- Born
- Died
- Birth nameOothout Zabriskie Whitehead Jr.
- Nickname
- Zebby
- 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 (I)''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.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
- James Cagney-like voice
- After moving to Ireland in 1963, Whitehead became, first and foremost, a distinguished pioneer who devoted the final three and a half decades of his life to the nurturing and consolidation of the distinctive Bahá'í community in Ireland as a historian and chronicler.
- Attending Harvard University and switched majors from English to dramatics against the wishes of his parents. He also developed a lifelong friendship with Katharine Hepburn's brother Dick while there.
- A devout anti-war pacifist, he nevertheless served during WWII and was discharged as a sergeant, but a curvature of the spine kept him from seeing any combat during his active duty.
- Beat out the likes of Mickey Rooney and Glenn Ford for his role of Al Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940).
- He was 50 years old when he played the teenager Herbert Carruthers in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).
- War has the effect of accelerating change in all the worst possible ways. People become harder, more ruthless.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
