Lou Castel

The son of a Swedish father and an Irish mother, Castel was born Ulv Quarzell in Bogotá, Colombia, where his father was working as a diplomat. He and his twin brother grew up in Cartagena.[1]

When Castel was 6, his parents separated. He followed his mother to Europe and went to school in London, then in Stockholm. He subsequently went to live in Rome where his mother was working in the local film industry. A militant communist, Castel's mother also introduced her son to politics.[1]

Interested in acting from an early age, he attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, but was quickly kicked out. His first movie role was an uncredited extra in The Leopard (1963). Two years later, he gained international fame for his performance in Fists in the Pocket, in which he played the epileptic Alessandro, who murders his mother and his brother. His career in Italy included arthouse pictures, but also spaghetti westerns and also softcore erotica.[1] He later played Jeff, the temperamental bisexual film director in Beware of a Holy Whore (1971), directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Fassbinder himself portrayed the film's line producer.

While living in Italy, Castel became involved in a maoist organization. As Italy was going through the Years of Lead period, he was eventually considered an indesirable alien. In 1972, he was deported to Sweden where he no longer had any acquaintances. He eventually bounced back and appeared in films directed by Wim Wenders and Claude Chabrol.[1]

Castel settled in France in the early 1990s.[1] Though the quality of the films he acted in were quite disparate, ranging from arthouse films to cheap exploitation, Castel always chose roles that reflected his militant leftist beliefs.

He has a son from the actress Marcella Michelangeli.[1]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lou Castel.

• Lou Castel on IMDb
• Lou Castel, "My 'State of Things'," tr. by Rainer J. Hanshe, Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics (spring 2014) 278–280.
• Lou Castel, "Before / After the filming of The Stoning of St. Stephen," tr. by Rainer J. Hanshe, Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics (spring 2014) 281–288.