O.Z. Whitehead
Acting

O.Z. Whitehead

Born 1 March 1911 · New York City, New York, USA · Died 29 July 1998

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.

Known for

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Grapes of Wrath
The Lion in Winter
The Horse Soldiers
Two Rode Together
Panic in Year Zero!
The Last Hurrah
Summer Magic
A Song Is Born
Road House
Beware, My Lovely
Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!
Philadelphia, Here I Come
The Lion in Winter
Ulysses
Summer Magic
Panic in Year Zero!
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Two Rode Together
The Horse Soldiers
The Last Hurrah
Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!
Beware, My Lovely
The San Francisco Story
For Men Only
The Scarf
The Hoodlum
Comin' Round the Mountain
FBI Girl
Journey Into Light
Ma and Pa Kettle
Road House
A Song Is Born
The Romance of Rosy Ridge
My Brother Talks to Horses
The Grapes of Wrath
The Scoundrel
O.Z. Whitehead · Midrow