Lou Castel’s seventieth birthday
A black leather jacket and 10 Cuba Libres
Lou Castel was born Ulv Quarzéll in Columbia (Bogota) on May 28, 1943 to an Irish father and an Italian mother. He moved to Europe as a young man and began training as an actor at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome.
His first appearance on film was in a tiny role in Luchino Visconti’s THE LEOPARD (1963). His big break came when he was cast as the lead in Marco Bellochio’s FISTS IN THE POCKET (1965). In BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE (1970) he plays Fassbinder’s alter ego, the tyrannical director Jeff, who in turn has to deal with his moody production manager Sascha – played by RWF himself. It’s clear who the creative force is here. But what school of thought is he mimicking? Internal ego, external ego or in sum even a truly staged ego? “The only thing I accept is despair,” says Sascha in the film. Lou Castel certainly fits well into such a bleak world view. His is a face that authentically combines genuine pain with an exaggerated mawkishness, while at the same time allowing viewers to distinguish between the two. Over the following years, Castel went on to work with other renowned European directors, including Wim Wenders, Claude Chabrol and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Today Lou Castel lives in Italy and works mainly as an actor and as a painter. Last year he was involved in the “parallel action” project in Berlin that formed part of the series HANDS ON FASSBINDER.
We wish him all the best on his birthday.
Photos: © DIF / Peter Gauhe