I remember reading that Thora Birch had to get parental permission when she did her nude scene in American Beauty, and that her parents were on set the day of filming.
Were rules or processes in place back in the 70s for filming an underage actress naked?
No
shareIt was Brooke's mother who got her to do the film in the first place, so presumably she was okay with it. But in the 70s, child nudity in films wasn't enough of a thing to have laws against it yet. The Hays Code had said that *any* kind of sexual content in films was banned but that collapsed in the 60s - and we got the rating system we have now. A law was passed in 1984 that broadened the definition of what would be considered child pornography - so that is presumably why parents have to okay underage nudity. Keira Knightley appeared topless in a film when she was only fifteen too.