Donald Sutherland denies 'Don't Look Now' sex

Donald Sutherland has denied recent reports that his sex scene with Julie Christie in Don't Look Now was real.

Former Variety editor and Paramount executive Peter Bart has claimed in his upcoming book, titled Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex), that he visited the Venice set of the 1973 thriller and witnessed the infamous scene being filmed.

Bart asserted that director Nicolas Roeg told him he had picked a "good day to come by".

"It was clear to me they were no longer simply acting: they were f**king on camera," Bart wrote of Sutherland and Christie's controversial love scene, adding that he told Roeg he saw Sutherland "moving in and out of her".

However, Sutherland told The Hollywood Reporter that Bart's claims are false, saying: "Peter Bart mendaciously writes that he witnessed the shooting of the love scene in Don't Look Now and saw sex. Not true. None of it. Not the sex. Not him witnessing it.

"From beginning to end, there were four people in that room. Nic Roeg, [director of photography] Tony Richmond, Julie Christie and me. No-one else. Wires under the locked door led outside, and this was 20 years before video monitors."

Sutherland and Christie have repeatedly denied that unsimulated sex took place during filming.

Don't Look Now was recently voted the best British film of all time by Time Out.