Johnny Sheffield

Johnny Sheffield

Johnny Sheffield (born John Matthew Sheffield Cassan) was an American child, teen, and young-adult actor, his screen career lasting from 1938 to 1955. In 1938, Sheffield became a child star after he was cast in the juvenile lead of a West Coast production of the highly successful Broadway play On Borrowed Time, which starred Dudley Digges and featured Victor Moore as Gramps. Sheffield played the role of Pud, a long role for a child. He later went to New York as a replacement and performed the role on Broadway. The following year, his father read an article in The Hollywood Reporter that asked, "Have you a Tarzan Jr. in your backyard?" He believed he did and set up an interview. MGM was searching for a suitable youngster to play the adopted son of Tarzan in its next jungle movie with stars Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan. When he was 5 years old, Sheffield was taken to an audition where Weissmuller chose him over more than 300 juvenile actors interviewed for the part of "Boy" in Tarzan Finds a Son. In that same year, Sheffield appeared in the Busby Berkeley movie musical Babes in Arms with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, classmates of his at the studio school. He appeared with many other performers over the years, including Jeanette MacDonald, Pat O'Brien, Cesar Romero, Ronald Reagan and Beverly Garland. He played the childhood version of the title character in Knute Rockne, All American, perhaps the most prestigious film in which he had a role. Sheffield played Boy in three Tarzan movies at MGM, and in another five after the star, Weissmuller, and production of the movie series moved to RKO. Brenda Joyce played Jane in the last three Tarzan movies in which Sheffield appeared. After he outgrew the role of Boy, the teenaged Sheffield went on to star in his own jungle movie series for Allied Artists. In 1949, he made Bomba, the Jungle Boy with co-star Peggy Ann Garner. In all, he appeared as Bomba 12 times, more than any other character he portrayed. Sheffield appeared in his last movie, as Bomba, in 1955. He then made a pilot for a television series, Bantu the Zebra Boy, which was created, produced and directed by his father, Reginald Sheffield. Although the production values were high compared to other TV jungle shows of the day, a sponsor was not found and the show was never produced as a weekly series.

Known For: Acting

Born: Pasadena, California, USA, 1931-04-11

Died: 2010-10-15

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1938	The Man on the Rock	Napoleon's Son (uncredited)	60
2	1939	Tarzan Finds a Son!	Boy	61
3	1939	Babes in Arms	Bobs (as John Sheffield)	64
4	1940	Little Orvie	Orvie Stone	70
5	1940	Lucky Cisco Kid	Tommy Lawrence	56
6	1940	Knute Rockne All American	Knute - Age 7	61
7	1941	Million Dollar Baby	Alvie Grayson	60
8	1941	Tarzan's Secret Treasure	Boy	58
9	1942	Tarzan's New York Adventure	Boy	64
10	1943	Tarzan Triumphs	Boy	61
11	1943	Tarzan's Desert Mystery	Boy	61
12	1945	Tarzan and the Amazons	Boy	63
13	1946	Tarzan and the Leopard Woman	Boy	57
14	1947	Tarzan and the Huntress	Boy	57
15	1949	Bomba, the Jungle Boy	Bomba	56
16	1949	Bomba on Panther Island	Bomba	50
17	1950	The Lost Volcano	Bomba	53
18	1950	Bomba and the Hidden City	Bomba	46
19	1951	The Lion Hunters	Bomba	53
20	1951	Elephant Stampede	Bomba	51
21	1952	African Treasure	Bomba	69
22	1952	Bomba and the Jungle Girl	Bomba	52
23	1953	Safari Drums	Bomba	52
24	1954	The Golden Idol	Bomba	42
25	1954	Killer Leopard	Bomba	50
26	1955	Lord of the Jungle	Bomba	64
27	2004	The One, the Only, the Real Tarzan	Self	72
28	2006	Charlie Chan's Lucky Director: H. Bruce Humberstone	Self	0

Johnny Sheffield

Film

Television