John Megna

The Boy Who Became Truman Capote

Robert Mulligan wasn't looking for a conventional child actor when he prepared the shoot of To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962. He needed someone who could embody Dill, that outsider boy directly inspired by the childhood of Truman Capote. John Megna landed the role because he projected a strange mix of fragility and mischief that few adults could imitate.

That shoot at the Universal studios defined his public image forever. He was barely nine years old and already shared scenes with Gregory Peck without blinking. But early fame is often a loan with interest rates far too high for a boy born in Brooklyn.

It was the start of a short and unique career.

Long before arriving in Hollywood, he already knew what it meant to step onto the stage in New York. In 1960 he took part in the play All the Way Home and won the praise of Broadway theater critics. His sister Connie Stevens was already a star, so show business was no stranger to him at all.

Studio Lights and Outer Space

Then television came along to showcase his small face. In 1966 he appeared in the episode Miri of the series Star Trek, playing one of those kids who survived on a planet without adults. It was one of his most memorable appearances outside classic cinema, because his unsettling gaze fit the atmosphere of science fiction.

The industry quickly typecast him in roles as a peculiar or slightly disturbed kid. He appeared in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte in 1964 alongside Bette Davis and showed he could hold his own against the legends of the Golden Age. His paycheck during those years helped support his family while other kids his age simply played baseball.

But physical growth is the worst enemy of a child actor.

By the mid-70s his screen presence inevitably began to fade. He acted in The Boy with the Plastic Bubble in 1976, sharing the cast with a young John Travolta. It was one of his last major credits before he decided that film would not be his final destination.

A Refuge in the Los Angeles Classrooms

Megna never sank into the traumatic oblivion that consumes other broken toys of the industry. He studied at Cornell University and decided his place was in education. He spent much of his adult life teaching English and history at high schools in Los Angeles, far from the spotlight and the red carpets.

His students sometimes discovered his past when TV reruns aired at night. But he preferred to talk about literature rather than his days on movie sets. So his transition to civilian life was far more pragmatic and far less sensational than the press of the era tended to report.

And the gamble paid off.

He died on September 4, 1995 at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. He was 42 years old and suffered complications from AIDS during an especially harsh stage of the epidemic in California. His death certificate closed a biography that began under the spotlights and ended in the quiet of a high school classroom.