Johnny Sheffield

Johnny Sheffield, originally named John Matthew Sheffield Cassan, was an American actor who gained fame as a child, teenager, and young adult. His acting career spanned from 1938 to 1955.

Sheffield shot to stardom in 1938 when he took on the juvenile lead in a West Coast staging of the acclaimed Broadway production On Borrowed Time, which featured Dudley Digges and Victor Moore as Gramps. He portrayed Pud, a significant role for a young actor, and later made his Broadway debut as a replacement in the same role. The following year, after his father stumbled upon a Hollywood Reporter article that inquired about potential “Tarzan Jr.” candidates, he arranged for an audition. MGM was on the lookout for a young actor to play Tarzan's adopted son in an upcoming film starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan. At just five years old, Sheffield won the role of "Boy" in Tarzan Finds a Son, beating out over 300 other hopefuls. That same year, he appeared in the Busby Berkeley musical Babes in Arms alongside Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, his classmates at the studio school.

Over the years, Sheffield worked with a variety of notable actors, including Jeanette MacDonald, Pat O’Brien, and Ronald Reagan. He portrayed the young version of Knute Rockne in the film Knute Rockne, All American, which is regarded as one of his most prestigious roles.

Sheffield played the character Boy in three Tarzan films produced by MGM and five additional films after the series transitioned to RKO, where Brenda Joyce starred as Jane in the last three movies featuring Sheffield. After aging out of the role, he starred in his own series of jungle films for Allied Artists, most notably in the 1949 production Bomba, the Jungle Boy, a role he reprised 12 times, more than any other character he played. His final film appearance as Bomba came in 1955