey Rooney and the other was even older. And the photo on the dvd cover is of two actors who aren''t even in the film.

• "And what about the guy in that endless movie "Endless Love"?"%0D\ %0D\ That was Martin Hewitt. He sure as hell must have fucked Zeffirelli to get the role in "Endless Love" because he was laughably bad in that movie, as was Brooke Shields. He was playing a 17 year old, but looked closer to thirty. %0D\ %0D\ "Endless Love" is so awful. Here''s some briliant dialogue from it:%0D\ %0D\ "I love her!"%0D\ %0D\ "I''ll always love her!%0D\ %0D\ "We''re in love with each other!"%0D\ %0D\ "He is in LOVE with that girl!"%0D\ %0D\ "JAAAAAAADE!"%0D\ %0D\ "DAAAAAAVID!"%0D

• OP, that ass is perfect.

• Anybody read Zeffirelli''s autobiography? He was out when practically no one was - and incredulously remained an extremely devout Catholic who defended his faith and its culture. Guess I''ll penny up and buy the thing - I do think he had impeccable taste. In beautiful young men and sumptuous visuals, especially.

• Zeffirelli is openly gay. He has received criticism from religious groups for what they call the blasphemous representation of biblical figures in his films and also criticism from members of the gay community for publicly backing the Roman Catholic Church with regard to homosexual issues. Director Bruce Robinson claimed to have been the target of unwanted sexual advances by Zeffirelli during the filming of Romeo and Juliet in which Robinson played Benvolio. Robinson says that he based the lecherous character of Uncle Monty in the film Withnail and I on Zeffirelli.\ \ In 2007, disappointed with the manner in which Pope Benedict XVI had been presenting himself to the media, Zeffirelli openly offered his services to the Pontiff as an image consultant. In connection with this matter, he was quoted as saying "I am a Christian down to the depths of my spirit."\ \ Oh dear. So he''s a fan of the Pope Rottweiler.

• "This ass stopped my in my tracks recently."\ \ Either you need to come down to earth or he needs to see a plastic surgeon. Immediately.

• This was back when the presentation of sex and nudity was so fresh and exciting that it made everybody stark raving horny. The sight of a beautiful kid''s adorable ass had major impact.%0D\ %0D\ Now these experiences are a dime a dozen.%0D\ %0D\ Sex just isn''t as sexy anymore.%0D\ %0D\ Or, perhaps, it''s just that I''m old.

• Do you think his lover at the time appreciated his ass?

• r86, there is no use in trying to understand the mindset of a Catholic, gay or otherwise. That shit is INGRAINED in them. Just ignore the Catholicism and usually they turn out to be very interesting people all on their own.

• R88, I think you are exaggerating a bit. There is still very little mainstream male nudity in American films today.

• Well maybe - but the Broadway musical involved full nudity as came out before Romeo & Juliet in 1968:\ \ 1967 Off-Broadway\ 1968 Broadway\ 1968 West End

• oops I need to go to bed - the Broadway musical HAIR, which involved full nudity, came out in 1967

• LOL....I was in 4th grade when I saw this!!!

• A little young yes, R94? I didn't think teachers could show films with nudity at that age. I didn't see it until Grade 11.

• Whiting resembles David Lander aka Squiggy. He's looked like Squiggy for a LONG time. Olivia Hussey was stunning in RaJ. She was NATURALLY gorgeous...and without makeup! I always thought she was much more beautiful than Brooke Shields, who even as a child always looked like a painted up baby prostitute.

• R32 -- He didn't lose his looks soon after "Romeo and Juliet." If anything, he become even more handsome (and a more assured actor) by the time he made "Frankenstein: the True Story" in 1972.

• His ass should've been bronzed, that's how audaciously awesome it was.

• I wish he wasn't 17 when they made the movie...then he could have turned around. lol

  nnn