Career
He appeared in a number of films, including King for a Day (1934), The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), The Green Pastures (1936),, Gone With the Wind (1939), Third Finger, Left Hand (1940), Among the Living (1941), Road to Zanzibar (1941), Cabin in the Sky (1943), Stormy Weather (1943), The Lost Weekend (1945), My Brother Talks to Horses (1947), Banjo (1947) and The Sun Shines Bright (1953), his last movie. Whitman also performed on stage, with a role in The Last Mile and various other productions. Whitman was the wartime host of the Jubilee radio show aimed at African-American troops.
He portrayed the character Bill Jackson in The Beulah Show on radio from 1952 to 1953.
The Last Mile (1930) as Vincent Jackson Chamberlain Brown"s Scrap Book (1932) as Ashley the penitent Whitman died of a liver ailment on August 5, 1954 in Hollywood.