O.Z. Whitehead's photo

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

1975

1968

1967

1963

1962

1961

1959

1958

1957

1955

1953

1952

1951

1949

1948

1947

1940

1935