Early Life
He was born as 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, 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.
Read more about this topic: Johnny Sheffield
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)