Film, TV, and Theatre Actor
Whitehead first appeared on Broadway in Martin Beck Theatre performing in The Lake (1933) in 55 performances from December 1933 to February 1934 which was Katharine Hepburn's first Broadway leading role and 11 other plays by 1939.
O. Z. Whitehead was one of the last surviving members of John Ford's "stock company" of character actors. Along with John Carradine, Donald Meek, Ward Bond, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr. et al., Whitehead was one of the many actors regularly employed by Ford to breathe life into even the smallest roles in his films. His best- known part was that of Al in Ford's 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.
The Scoundrel (1935) by Ben Hecht, and Charles MacArthur which won a 1936 Oscar for Best Original Story was Whitehead's first film. Whitehead most famously played Al Joad (Henry Fonda's younger brother) in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath (1940) which was nominated for and won several Oscars. Whitehead starred as Clarence in a stage production of Life with Father with Lillian Gish among a total of more than 50 films and TV series episodes performances. Whitehead's first TV episode was The Arrow and the Bow in Cavalcade of America in 1953 and continued in other shows like Gunsmoke (1958), Bonanza (1960), and two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960-1). Shortly thereafter Whitehead moved to Ireland and participated in theatre arts there.
In 1966 he won the Best Supporting Actor award at the Dublin Theatre Festival for his performance in Eugene O'Neill's Hughie, a part he was to reprise at the Peacock until 1989. In 1983 he played the role of American Ambassador David Gray in the RTÉ television drama Caught in a Free State, set in neutral Ireland during World War II. His final role was as the narrator/Voice in the Irish horror movie Biological Maintenance Department (1997).
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Famous quotes containing the words theatre and/or actor:
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