Bobby Sherman, a onetime teen idol who scored a string of lightweight hits in the late '60s and early '70s, has passed away. John Stamos shared the news of Sherman's passing on Instagram, and TMZ confirms that Sherman died of cancer at home in Encino, California today. Sherman was 81.
Robert Cabot Sherman, Jr., the son of a milkman, was born in Santa Monica, and he trained as a singer while playing high school football in Van Nuys. After high school, he studied child psychology at Pierce College, but his life changed when a girlfriend took him to a cast party for the 1965 film The Greatest Story Ever Told. Sherman got up to sing with the band at the party, and the actors Natalie Wood, Jane Fonda, and Sal Mineo walked up to him and told him that they wanted to jumpstart his career. Sherman had already released a few singles on small labels in the early '60s, and Mineo wrote and produced another single, "Nobody's Sweetheart" for him. The actors also found Sherman an agent, and he soon joined the cast of the dance-party show Shindig!, singing other people's hits on the air.
Starting in 1968, Bobby Sherman played a stammering boyfriend on the sitcom Here Come The Brides, and he also made guest appearances on shows like The Monkees, The FBI, Mod Squad. As a teen sensation, Sherman split his time between acting and recording. His 1969 single "Little Woman" reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and he also reached the top 10 with his songs "La La La (If I Had You)," "Easy Come, Easy Go," and "Julie, Do Ya Love Me." Later on, Sherman said that girls at his shows screamed so loud that he actually suffered from hearing loss.
Sherman's teen idol years didn't last long, and he eventually left entertainment behind, training as a paramedic and then becoming a medical training officer for the LAPD. He occasionally returned, taking guest roles on shows like Murder, She Wrote and Frasier. He published his memoir in 1996, and then he joined a teen-idol nostalgia tour in 1998. Check out some of Sherman's work below.
