Living in a modest four-room Victorian row house in Camden Town, a slightly seedy district of London. For Leonard Whiting, now 41, playing Romeo at 17 was the bright spot in a film career that quickly faded. ''I was thrust for a long moment into international stardom,'' he says. ''When that happens, people want to see you in that same persona again and again.'' Unhappy with the ''moon in June'' romance roles he was continually offered and with his lukewarm notices in such forgettable 1970s films as Say Hello to Yesterday and Rachel's Man, Whiting turned to the typewriter. His complete -- still unpublished -- works include four novels, two fantasies for children, a full-length gangster musical and (seven drafts later) a sequel to the play that made him famous, Romeo and Juliet 2, in which the lovers come back to life. Whiting's brief, offscreen romance with Hussey during the filming of Romeo and Juliet still stands out in his memory, and he has kept in contact with his onetime costar. ''She still looks wonderful,'' he says, ''only about two years older, whereas I look like Lord Capulet.'' His own 1971 marriage to American model Cathee Dahmen ended after six years and one daughter, now 20. These days, Whiting's Juliet is live-in love Lynn Presser, 40, also his manager. And while there hasn't been much to manage (he has lived mostly on film residuals), things may be looking up. Last year, Whiting did a voice-over for a British cartoon and even starred in Una Nova Primavera, a Brazilian-made art film. His passion, however, is to get backing for his R&J sequel, which he calls ''a cross between Shakespeare's original and Chinatown.'' Whiting is keeping mum about whether the impassioned pair live happily ever after, except to say, ''they have their share of marital troubles.''

SATURDAY REVIEW. "By playing his new production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet against settings in Tuscany and Umbria that have changed but little in the past 500 years, but peopling them with teen-agers of today, director Franco Zeffirelli has succeeded in making this venerable work immediate, without recourse to West Side Story extremes...To a generation brought up on Katharine Cornell Juliet's and Leslie Howard Romeo's, this version may seem wanted the soaring poetry and aural splendors to which we have become accustomed; indeed, John McEnery's rendition of the 'Queen Mab' speech is literally grating to the ear, while neither Leonard Whiting, as Romeo, nor Olivia Hussey, as Juliet, ever manage to do more than merely deliver their lines, never to plumb them. And yet, such is the difference between stage and screen that, except for the purest purist, this matter precious little. Because these kids are authentic teen-agers, just as Shakespeare had envisaged them, they take on a vitality and poignance that no middle-aged actor could project. This Romeo and Juliet, sumptuously mounted, excitingly imagined, lives on the truth of its characters rather than on simply the splendor of its lines. Somehow, I think Shakespeare would have preferred it that way."

THE N.Y. TIMES. "The sweetest, the most contemporary romance on film this year…Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet is a lovely, sensitive, friendly popularization of the play - the lovers, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, as young and full of life as they ought to be, Italy of its time there intact, a lot made of the relationship between Romeo and Mercutio, beautifully played by John McEnery. The prose suffers a bit, sounding more like West Side Story than perhaps it ought to. In the classic speeches, one begins to worry about diction and wish the modern world would recede and let Shakespeare play through. But the scenes, the ball, the duels, are so beautifully though out and staged that things I had not noticed - the puppy play character of the duels at first - become extraordinary, temporally present and remote. But for the poetry, and the fine archaic dignity of Romeo and Juliet, the story could be taking place next door…There are fine, unanachronistic songs and scenes so human, social and derived from Dutch and Italian painting school that it is a joy to watch, if not quite listen to. Romeo and Juliet, when racked with sobs, go on too long, particularly since the crying does seem forced. Pat Heywood, as the nurse, seems too bawdy, cold and almost terrifying - in the way that characters in Disney movies suddenly become uncanny, and haunt children's dreams. But these were clearly Zeffirelli's conscious choices and there is so much else that leads one to agree with what he does that he may be right in these uncomfortable choices, too. There is a softly homosexual cast over the film - not just with Romeo and Mercutio, but with Juliet's bodice being much too tight, or a kind of Greek attention lavished on Romeo in the bedroom scene. And yet, Romeo, his fact not quite yet integrated, and Juliet, with a special lady quality of lust, work absolutely right - as do Natasha Parry, as the classic beauty, Lady Capulet, or Robert Stephens, as the wise, liberal Prince of Verona. Milo O'Shea plays Friar Laurence, rather as a modern, radicalunderstanding Dean. It wouldn't be surprising if this film, with all its youth-adult misses of contract, and its failure of the bureaucratic post, should become the thing for young people to see. The business of locating Shakespeare so firmly in a place, some scenes and bodies, but not in language quite, is worrying. But the movie is done with full awareness of the way it works, and it works touchingly."

"Romeo and Juliet - 1968 - Paramount Pictures - By Douglas Brodie"

NEW YORK. "In Romeo and Juliet, France Zeffirelli has captured the very texture of time and place, creating a 15-century Verona white with the heat of a blazing sun, aglow with rich and courtly costuming, ablaze with personal passions. For once we feel the lusty brawling feud of the two families fed by both temperature and temperament; the vigor, fury and violence of the initial marketplace brawl and the ultimate near-gangfight dueling in which Mercutio and Tybalt are slain have certainly never been matched by any other stage or screen production of the play. And yet, in contrast, his teenage lovers - 17 year-old Leonard Whiting and 15-year-old Olivia Hussey -never quite explode beyond their lines; Miss Hussey is a bit stolid and Whiting veers toward the epicene (although he cuts quite a figure in the nude, a state in which he's frankly shown while Juliet's hair maintains her modesty in their bridal bed). But admittedly the mechanics of their story, literalized by the camera, would provide a challenge for even more seasoned players and it is as well that Mr. Zeffirelli caters primarily to the eye. Friar Laurence's cell assumed cathedral-like proportions; Juliet's balcony becomes a seemingly endless balustrated terrace (of the Palazzo Borghese, in point of fact); the Capulet crypt is packed with corpses…The English actors (and Italian extras) suit the scene, albeit with a variety of stage accents. Milo O'Shea is a remarkably find Friar Laurence, Michael York a brilliantly fierce Tybalt, Natasha Parry an intriguingly discontented Lady Capulet and Pat Heywood a refreshingly young and vulgar nurse. John McEnery's Mercutio is initially fascinating, his Queen Mab speech subtle and sensitive; ultimately he is excessive and irritatingly precious. They all lend character to the richly figured tapestry Zeffirelli has woven in brilliant color."

This has also been written about the tragedy

ROMEO AND JULIET (1968 2h32) Franco Zefferelli Zefferelli took a great risk in casting two unknowns as the star-crossed lovers, especially as his Taming of the Shrew the previous year had not been a huge success. The gamble paid off, and although Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting achieved no subsequent successes, their Juliet and Romeo are very impressive. Hussey was fifteen, and as such was the closest to the age of Juliet that any actress has ever come. Filmed in Tuscany before that region became popular with filmmakers and British tourists, Zefferelli produces an extremely beautiful film, with stirring crowd scenes, action-packed fights and some surprisingly romantic moments. Michael York is excellent as the dashing Tybalt, and Laurence Olivier provides a suitably stirring narration. This is most definitely a film for romantics, and although everyone knows (or thinks they know) the story, it seems new and original in this version, right to the tragic, tear-jerking ending. (VNC)

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