Peter Kastner: Nobody Waved Goodbye

Peter Kastner (1943-2008) is fresher in our consciousness than he might otherwise be, on account of we recently re-watched one of his handful of his starring roles a few weeks ago, his entertaining turn in Francis Ford Coppola’sYou’re a Big Boy Now (1966). Criterion had it, and we had recently written about Geraldine Page and Rip Torn, who played his parents in the movie, and spent lots of time with Peter Lee, who worked with Coppola during his time at Hoftsra, and come to think of it, is a Peter Kastner type.

What type is that, you may wonder, if you’re too young to remember? Well, it’s basically a poor man’s Robert Morse: small, sprightly, Leprechaun-like, with a gapped-tooth Alfred E. Neuman smile. When he wore glasses, he looked like two members of Herman’s Hermits smashed together. Such leading men were popular during the 1960s, when everything was topsy-turvy. Even his name sounds like the sixties — easy to mix up with, say, Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane, or Paul Krassner of the Yippies, or Peter and Paul of Peter, Paul, and Mary. I venture most people, even those old enough to remember him, don’t know his name at all, but they’ll certainly recognize his appearance, for he was on television a lot in the ’60s and early ’70s, a “flavor of the moment”, if you will.

Kastner was from an arty Jewish family in Toronto. The parents were from Germany and Austria. The father, Martin Kastner actually translated some plays by Brecht. Peter started out as a child actor, making some appearances on Canadian television in the 1950s. His adult career began in earnest when he starred in a surprise critically acclaimed feature called Nobody Waved Goodbye (1964) by Canadian director Don Owen. Praised by the likes of Judith Crist and Brendan Gill, the film used documentary and improvisational techniques to tell the story about a rebellious young man who gets into trouble with the law. Not a huge commercial hit, but it was definitely of the radar of people in the movie industry.

Kastner’s star rose really fast. He was cast in two Hollywood films in 1966, both of which built on his screen image of a troubled, misfit young person: Footsteps in the Snow with Veronica Lake and Meredith MacRae; and You’re a Big Boy Now. The latter is an amazing movie; I’m planning to devote an entire post to it in a few months. In addition to Page and Torn, it’s got Julie Harris, Elizabeth Hartman, and Karen Black, whom Kastner dated for a time. He was up for the lead in The Graduate, which would have built on his previous roles really nicely, but Mike Nichols decided to go with less outre, while still unconventional Dustin Hoffman. It would have been a very different movie with Kastner in the lead. Nonetheless, he was well known enough that he was a frequent panelist on games show like Hollywood Squares and Dream Girl of ’67.

In 1968, Kastner achieved the dream of many an actor when he was given the lead in his own sit-com. And you can say that it was ahead of its time, for it presages things like Bosom Buddies, Tootsie. and Mrs. Doubtfire. In The Ugliest Girl in Town, he plays a young man who gets hired by employers who accidentally think he’s a woman, and he takes the job (in drag) so he can be closer to his girlfriend. Like ya do. It was created by Robert Kaufman, later known for writing movie comedies like Love at First Bite and How to Beat the High Co$t of Living, and produced by Screen Gems, which also did The Monkees, The Partridge Family,Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie,the Sally Field shows Gidget, The Flying Nun, and The Girl with Something Extra, and (not for nothing) the Pickle Brothers pilot. We had cause to reference the Screen Gems product just a couple of days ago in our Boyce and Hart post. Kastner also released a single through ColGems, the record company connected to Screen Gems in 1968. It’s called “Time Out”.

This looks uncannily like a woman who used to be my boss.

In spite of the long comedy tradition of ugly men in drag, and despite its Swinging London setting, The Ugliest Girl in Town was not a hit, and was cancelled after 17 of the 20 filmed episodes had aired. It has been called one of the worst television shows of all time; I’ve watched some of it and heartily disagree. Further, many have written about this show as though it were Kastner’s Waterloo, and that it finished him, which was far from the case. For example, he was in no fewer than six dozen episodes of Love, American Style, the hippest show on television, right after this, from 1969 through 1973. His type, the nebbishy office worker who endeavors to be hip, was still in demand. (Also the show’s producer Garry Marshall had been a cast member of The Ugliest Girl in Town, and clearly liked him). In 1971, Kastner starred in another film that built on that image, B.S., I Love You, and though it was well received, it was not widely released.

Kastner worked constantly over the next decade, though he is usually written about as though his career was finished by this point. He was a regular on two TV series, the CBC produced Custard Pie (1977), and Delta House (1979), the ABC sit-com based on Animal House. He was in numerous made for TV movies, including Scarecrow (1972, which I wrote about here), Steambath (1973), a remake of If I Had a Million (1973), The Father Knows Best Reunion (1977), The Perfect Woman (1981, in which he is still third billed in an all-star cast), and Time Warp (1981). He did guest shots on Marcus Welby, Emergency!, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and Simon and Simon.

Following a supporting part in the comedy-horror pseudo-classic Frightmare (1981), Kastner returned to his roots to star in Unfinished Business (1984), a sequel to Nobody Waved Goodbye. It faired poorly with both critics and audiences, and Kastner said goodbye to the acting business. He was no longer the in-demand youthful everyman he had been 20 years earlier, and he was clearly having difficulty devising a more mature version of his screen character. If he’s stayed in the game, it’s probable he would have found his way again. Robert Morse did!

Meantime his three siblings all had acquired public profiles as journalists. Older sister Susan Kastner wrote for the Toronto Star (Her son is the documentary maker Jamie Kastner, whose The Secret Disco Revolution I wrote about here). Younger sister Kathy Kastner became the host of a local Toronto public affairs program. Younger brother John Kastner, had become a successful producer of television news documentaries for the CBC, with their mother, Rose Kastner, a former journalist herself, as an occasional part of his producing team, until she passed away in 1983. The siblings had all been child performers, with their mother as their manager.

Peter Kastner continued to perform music and monologues in small clubs, and to create original works of video art, but long simmering emotional problems severed him from his former career, and from his family as well. He was institutionalized for a brief time. At the core of his difficulties were allegations of incestuous abuse at the hands of his mother, which he began speaking out about. I naturally have no knowledge or opinion about the truth or falsity of the claims, of course, but Kastner’s siblings all denied them. I find it interesting that so many of his characters seemed to have some kind of Oedipal thing going on, however. That was very much “in” during the sixties, of course, when Freudian psychoanalysis crashed into pop culture in a big way. But Kastner obviously gave off a vibe that made him seem suitable for these parts. The situation grew pretty stark. Towards the end, Peter actually showed up at a screening of one of Jamie’s early films to distribute fliers for his own one man show, containing inflammatory accusations about the mother. He was literally making public scenes.

But not for much longer. In 2008, Kastner’s pacemaker konked out while he was driving his car in traffic. He pulled over to the side of the road, where he died of heart failure within minutes. He was 65 years old.

John Kastner passed away in 2019; Susan followed in 2023. Kathy Kastner, however, is still going strong. I do no exaggerate Check out her excellent website and blog here.