Full Name John Ingolia Parents Peter Ingoglia Role Child actor | Name John Megna | |
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Born November 9, 1952 ( 1952-11-09 ) Queens, New York City, U.S. Cause of death AIDS-related complications Occupation Stage, film, television actor, teacher Nieces Joely Fisher, Tricia Leigh Fisher Movies Similar People Phillip Alford, Brock Peters, Mary Badham, Frank Overton, Collin Wilcox Died September 4, 1995(aged 42), Los Angeles, California, United States Zodiac Sign Scorpio Nationality American | ||
John Megna - Actor
John Megna (November 9, 1952 – September 4, 1995) was an American actor. His best known role is that of "Dill" in the film To Kill A Mockingbird.
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John Megna - Actor
Early life
Megna was born in Queens, New York, as John Ingolia. His father was a pharmacist, and his mother was a one-time nightclub singer. He was a half-brother of Connie Stevens and an ex-brother-in-law of Eddie Fisher. He attended Holy Cross High School in Flushing, New York.
Career
At age 6, Megna made his acting debut in Frank Loesser's Broadway musical Greenwillow. At 7, he starred in All the Way Home, an adaptation of James Agee's novel about the effect of a father's death on his family. This led to his being cast as Charles Baker "Dill" Harris, the toothy young summer visitor in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. The character was based on writer Truman Capote, a childhood friend and later associate of Harper Lee, the author of the original novel.
Megna appeared in many television programs throughout the 1960s and 1970s; he portrayed a near-blind child in the Naked City episode "A Horse Has a Big Head - Let Him Worry!", one of the "Onlies" in the "Miri" episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, Stephan in I Spy (1967), and Little Adam in the NASA-produced animated shorts The Big World of Little Adam.
His other film appearances include Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Godfather: Part II (1974), The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976) with John Travolta, and Go Tell the Spartans (1978) with Burt Lancaster. He also acted in two car-chase films starring Burt Reynolds and directed by Hal Needham – Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and The Cannonball Run (1981).
Later career
Megna graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, as a performing arts major.
In his adulthood, he shifted his focus to directing theater productions. He established L.A. Arts, a nonprofit theater organization based in Los Angeles, serving as its inaugural director. Subsequently, he pursued a career in education, becoming a high school English teacher. His most recent teaching position was at James Monroe High School in North Hills, California.
Death
John Megna died from AIDS-related complications on September 4, 1995, at Midway Hospital in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 42.