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This file photo shows Johnny Weissmuller Jr. (right) looking up to his former swimming champ dad Johnny Weissmuller. Also shown is Johnny Sheffield of Pasadena, California (centre), who played the role of Tarzan's son in Weissmuller's Tarzan films. Image Credit: AP

California: Johnny Sheffield, who played the character Boy in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s and '40s, has died at age 79.

His wife, Patty Sheffield, told the Los Angeles Times that he died Friday of a heart attack at his home in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista. She says he fell off a ladder while pruning a palm tree four hours earlier.

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

He later played another jungle boy, Bomba, in a dozen movies but quit the business after the last one 1955.

Johnny Sheffield went on to earn a business degree and worked for various companies and in contracting and real estate.