Biography
Robert W. Castle was an American actor and Episcopal priest. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, he trained at St. Lawrence University and Berkeley Divinity School before serving as a rector, including at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Harlem from 1987 to 2000. He was a civil rights activist and the subject of the 1992 documentary Cousin Bobby, directed by his first cousin once removed, Jonathan Demme.
Castle’s appearance in the documentary led to acting roles in more than a dozen films, frequently as priests or authority figures. He is known for playing Bud Beckett in Philadelphia (1993), a priest in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Sleepers (1996), Father O’Brien in Big Night (1996), and General Wilson in The Manchurian Candidate (2004). He died in Holland, Vermont, in 2012.
