Appearances

Title	Role	Year	Approx. Age
Nero veneziano	Mark	1978	15
Cormack of the Mounties	Jimmy	1975	12
The White Horses of Summer	Bunny	1975	12
The Tree With Pink Leaves	Marco	1974	11
Last Moments	Giacomino	1974	11
Challenge to White Fang	Bill Tarwater	1974	11
Cuore 1973	Il Ragazzio	1973	10
The Last Snows of Spring	Luca	1973	10
Cosi Sia	John	1973	10
Devil in the Brain	Ricky	1972	9
It Can Be Done Amigo	Chip	1972	9
Mamma mia e arrivato così sia	John	1972	9
Twitch of the Death Nerve	Son	1971	8

Freckled face Renato Cestiè was born January 11, 1963 and was Italy's top child star of the 1970s. (His only world rival at the time was Mark Lester.) Renato's best-known work was in tear-jerkers such as The Last Snows of Spring (1973), The Tree with Pink Leaves (1974), Last Moments (1974) and The White Horses of Summer (1975), where he would play a neglected child who, most often, would die of disease by the end of the film. These became known as 4-hankie cinema. Despite their grim themes, they were successful, especially in the UK, and spawned many imitators.

Renalto had many opportunities to play alongside the biggest American movie stars of the era, including Lee J. Cobb, James Whitmore, Jack Palance (It Can Be Done Amigo (1972)), John Ireland (Noi non siamo angeli (1975)) & Bud Spencer.

He became the child to be cast in Italian Westerns in the 70s like Così sia (A Man Called Amen) (1972), Oremus, Alleluia e Così Sia (They Still Call Me Amen) (1973) and Si può fare... amigo (It Can Be Done Amigo) (1972). American's may remember him in Challenge to White Fang (1974).

One of his most notable roles is as Renata and Albert's son in the 1971 Mario Bava horror/slasher film Twitch of the Death Nerve and as Mark in Nero Veneziano (1978) (Damned in Venice - a low budget version of "The Omen").

In his adult career, he mostly worked in television. After a part on the sitcom I ragazzi della 3ª C (1989), he retired from acting and opened a gym. He had cameos in a few Italian dramas in the 1990s.

Interview:
(Talking about his young son) Wouldn't you let him start acting small like it happened to you?
No look, I had an experience and I started when I was 3 years old. Obviously my mother took me there because it's not like I decided to do something like this when I was three. I had fun, everything is fine ... but I find that a child, but also a boy ... he has to choose what he has to do. When he grows up he will decide!

Did you resent having started acting as a child?
Now I tell you that I don't know...because I had my experience in that sense: at the age of three I started doing commercials, then the first films at the age of six or seven, then all those films like "L'Ultima Neve di Primavera", there I was a little older, I was ten/twelve years old...and then "Zanna Bianca"...I don't know if there hadn't been cinema and television in my life what it would have been like. ..I also had a good time there despite the many problems that there were: good or bad I didn't go to school, I studied privately and worked at the same time ... the job was fun but you still had to work and stay there from morning to seven until the evening ... the rhythms when you work calculate that they are from 8 in the morning to 7 in the evening !! And in the breaks I studied and then I presented myself as a privatist at the end of the year...