Val Lauren
James Franco has cast Val Lauren in Sal, Franco’s planned biopic of two-time Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee Sal Mineo, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Based on Michael Gregg Michaud’s Sal Mineo: A Biography, Sal should begin filming in the Los Angeles area in early summer. Franco’s production company Rabbit Bandini is behind the project.
Among Lauren’s credits are supporting roles in Christian McIntire’s Landspeed (2002) and Johnny Lin’s Queen of Hearts (2009). He also had guest roles in several television series, including Hawaii Five-0 and Monk.
Sal Mineo is best known for his doe-eyed teenager infatuated with James Dean in Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and for playing the young Jewish man who becomes a radical (he had been raped by Nazis) in Otto Preminger’s Exodus (1960). (Groucho Marx, for one, was impressed with Mineo’s performance.)
Sal Mineo was 37 years old when he was murdered in West Hollywood in 1976.
As per the Reporter, Lauren described Mineo as "an extraordinary and super complex guy" and "technically the first actor who came out of the closet."