O.Z. Whitehead
Born: 1911-03-01 in New York City, New York, USA
Died: 1998-07-29
Known For: Acting
Biography
American character actor of rather bizarre range, a member of the so-called John Ford Stock Company. Originally a New York stage actor of some repute, Whitehead entered films in the 1930s. He played a wide variety of character parts, often quite different from his own actual age and type. He is probably most familiar as Al Joad in John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940). But twenty-two years later, in his fifth film for Ford, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Whitehead at 51 was playing a lollipop-licking schoolboy! He continued to work predominantly on the stage, appearing now and again in films or on television. In his last years, he suffered from cancer and died in 1998 in Dublin, Ireland, where he had lived in semi-retirement for many years.
Filmography
1992
1975
- Philadelphia, Here I Come as Ben Burton
1968
- The Lion in Winter as Bishop of Durham
1967
- Ulysses as Alexander J. Dowie
1963
- Summer Magic as Mr. Perkins
1962
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as Herbert Carruthers
- Panic in Year Zero! as Hogan
1961
- Hazel
- Two Rode Together as Lt. Whitehead
1959
- The Horse Soldiers as Otis 'Hoppy' Hopkins
1958
- The Last Hurrah as Norman Cass Jr.
- Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! as Isaac Goodpasture
1957
- Perry Mason as Harry Beacom
1955
- Gunsmoke as Hank Blenis
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents as Mr. Newton
1953
- The Body Beautiful as Oscar Blunt
1952
- Cavalcade of America
- Beware, My Lovely as Mr. Franks
- The San Francisco Story as Alfey
- For Men Only as Prof. Bixby
1951
- Comin' Round the Mountain as Zeke
- The Hoodlum as Breckenridge
- Journey Into Light as Lippy
- FBI Girl as Chauncey
- The Scarf as Whoopie
1949
- Suspense as George Vance
- Ma and Pa Kettle as Mr. Billings
1948
- Studio One as Peter Kovalesky
- A Song Is Born as Professor Oddly
- Road House as Arthur
1947
- My Brother Talks to Horses as Mr. Puddy
- The Romance of Rosy Ridge as Ninny Nat
1940
- The Grapes of Wrath as Al Joad
1935
- The Scoundrel as Calhoun