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
Movie 1940
Whoopie
Movie 1951
Mr. Franks
Movie 1952
Breckenridge
Movie 1951
Norman Cass Jr.
Movie 1958
Zeke
Movie 1951
Herbert Carruthers
Movie 1962
Movie 1952
Alfey
Movie 1952
Prof. Bixby
Movie 1952
Ninny Nat
Movie 1947
Chauncey
Movie 1951
Mr. Billings
Movie 1949
Mr. Puddy
Movie 1947
Oscar Blunt
Movie 1953
Lippy
Movie 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