Dr. William P. Castelli

Dr. William P. Castelli (born November 21, 1931) passed away peacefully on January 19, 2025. Dr. Castelli was born in New York City and spent most of his youth in Teaneck, New Jersey. He enjoyed sports and played fullback helping his football team win the State Championship with a key block for the go-ahead touchdown.

After graduating from Yale University, he studied medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. He started a residency in medicine at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Boston which led to a post-doctoral fellowship at the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Castelli began a career as a Commissioned Officer in the United States Public Health Service in 1965 when he joined the Framingham Heart Study under the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. In 1979, Dr. Castelli became the third Director of the Heart Study which continues today to provide important findings, not only in cardiovascular medicine, but also into the causes of other common diseases. The Heart Study includes multiple generations of participants, with investigators having published more than 1,000 scientific reports. Dr. Castelli was forever grateful to the generations of Framingham residents who volunteered their time, blood and health information so that the Heart Study’s world-renowned research could have a meaningful and measurable impact on public health.

Dr. Castelli’s wife, Marjorie, was often heard to say that “he was a man on a mission to save the world from heart disease.” Dr. Castelli even credits the research of the Framingham Heart Study with extending his own life due to his family’s high-risk factors.

Dr. Castelli retired as a Captain from the Heart Study and the U.S. Public Health Service in 1995. In addition to the many medical papers he coauthored based on the Heart Study’s research, he also taught epidemiology and prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease for 34 years at the Harvard Medical School, 22 years at the Boston University School of Medicine and 15 years at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

After his public health career, Dr. Castelli continued to work in the medical field acting as director of a wellness program at the Metro West Medical Center in Framingham. The center specialized in the aggressive management of cardiovascular disease risk factors.

Dr. Castelli’s work was both his profession and passion. He also coauthored a book with Dr. Glen Griffin about preventing heart disease entitled Good Fat, Bad Fat. The book was intended as a guide to heart health for people who were not medical professionals. The book included many recipes tested on his own family.

Dr. Castelli lived in Marlboro, MA for 58 years where he and Marjorie had many close friends who enriched their lives. Dr. Castelli was often referred to as Doc C by many in the neighborhood. Many remember Doc C’s hobby building plastic World War II models, helping coach the House of Pizza baseball team, teaching catechism class for the Immaculate Conception Church, and his “impressive” driving abilities. Many who traveled with him credit his driving on helping them rediscover the power of prayer.

Dr. Castelli’s personal health journey involved both diet and exercise. He jogged for most of his adult life and even ran the medical tent at the Boston Marathon for 14 years. He stayed physically active well into his eighties, eventually trading in running shoes for a bike. He was a good athlete and enjoyed playing and watching sports, particularly the Boston professional sports teams. Although he was a modest and even-tempered man, his children and grandchildren learned their first cuss words watching the Red Sox and Patriots with him.

Belgium and the friends he made at the Catholic University of Louvain were always an important and happy memory for him. His medical studies were in French. He often told people that joining the University’s Choir helped him learn French even faster by focusing intently on the pronunciation of the French words.

He also learned about and drank much good wine while overseas. Because he often lectured in France, he was invited to join the Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, a fraternity of wine connoisseurs. He enjoyed sharing his wine knowledge – but mostly just the wine — with friends and family.

In his retirement, Dr. Castelli spent a lot of time on Cape Cod with his wife Marjorie. He loved family reunions there. He enjoyed watching his grandchildren grow up and was never reluctant to hold a fussy baby or change a diaper. Whenever his children visited, it was not uncommon for their cars to disappear only to reappear gassed up and cleaned.

Dr. Castelli’s wife, the former Marjorie Irene Fish and his eldest son, Laurence Edward Castelli, predeceased him. He leaves behind a daughter Allyson Irene Larsen and her husband Dr. Lance Larsen of Danvers, MA and a son, William Alton Castelli and his wife Erin Borgeson Castelli of Cheverly, MD. Dr. Castelli’s eight grandchildren, relatives and friends will miss his wisdom and gentle demeanor (sports and driving aside).

A funeral mass will be held for Dr. Castelli at 11 am on Friday January 31, 2025 at the Immaculate Conception Church located at 9 Washington Court, Marlboro, MA. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the American Heart Association.