AceShowbiz - English actress Olivia Hussey has accused an ex-boyfriend of raping and abusing her in her new memoir.

The star began dating actor Christopher Jones after winning acclaim for her break-out role in 1968's Romeo and Juliet, but the romance turned sour when he became abusive, punching her in the stomach during one fight.

The 67-year-old explains she chose to stay in the relationship because she "was young, and... loved him," but she started to look for a way out, and when she formed a friendship with fellow actress Sharon Tate, she made plans to make a clean break of it and move in with her in Hollywood.

But the screen beauty, who was pregnant at the time, was murdered in the house Hussey was hoping to call home before the Brit could move forward with her plans.

However, Tate's death, at the hands of members of the Manson Family cult, served to give her friend a new outlook on life and she broke up with Jones and moved. But her troubles didn't end there - she claims her ex, who died in 2014, showed up at the place one night and attacked her.

"I didn't know if he was going to kill me," she says. "My face was like a balloon. I had a bloody nose, my lip was split open, and I had a black eye. It was terrifying".

Olivia reveals she fell pregnant after the attack, but had an abortion.

"I decided I could not have the baby," she writes in The Girl on the Balcony. "It broke my heart... although I have never regretted it".

Olivia went on to find love with singer Dean Martin's son Dean Paul Martin and the couple wed in 1971 and had son, Alexander, before splitting in 1978. Martin subsequently passed away in a plane crash in 1987.

Hussey has since wed two more times.

"Everyone has their issues and their problems," she adds. "But I'm so happy to be where I am now".