NPR's Robert Siegel has this remembrance of actor Johnny Sheffield, who played "Boy" in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s and '40s. Sheffield was 79 and died Monday at his home in Chula Vista, Calif., after falling from a ladder.
ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: But a natural birth was out of the question. After all, Tarzan and Jane lived in sin as well as in the jungle. They never got around to marrying. And because of that, movie censors would not let Jane get pregnant. So Tarzan found his son.</s>MAUREEN O: (as Jane Parker) Baby's got to have a name.</s>JOHNNY WEISSMULLER: (as Tarzan) Call it Boy.</s>SULLIVAN: Oh, but that's not a name.</s>JOHNNY WEISSMULLER: Boy.</s>SULLIVAN: Well, after all I am his mother.</s>JOHNNY WEISSMULLER: Tarzan father, call Boy.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: Father and son swung from trees and bonded onscreen. Here, Tarzan tells strange joke, Boy laugh.</s>JOHNNY WEISSMULLER: (As Tarzan) (Foreign language spoken)</s>JOHNNY SHEFFIELD: (As Boy) (Foreign language spoken)</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: In all, Sheffield made eight Tarzan movies before going on to play more jungle- themed characters with proper names. He was Bomba the Jungle Boy in a dozen films, plus Bantu the Zebra Boy in a failed TV pilot. But still, we'll always remember Johnny Sheffield, the man, as Boy.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.