Peter Kastner

Who was Peter Kastner?

Peter Kastner was a Canadian-born actor who achieved prominence as a disaffected youth in movies of the 1960s.

Kastner's first leading role was in the 1964 Canadian film Nobody Waved Goodbye, which was a semi-improvised, documentary-style look at middle-class teenagers. He played an alienated young man, the son of a prosperous automobile dealer, who drifts into petty thievery.

His breakthrough role was in the title role of the 1967 Francis Ford Coppola comedy You're a Big Boy Now, also starring Rip Torn, Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman. Kastner played an earnest young man who travels to New York City and meets eccentrics. He played a similar role as a young, earnest advertising man swept up in the era in B.S. I Love You.

Kastner also starred in the 1968–1969 ABC sitcom The Ugliest Girl in Town, where he played Timothy Blair, a man who dressed in drag as a favour to his photographer brother. It was following Ugliest Girl that Kastner's fortunes declined. Unable to gain leading roles, he took supporting roles in movies and television series. He did star though in the 1977 CBC Television sitcom Custard Pie as Leo Strauss, the manager of a musical group of that name, but the series was not popular or critically well received. His last film role was in Unfinished Business, a sequel to Nobody Waved Goodbye.