Johnny Sheffield's father was himself a former juvenile performer when he came to the United States from his native England.
14 Facts About Johnny Sheffield
2.
Johnny Sheffield's mother, a native of New York City, was a Vassar College graduate with a liberal arts education who loved books and lectured widely.
3.
In 1938, Johnny 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.
4.
Johnny Sheffield later went to New York as a replacement and performed the role on Broadway.
5.
Newspaper articles at the time mentioned erroneously that Johnny Sheffield was only 5 years old.
6.
In that same year, Johnny Sheffield appeared in the Busby Berkeley movie musical Babes in Arms with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, classmates of his at the studio school.
7.
Johnny Sheffield appeared with many other performers over the years, including Jeanette MacDonald, Pat O'Brien, Cesar Romero, Ronald Reagan and Beverly Garland.
8.
Johnny Sheffield played the childhood version of the title character in Knute Rockne, All American, perhaps the most prestigious film in which he had a role.
9.
Johnny 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.
10.
Johnny Sheffield retired from films at age 24 after starring in his twelfth Bomba film in 1955.
11.
Johnny Sheffield then made a pilot for a television series, Bantu the Zebra Boy, which was created, produced, and directed by his father, Reginald Sheffield.
12.
Johnny Sheffield decided to leave the industry and enrolled in college to further his education.
13.
Johnny Sheffield lived and worked for a time in Arizona.
14.
Johnny Sheffield married Patricia Sheffield in 1959 in Yuma, Arizona.