Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Johnny Sheffield, R. I. P.

Johnny Sheffield, ‘Boy’ in Tarzan Movies, Dies at 79 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com: "HULA VISTA, Calif. (AP) — Johnny Sheffield, who played the character Boy in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s and ’40s, died on Friday at his home here. He was 79.

Mr. Sheffield beat out more than 300 youngsters for the role of Boy in the 1939 movie “Tarzan Finds a Son!” and went on to co-star with Johnny Weissmuller in seven more Tarzan films.

He later played another jungle boy, Bomba, in a dozen low-budget movies but quit the business after the last one 1955. He went on to earn a business degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and worked for various companies and in contracting and real estate."

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

1 comment:

Nik Morton said...

Not taking anything away from Johnny, but why oh why did Hollywood call Tarzan's 'adopted' son 'Boy'? His real son was Korak. It was obvious that the screenwriters and producers hadn't read any Tarzan books - he didn't speak in broken English. No wonder ERB hated most of those films (though doubtless welcomed the money from them...)