OZ Whitehead

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Oothout Zabriskie Whitehead (born March 1, 1911 in Manhattan , New York , † July 29, 1998 in Dublin , Ireland ) was an American actor and author .

life and career

Oothout Zabriskie Whitehead was born in 1911 into a wealthy New York banking family and studied at Harvard University . He made his professional stage debut on Broadway in his hometown New York, where he appeared alongside greats like Lillian Gish , Alfred Lunt and Katharine Hepburn . He was friends with Hepburn and she encouraged him to continue his acting career against his mother's wishes. During World War II, Whitehead served in the Pacific as a soldier despite his pacifist beliefs.

Whitehead made his film debut in 1935 alongside Noël Coward in the stage adaptation A Charming Villain . In the following decades he played mostly eccentric supporting characters, both good and bad. In 1940 Whitehead played what is perhaps his best-known film role as Al Joad alongside Henry Fonda in John Ford's classic literary film adaptation, The Fruits of Wrath . Whitehead was later a regular Ford actor and starred in several of his films until the early 1960s. At over 50, Whitehead played a youth in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962); he was nine years older than his film father Denver Pyle . From the 1950s onwards, Whitehead appeared in guest roles in a number of television series such as Bonanza , Perry Mason and Alfred Hitchcock .

As early as 1950 Whitehead, feeling disaffected with Hollywood, had joined the Baha'i Faith . In 1963 Whitehead moved to Dublin , where he continued to work as an actor in theater and film for the following decades. In 1968 he played the Bishop Hugh de Puiset in the Oscar-winning historical drama The Lion in Winter at the side of Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole and Anthony Hopkins . Whitehead's main focus, however, was now on teaching Baha'm; he was one of the pioneers of this religion in Ireland and a member of the Baha'i National Spiritual Council . He wrote three books about his faith between 1976 and 1996 and was a member of the PEN

OZ Whitehead, who was never married, died of cancer in 1998 at the age of 87.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Obituary: OZ Whitehead . In: The Independent . August 12, 1998 ( independent.co.uk [accessed April 26, 2018]).
  2. ^ OZ Whitehead | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie. Retrieved April 26, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b O.Z. 'Zebby' Whitehead to be buried in Dublin today . In: The Irish Times . ( irishtimes.com [accessed April 26, 2018]).
  4. ↑ Obituary: OZWhitehead. May 2, 2008, accessed April 26, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Whitehead, OZ
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Whitehead, Oothout Zabriskie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actor and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Manhattan , New York
DATE OF DEATH July 29, 1998
Place of death Dublin , Ireland