Claude Jarman Jr. on AllMovie

Despite his being selected as a candidate for "The Most Obnoxious Child Performer of All Time" in one of those vitriolic "Worst of Hollywood" books of the 1970s, Claude Jarman Jr. was in fact one of the better and more tolerable juvenile performers of the 1940s. Jarman was a Nashville elementary school student when, in 1945, he was chosen from hundreds of candidates to play backwoods youth Jody Baxter in the film version of Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's The Yearling. His sensitive, believable performance in this film won him a special 1946 Oscar for "most outstanding child performer of the year." His later film performances weren't quite as impressive, with the notable exception of his work in Intruder in the Dust (1949), which, like Yearling, was directed by Clarence Brown. Retiring from acting at the age of 22 in 1956, Jarman later headed his own movie company, Tel-West Films, and was executive producer of the "rockumentary" Fillmore (1972). Claude Jarman Jr. has also served as director of Cultural Affairs for the city of San Francisco, where his executive responsibilities ranged from the San Francisco Opera House to the city's annual film festival.