Lou Castel

Lou Castel
Lou Castel
	Castel in Fists in the Pocket (1965)
Born	Ulv Quarzell; 28 May 1943 (age 81); Bogotá, Colombia
Nationality	Swedish
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1963–present

Lou Castel (born Ulv Quarzell; 28 May 1943) is a Colombian-born Swedish actor who became internationally known through his work in Italian films,^[1] in particular for his costarring role in A Bullet for the General (1967).

Life and career

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, very briefly at Dartington Hall School with his sister Solveig, then in Stockholm. He subsequently went to live in Rome where his mother was working in the local film industry. A 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 enjoyed particular success with his starring roles in Damiano Damiani's A Bullet for the General (1967), Salvatore Samperi's Come Play with Me (1968) and Umberto Lenzi's Orgasmo (1969). He later played Jeff, the temperamental bisexual film director in the German production Beware of a Holy Whore (1971), directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

While living in Italy, Castel became involved in a maoist organization, the Union of Italian Communists (Marxist–Leninist). As Italy was going through the Years of Lead period, he was eventually considered an undesirable alien. In 1972, he was deported to Sweden where he no longer had any acquaintances. For a time, he had to rely on subsidies sent to him from Italy by his organization. However, he quickly bounced back and appeared, mostly as a character actor, in various European films, directed by filmmakers such as 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 had a preference for roles that reflected his extreme leftist beliefs. He portrayed left-wing terrorists in Nada (1974), The Cassandra Crossing (1976), Could It Happen Here? (1977) and Year of the Gun (1991).

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

A polyglot, Castel speaks a number of languages but jokes that he has no real natural mother tongue and speaks every language with an accent, except for Swedish which he no longer has opportunities to use.^[1]

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes
1963	Il Gattopardo	Party Guest	Luchino Visconti	Uncredited
1965	Fists in the Pocket	Alessandro	Marco Bellocchio
1966	Francesco di Assisi	Francis of Assisi	Liliana Cavani	TV film
1967	A Bullet for the General	Bill 'Niño' Tate	Damiano Damiani
1967	Requiescant	Requiescant	Carlo Lizzani
1968	The Protagonists	Taddeu	Marcello Fondato
	Come Play with Me	Alvise	Salvatore Samperi
	Galileo	Friar, Young monk of the Vatican	Liliana Cavani
	Lucrezia [it]	Cesare Borgia	Osvaldo Civirani
	La prova generale		Romano Scavolini
1969	Orgasmo	Peter Donovan	Umberto Lenzi
1970	Con quale amore, con quanto amore [it]	Ernesto	Pasquale Festa Campanile
	Bocche cucite	Carmelo La Manna	Pino Tosini
	Matalo!	Ray	Cesare Canevari
1971	Beware of a Holy Whore	Jeff, the director	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
1972	Nel nome del padre [it]	Salvatore	Marco Bellocchio
1972	Who Killed the Prosecutor and Why?	Carlo	Giuseppe Vari
1973	The Scarlet Letter	Rev. Dimmesdale	Wim Wenders
1974	Nada	D'Arey	Claude Chabrol
	Gangsterfilmen	Simon	Lars G. Thelestam
	Output	Gorski	Michael Fengler
1975	Faccia di spia	The torturer	Giuseppe Ferrara
1976	Pure as a Lily	Luciano	Franco Rossi
	The Cassandra Crossing	Swedish terrorist	George P. Cosmatos
	Caro Michele	Osvaldo	Mario Monicelli
1977	Change of Sex	Durán	Vicente Aranda
	Pigs Have Wings	Marcello	Paolo Pietrangeli
	The American Friend	Rodolphe	Wim Wenders
	Les Enfants du placard	Nicola	Benoît Jacquot
	Italia: Ultimo atto?	Marco	Massimo Pirri
	Mr. Mean	Huberto	Fred Williamson
1978	Violanta	Silver	Daniel Schmid
	Flesh Color	Psychiatrist	François Weyergans
	Killer Nun	Peter	Giulio Berruti
1980	Ombre	Renato	Giorgio Cavedon	^[2]^[3]
1982	Gli occhi, la bocca	Giovanni Pallidissimi / Pippo Pallidissimi	Marco Bellocchio
1984	Trauma [fr]	Lemaitre	Gabi Kubach [de]
1984	Love Is the Beginning of All Terror	Traugott	Helke Sander
1985	Treasure Island	Doctor / Father	Raúl Ruiz
1986	Fraulein	André	Michael Haneke	TV film
	Hôtel du Paradis	Tramp	Jana Boková
	Nanou	Italian activist	Conny Templeman
1987	Man on Fire	Violente	Élie Chouraqui
1987	Rorret [it]	Joseph Rorret	Fulvio Wetzl
1989	What Time Is It?	Fisherman	Ettore Scola
1991	Fuga da Kayenta [it]	McDonaldson	Fabrizio De Angelis
1991	Year of the Gun	Lou	John Frankenheimer
1992	Acquitted for Having Committed the Deed	Hartman	Alberto Sordi
1993	La Naissance de l'amour	Paul	Philippe Garrel
1996	Irma Vep	José Mirano	Olivier Assayas
1998	Louise (Take 2)	Louise's Father	Siegfried [fr]
2001	Clément	François	Emmanuelle Bercot
2006	El Cantor	Clovis	Joseph Morder
2007	Heartbeat Detector	Arie Neumann	Nicolas Klotz
2008	The End of the Light Age	James June Schneider
2012	La Lapidation de Saint Etienne	Étienne	Pere Vilà Barceló [ca]
2013	Gare du Nord	Ali	Claire Simon
2013	The Nun	Baron de Lasson	Guillaume Nicloux

References

Footnotes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h "Lou Castel, le comédien banni par l'Italie". Télérama. 13 July 2016.
^ Curti 2019, p. 39.
^ Curti 2019, p. 40.

Sources

Curti, Roberto (2019). Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1980-1989. McFarland. ISBN 978-1476672434.

External links

Lou Castel at IMDb
Lou Castel, "My 'State of Things^{[permanent dead link]}'," 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^{[permanent dead link]}," tr. by Rainer J. Hanshe, Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics (spring 2014) 281–288.