Francesco "Nino" Castelnuovo (born 28 October 1936) is an Italian actor of film, stage and television.

He appeared as Guy Foucher in the French-language musical film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Castelnuovo has also had notable appearances in other films, including the romantic-drama The English Patient (1996), the drama Rocco and His Brothers (1960), the black-comedy L'emmerdeur (A Pain in the ..., 1973), the sexploitation Camille 2000 (1969), and the spaghetti-westerns Massacre Time (1966) and The Five Man Army (1969).

Biography

Born into a humble family, after being a painter, a mechanic and a workman, at young age Castelnuovo moved in Milan where he started working as a sales agent and at the same time he enrolled the acting school of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In 1957, still very young, he debuted as a mime in the RAI children show Zurli il mago del giovedì.

Castelnuovo landed a small part in Un maledetto imbroglio (The Facts of Murder) (1959), directed by Pietro Germi, and continued to play supporting roles in such films as Il Gobbo (The Hunchback), directed by Carlo Lizzani and Rocco and His Brothers (both released in 1960), directed by Luchino Visconti. When the popular American television show, Disneyland, traveled to Italy in 1962, Castelnuovo appeared alongside Annette Funicello in two episodes of the mini-movie, Escapade in Florence, singing, playing the guitar, and adding the Italian verses to the jovial tarantella, Dream Boy.

Castelnuovo's international break-out role arrived with Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) in 1964, directed by Jacques Demy, an entirely-sung film, in which he played opposite young Catherine Deneuve. Nominated for the American Motion Picture Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language film, the film gained the attention of both film critics and the public, and won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in February of that same year. Nevertheless, the work remained largely unseen in Italy due to the film-going public's distaste for musicals at the time.

However, a few years after the release of the film, after some box office failures (Vittorio De Sica's Un mondo nuovo, his American film debut The Reward) Castelnuovo gained fame as an actor in Italy, thanks to the role of Renzo in the television mini-series I promessi sposi, shown first on Channel RAI (1967). He also starred alongside an international cast of Peter Graves, James Daly, and Bud Spencer in the Spaghetti Western, The Five Man Army (1969) as a Mexican revolutionary, and as Armand in Radley Metzger's psychedelic, sexcapade-drama, Camille 2000 (1969).

Since then, for over four decades, Castelnuovo has been featured primarily on television serials around Europe, where he has portrayed numerous parts and has achieved great success. Italian viewers may also remember that, in tandem with his long television and film career, he appeared as the athletically-sound spokesman for the corn oil company Cuore (Italian for 'Heart') from 1977 to 1982. In 1996, Castelnuovo also appeared briefly as D'Agostino in the Academy Award winning film, The English Patient.

Castelnuovo continues to be active on the Italian theatre stage as well, most recently starring in a production of Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's 1931 play The Front Page --Italian title, Prima Pagina -- in 2002.

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