[2] Born at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, son of Samuel George Whitemore (1907-1987), a clerk at an oil company, and Kathleen Alma, née Fletcher,[3] Whitemore studied for the stage at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he was taught by Peter Barkworth, then on the staff at RADA, who recognised he had the potential to make a significant contribution to the theatre, "though perhaps not as an actor.
His work for American TV includes Concealed Enemies (1984), about the Alger Hiss case, and The Gathering Storm (2002), which focused on a troubled period in the marriage of Clementine and Winston Churchill just prior to World War II.
Whitemore's film credits include: Man at the Top (1973), All Creatures Great and Small (1975), The Blue Bird (1976), The Return of the Soldier (1982), 84 Charing Cross Road (1987) and Utz (1992).
The Best of Friends (1987), about the friendship Dame Laurentia McLachlan, the Abbess of Stanbrook Abbey in Worcestershire, shared with George Bernard Shaw and Sydney Cockerell, director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
An adaptation by Whitemore of the Luigi Pirandello play As You Desire Me was staged at London's Playhouse Theatre in 2005 with Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead.