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Johnny Sheffield 1931 - 2010

John Matthew Sheffield was born on April 11, 1931 in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California United States, and died at age 79 years old on October 15, 2010 in Chula Vista. John Sheffield was buried on October 15, 2010 at Cremation in Chula Vista, CA in Chula Vista, San Diego County.

John Matthew Sheffield

Johnny Sheffield

April 11, 1931

Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California, United States

October 15, 2010

Chula Vista, California, United States

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Johnny Sheffield John Sheffield (1931 - 2010)

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John Matthew Sheffield's History: 1931 - 2010

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Introduction

Johnny Sheffield Born John Matthew Sheffield Cassan, April 11, 1931, Pasadena, California, U.S. Died October 15, 2010 (aged 79) Chula Vista, California, U.S. Occupation Actor Years active 1939–1955 Spouse(s) Patricia Sheffield (1959–2010) (his death) 3 children Johnny Sheffield (born John Matthew Sheffield Cassan, April 11, 1931 – October 15, 2010) was an American child actor who, between 1939 and 1947, played Boy in the Tarzan film series and, between 1949 and 1955, played Bomba the Jungle Boy. Early life Sheffield was born John Matthew Sheffield Cassan in Pasadena, California, the second child of actor Reginald Sheffield and Louise Van Loon (January 21, 1905 – April 14, 1987). His older sister was Mary Alice Sheffield Cassan and his younger brother was William Hart Sheffield Cassan (actor Billy Sheffield). His father was himself a former juvenile performer when he came to the United States from his native England. His mother, a native of New York City, was a Vassar College graduate with a liberal arts education who loved books and lectured widely. 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. Tarzan and other films 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 7 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 (1939). 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. Bomba and Bantu 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. Post-Hollywood careers Sheffield decided to leave the industry and enrolled in college to further his education. He lived and worked for a time in Arizona. John and Patricia Sheffield were married in 1959 in Yuma, Arizona. They had three children: Patrick, Stewart, and Regina. After leaving show business, Sheffield completed a business degree at UCLA. Turning his attention to other fields, he involved himself variously in farming, real estate, and construction. For a time, he was a representative for the Santa Monica Seafood Company importing lobsters from Baja California in Mexico. In his later years, Johnny Sheffield lived in Southern California where he wrote articles about his Hollywood years and sold copies of the TV pilot Bantu, the Zebra Boy on video. Death Sheffield's wife, Patty, said that he fell from a ladder while pruning a palm tree. Though his injuries seemed minor, he died of a heart attack four hours later on October 15, 2010, in Chula Vista, California, aged 79.
04/11

1931

Birthday

April 11, 1931

Birthdate

Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California United States

Birthplace

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Nationality & Locations

Nationalities: American. British. Dutch. Had one wife until he died, Patricia Sheffield. They had three children. Children: Stewart Sheffield, Patrick Sheffield, Regina Sheffield. Parents: Reginald Sheffield, Louise Van Loon
Early Life & Education

College Graduate. Sheffield retired from show business to study for a business degree at the University of California, Los Angeles and he invested his jungle money in real estate. He later spent many years working as a representative for the Santa Monica Seafood Company.
Professional Career

Filmography Year Title Role 1939 Tarzan Finds a Son! Boy Babes in Arms Bobs 1940 Lucky Cisco Kid Tommy Lawrence Knute Rockne, All American Knute Rockne (at age 7) Little Orvie Orvie Stone 1941 Tarzan's Secret Treasure Boy Million Dollar Baby Alvie Grayson 1942 Tarzan's New York Adventure Boy 1943 Tarzan Triumphs Boy Tarzan's Desert Mystery Boy 1945 Roughly Speaking Frankie (at age 9) Tarzan and the Amazons Boy 1946 Tarzan and the Leopard Woman Boy 1947 Tarzan and the Huntress Boy 1949 Bomba, the Jungle Boy Bomba Bomba on Panther Island Bomba 1950 The Lost Volcano Bomba Bomba and the Hidden City Bomba 1951 The Lion Hunters Bomba Bomba and the Elephant Stampede Bomba 1952 African Treasure Bomba Bomba and the Jungle Girl Bomba 1953 Safari Drums Bomba 1954 Killer Leopard Bomba The Golden Idol Bomba 1955 Lord of the Jungle Bomba (final film role)
Personal Life & Family

Had one wife until he died, Patricia Sheffield. They had three children. Children: Stewart Sheffield, Patrick Sheffield, Regina Sheffield. Parents: Reginald Sheffield, Louise Van Loon
10/15

2010

Death

October 15, 2010

Death date

Falling off a ladder and then a heart attack.

Cause of death

Chula Vista, California United States
Death location

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10/15

2010

Gravesite & Burial

October 15, 2010

Funeral date
Cremation in Chula Vista, CA in Chula Vista, San Diego County, California United States
Burial location
Obituary

Johnny Sheffield obituary The child actor who played Boy, the foundling son of Tarzan and Jane, in eight Hollywood films Wed 27 Oct 2010 14.01 EDT After three hit Tarzan movies starring Johnny Weissmuller in the title role and Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane, MGM decided to give a son to the apeman and his mate in Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939). However, he had to be a foundling because, according to the Legion of Decency, the scantily clad jungle couple were not married, and presumably never had sex. "Boy", as he was named, was played by Johnny Sheffield, who has died aged 79 of a heart attack at his California home after falling off a ladder while pruning a tree. In the Tarzan films, the fact that the orphaned offspring of a British couple killed in a plane crash in the jungle had an American accent was never explained. Neither Tarzan, whose dialogue was limited to grunts and monosyllables, nor Boy bore much resemblance to the original characters as conceived by Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose novels portrayed both the apeman, Lord Greystoke, and his son, Jack "Korak" Clayton, as cultivated and articulate. Burroughs, however, complained all the way to the bank. In the eight Tarzan films he made, from the age of seven to 16, the curly-haired Sheffield followed Weissmuller through the Culver City backlot jungle in California (amplified by stock shots), swimming, vine-swinging, and imitating the famous apeman cry. Like Weissmuller, Sheffield, who had a physical grace and a carefully arranged loincloth, had to cope with a variety of wild animals, revolting natives, and dastardly white adventurers. Sheffield was born in Pasadena, California, the son of British-born Reginald Sheffield, who had also been a child actor in films, credited as Eric Desmond. His American mother, Louise, was a Vassar College graduate with a liberal arts education who loved books and lectured widely. In 1938, aged seven, Sheffield appeared in Los Angeles in the role of Pud, the juvenile lead of the sentimental Paul Osborn play, On Borrowed Time, before taking over the part for a short period on Broadway. In the same year, he played Napoleon's small son in The Man On the Rock, in MGM's Historical Mysteries series of short films. It was Weissmuller who picked Sheffield for the role of Boy out of 300 applicants. Weissmuller, whom Sheffield called Big John, "was like a father to me. He was always looking out for me. We worked with a lot of live animals, and a lot of times, when they got tired, the animals would get feisty. There was this one big chimp who got pretty mad one day and was about to bite me while we were on the set. But Big John stuck his leg between me and the chimp, and he was the one who was bitten." Boy plays an important role in Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941), when he discovers some gold and is captured by evil natives before being rescued by Tarzan and his elephants. Unusually, Boy befriends a young African lad, one of the few black people to say something more than "Yes, Bwana!" in the films. The last of the MGM Tarzan films with Weissmuller, O'Sullivan, and Sheffield was Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942), which transplanted the trio from the never-never jungle to the harsh realities of Manhattan, where Boy is held, having been kidnapped. In 1942, RKO acquired the Tarzan franchise, as well as the services of Weissmuller and Sheffield. O'Sullivan left, citing boredom, to be replaced by Brenda Joyce. Boy, who had always called O'Sullivan "Mother", addressed Joyce as "Jane". "With Maureen, I related more to Jane as a child," Sheffield recalled. "Then I became old enough to notice how attractive Brenda was." The first RKO feature, Tarzan Triumphs (1943), struck a topical note, pitting Tarzan against a gang of Nazi agents. He declared "Now Tarzan Make War", an unusually verbose utterance, though he might have said, "Now Tarzan Make Bs", because of the diminished production values. After Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943), Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946), and Tarzan and the Huntress (1947), Sheffield, by then a big Boy, was dropped by the studio. Monogram, the Poverty Row studio, picked him up for the series of quickie movies based on the books about Bomba, the Jungle Boy, written in the 1920s and 30s under the nom de plume Roy Rockwood. Sheffield appeared in 12 of them, starting with Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949) and ending with Lord of the Jungle (1955), all directed by Ford Beebe, splicing generous stock footage from the 1930 documentary Africa Speaks into each film. The almost identical plots usually included Bomba rescuing a young woman from some beast, animal, or human. At the age of 24, Sheffield retired from show business to study for a business degree at the University of California, Los Angeles and he invested his jungle money in real estate. He later spent many years working as a representative for the Santa Monica Seafood Company. He is survived by his wife, Patty, whom he married in 1959, two sons and a daughter. They had three children: Patrick, Stewart, and Regina. Johnny Sheffield (Jon Matthew Sheffield Cassan), actor, born 11 April 1931; died 15 October 2010 He was cremated.

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