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 Fords 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.
Al Joad
Film 1940
Whoopie
Film 1951
Mr. Franks
Film 1952
Breckenridge
Film 1951
Norman Cass Jr.
Film 1958
Zeke
Film 1951
Herbert Carruthers
Film 1962
Film 1952
Alfey
Film 1952
Prof. Bixby
Film 1952
Ninny Nat
Film 1947
Chauncey
Film 1951
Mr. Billings
Film 1949
Mr. Puddy
Film 1947
Oscar Blunt
Film 1953
Lippy
Film 1951
Hank Blenis
Tv 1955
Harry Beacom
Tv 1957
Peter Kovalesky
Tv 1948
Mr. Newton
Tv 1955
Tv 1958
Tv 1961
George Vance
Tv 1949
Tv 1952
Simms
Tv 1955