O.Z. Whitehead
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.
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Full filmography
- Perry Mason (1957) as Harry Beacom
- Gunsmoke (1955) as Hank Blenis
- Hazel (1961)
- Studio One (1948) as Peter Kovalesky
- Suspense (1949) as George Vance
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) as Mr. Newton
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) as Simms
- Cavalcade of America (1952)
- The Lion in Winter (1968) as Bishop of Durham
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) as Herbert Carruthers
- The Grapes of Wrath (1940) as Al Joad
- The Horse Soldiers (1959) as Otis 'Hoppy' Hopkins
- A Song Is Born (1948) as Professor Oddly
- Two Rode Together (1961) as Lt. Whitehead
- Road House (1948) as Arthur
- Summer Magic (1963) as Mr. Perkins
- The Last Hurrah (1958) as Norman Cass Jr.
- Ulysses (1967) as Alexander J. Dowie
- The San Francisco Story (1952) as Alfey
- The San Francisco Story (1952)
- Comin' Round the Mountain (1951) as Zeke
- Panic in Year Zero! (1962) as Hogan
- The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947) as Ninny Nat
- Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958) as Isaac Goodpasture