His mother, a native of New York City, was a Vassar College graduate with a liberal arts education who loved books and lectured widely.

MGM was searching for a suitable youngster to play the adopted son of Tarzan in its next jungle movie with stars Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan.

When he was 7 years old,[3] Sheffield was taken to an audition where Weissmuller chose him over more than 300 juvenile actors interviewed for the part of "Boy" in Tarzan Finds a Son!

[4] In that same year, Sheffield appeared in the Busby Berkeley movie musical Babes in Arms with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, classmates of his at the studio school.

He appeared with many other performers over the years, including Jeanette MacDonald, Pat O'Brien, Cesar Romero, Ronald Reagan and Beverly Garland.

After he outgrew the role of Boy, the teenaged Sheffield went on to star in his own jungle movie series for Allied Artists.

He then made a pilot for a television series, Bantu, the Zebra Boy, which was created, produced, and directed by his father, Reginald Sheffield.