Biography for
Jon Whiteley More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

Mini Biography

Amazingly talented child star Jon Whiteley was born on February 19, 1945 in Monymusk, Scotland, and put together an enviable, albeit brief, career in 1950s film drama. This precocious talent started things off winningly by earning first prize for verse-speaking at the Aberdeen Music Festival when he was only 6. This led to his indoctrination into films, making a highly auspicious debut but a year later with the suspenser Hunted (1952), co-starring as a young runaway abducted and subsequently befriended by fugitive Dirk Bogarde.

Although this intriguingly offbeat-looking, tousled blond appeared in only five films during his brief reign, he made an award-winning impression. His astonishingly natural performance as Harry in only his second film The Kidnappers (1953) so captivated critics that he, along with fellow child co-star Vincent Winter, was awarded an honorary, miniature "Juvenile Oscar" at the Academy Awards ceremony of 1954. In this touching drama, the two boys play orphaned brothers who secretly adopt an abandoned baby after their grandfather's refusal to allow them to keep a pet dog. Other superb portrayals came Jon's way as Fritz Lang's young protagonist John Mohune in Moonfleet (1955) opposite Stewart Granger, and in The Weapon (1957) as a lad who accidentally shoots his friend with a gun used long ago in a murder. Jon also scored in The Spanish Gardener (1956) as the lonely son of a British consul living in Madrid who finds solace with (again) Dirk Bogarde as the title character. Following a tiny spat of TV appearances, his career ended as quickly as it began. After abandoning the limelight, he became a respected art historian at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.

Trivia

As a historian of art at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, he has provided the introduction to "Leonid Pasternak: The Russian Years, 1875-1921: A Critical Study and Catalogue," and put together such handbooks as "Oxford and the Pre-Raphaelites."

	You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.
	With our Resume service you can add photos and build a complete resume to help you achieve the best possible presentation on the IMDb. Click here to add your resume and/or your photos to IMDb.

Browse biographies section by name

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z