John Francis Sheridan (1843 – 26 December 1908) was an Irish-American comic actor and female impersonator who had a long career in Australia, mostly in burlesque.

[1] His best-known character was "Widow O'Brien" in Fun on the Bristol, a musical farce written by George Fawcett Rowe, and first produced at Newport, Rhode Island, but was heavily criticised.

Later successes include the opera The Earl and the Girl, in which he was associated with Miss Heba Harlow,[3] also A Trip to Chicago (written jointly by Sheridan and Fred Lyster),[4] as "Johanna Murphy"[5] and Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun.

He died of heart failure in the early hours of Boxing Day[6] at the Criterion Hotel, Newcastle, in which city he was due to appear in Cinderella for William Anderson that night.

He had been suffering poor health for a long period, and had recently lost a fortune when a financial institution, in which he had invested heavily, failed.