Winfield R. Sheehan was an American film producer and executive. At the Fox Film Corporation in Hollywood he was chief of production from 1926 to 1935, when Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...

 and Joe Schenck's 20th Century Films acquired Fox and renamed the studios 20th Century Fox.

Sheehan's career highlights include winning the 1932 Best Picture Academy Award for Cavalcade and launching John Wayne's career in The Big Trail

The Big Trail

The Big Trail is a lavish early widescreen movie shot on location across the American West starring John Wayne in his first leading role and directed by Raoul Walsh....

(1930). Most famously, he nurtured the budding stardom of then-child star Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...

, in such films as Stand Up and Cheer!

Stand Up and Cheer!

Stand Up and Cheer! is a 1934 American musical film directed by Hamilton MacFadden. The screenplay by Lew Brown and Ralph Spence was based upon a story idea by Will Rogers and Philip Klein. The film is about efforts undertaken during the Great Depression to boost the morale of the country...

and Curly Top

Curly Top

Curly Top is an American musical film directed by Irving Cummings. The screenplay by Patterson McNutt and Arthur J. Beckhard focuses on the adoption of a young orphan by a wealthy bachelor and his romantic attraction to her older sister .Together with The Littlest Rebel, another Temple vehicle,...

.

Sheehan is briefly mentioned by fictitious Fox film producer Morris Weissman in the film Gosford Park

Gosford Park

Gosford Park is a 2001 British-American mystery comedy-drama film directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes. The film stars an ensemble cast, which includes Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, and Michael Gambon...

.