Nino Castelnuovo

Nino Castelnuovo — Biography

Born in Lecco, the youngest son of a maid and a button-factory worker, Castelnuovo worked as a house painter and mechanic before moving to Milan, where he took a sales job while training at the Piccolo Teatro's acting school; he married actress Danila Trebbi and became the father of a son, Lorenzo. He debuted as a mime on an RAI children's program in 1957, took a small part in Pietro Germi's The Facts of Murder, and appeared in supporting roles in Rocco and His Brothers and The Hunchback of Rome, both in 1960; in 1962 he sang alongside Annette Funicello in a Disney mini-movie shot in Italy. His breakthrough came opposite Catherine Deneuve as Guy Foucher in Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar. He drew renewed notice playing Renzo in the television mini-series I promessi sposi, appeared in The Five Man Army and Camille 2000, spent 1977 to 1982 as the advertising face of a corn-oil brand, and took a small role in The English Patient. He kept working in theatre, appearing in The Front Page in 2002 and The Legacy Run in 2016. He died in Rome on 6 September 2021, at 84, after a brief illness.