Johnny Sheffield

Overview

Born
April 11, 1931 · Pasadena, California, USA
Died
October 15, 2010 · Chula Vista, California, USA (heart attack following fall from ladder)
Birth name
John Matthew Sheffield Cassan
Height
5′ 11½″ (1.82 m)

His father was the actor Reginald Sheffield who began as a child star and later turned to character acting. Johnny appeared at age seven on Broadway in the original cast of "On Borrowed Time". When Maureen O'Sullivan wanted out of her Jane role in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series, it was decided that she and Tarzan would adopt a son (they had to adopt, according to the Legion of Decency, because they weren't married) before she died. Weissmuller personally chose Sheffield for the part of Boy, a part inspired by Bobby Nelson's portrayal in Tarzan the Mighty (1928); athletic by nature, he was taught to swim by swimming Olympian Weissmuller. Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939) was such a success that MGM signed Sheffield to six more films as Tarzan's Boy. By the time of Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948), he was too big for the part; the film merely said he was away at school. When Monogram Studios learned he had been dropped, they picked him up for the series of movies based on the Roy Rockwood Bomba: The Jungle Boy (1949) movies. He made twelve of these between 1949 and 1955.
- IMDb mini biography by: Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>

Johnny and his brother Billy Sheffield were both in Knute Rockne All American (1940), playing Knute Rockne at different ages.
He is best remembered for playing Boy, the adopted son of Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan in eight Tarzan movies, and for his role as Bomba the Jungle Boy in a dozen low-budget Monogram features.
Suffered his fatal heart attack on October 15, 2010 at his home four hours after he fell off a ladder while pruning a palm tree. His brother Billy Sheffield died two months later.
By 1947, his role as "Boy", Tarzan's adopted son, in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films at both M-G-M and RKO came to an end, as he had literally outgrown the role. Several years later, when he began a series of low budget films as "Bomba" for Monogram, he was almost six feet tall.
The only actor to play Tarzan's adopted son in more than one theatrical motion picture.

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