For Walt Disney, who personally invited Richard and Robert Sherman to become full-time composers at his Burbank studio in 1960, they were the “guys.”
The Sherman brothers were the ideal match for Disney's family movie factory, where they built a career creating what Richard Sherman once described as “upbeat, upbeat, happy songs that make people feel good.”
The songwriting brothers were responsible for the lively and memorable “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “A Spoonful of Sugar” from the hit 1964 musical film “Mary Poppins,” for which they won two of the film's five Oscars: for best score and Best music. song, the haunting “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”
Actress Debbie Reynolds poses with Academy Award winners Richard M. Sherman, right, and Robert Sherman, left, who received the award for “Mary Poppins” in Santa Monica on April 5, 1965.
(AP)
During their years at the studio, the Shermans were as much a part of Disney's early magic as the image makers, who designed the theme parks and imagined the attractions. Together, they wrote dozens of songs for Disney television productions and films such as “The Parent Trap,” “The Absent-Minded Professor,” “Summer Magic,” “That Darn Cat!”, “The Sword in the Stone,” “ The Jungle Book”, “The Aristocats”, “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and the cartoons “Winnie the Pooh”.
They also wrote the theme song for the Disney television show “The Wonderful World of Color” and wrote songs heard at Disney theme park attractions, including “The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room,” “There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” ” and the unforgettable — in ways both good and bad: “It’s a small world (after all).”
“They were made by God for Walt Disney,” said Dick Van Dyke, who starred in “Mary Poppins” with Julia Andrew. “Somehow they managed to convey Walt's meaning in those songs.”
Richard M. Sherman attends a special screening of “Mushka” at the Fine Arts Theater on July 11, 2023 in Beverly Hills.
(Elyse Jankowski/Getty Images)
Sherman, the gregarious half of the prolific songwriting duo, died Saturday, May 25, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, due to an age-related illness. She was 95 years old. The Walt Disney Company announced the news of her death in a press release.
Robert Sherman, two and a half years older than his brother, died in London in 2012 at age 86.
They were struggling songwriters when they (and Bob Roberts) wrote “Tall Paul,” which became the seventh hit in 1959 for Annette Funicello, whom the brothers consider their “lucky star.”
That led the Shermans to write a series of other pop songs for the ex-Mousketeer, including the hit “Pineapple Princess.” And that, in turn, led him to write songs for several film and television productions at Disney studios.
During a fateful meeting with “the boys” in August 1960, Disney handed them a copy of a book and told them, “Read it and tell me what you think.”
The book was “Mary Poppins,” PL Travers' story about a magical English nanny.
Sherman considered “Mary Poppins,” starring Julie Andrews in the title role and Dick Van Dyke as Bert the Chimney Sweep, to be “the turning point in our lives and it's the high point of our career.”
After reading the book, he and his brother “highlighted some chapters that seemed really musical to us. And when we showed Walt our notes and played the song sketches, he pulled out the book from him and underlined the same chapters,” Sherman recalled in a 2011 interview with the Quincy, Mass.-based Patriot Ledger.
At the end of their meeting, Disney surprised them by asking if they would like to work full time at the studio.
It was, Sherman said, “the best day of our lives.”
BJ Novak (left) and Jason Schwartzman (right), who play legendary Disney composers Richard and Robert Sherman, alongside the real Richard Sherman (center) for the new film Saving Mr. Banks, about the making of the film Mary Poppins.
(Los Angeles Times)
He never forgot the moment, once “Mary Poppins” finally began, when he first heard Andrews sing one of her songs for the movie.
“She sang 'A Spoonful of Sugar' with her incredible voice,” he recalled in a 2011 interview with the Philadelphia Daily News. “I was sitting in [the recording] I stood listening to him and was crying. It was magical.”
Van Dyke told The Times after Robert Sherman's death that the Sherman brothers were “deeply involved” during the filming of “Mary Poppins,” which earned Andrews an Oscar for best actress.
“They were always on set helping Julie and me with our interpretation of the songs,” he said. “They had a lot to do with the atmosphere, the lightness.”
The Shermans' hauntingly moving “Feed the Birds,” about an old woman who sells bags of crumbs to feed hungry birds, was Disney's favorite song from “Mary Poppins.”
The song, Sherman told the Philadelphia Daily News in 2011, was actually a “prayer for understanding: Be kind, give love. “It doesn't cost anything.”
When Disney first heard their musical concept for the song, he told them, “That's what it's about, right?”
From then on, Disney frequently met with the Shermans in their office on Friday afternoons to discuss what was happening at the studio. He then said, “Play it.”
“So I'd play the piano and sing 'Feed the Birds' for him,” Richard Sherman recalled in an interview with the Sacramento Bee in 2004. “Then he'd say, 'Well, have a nice weekend, guys,' and we'd go. to home. “That was our Friday afternoon.”
After Disney died in 1966, “it wasn't the same,” Sherman said in a Times interview in 1985. “I don't really want to say anything negative about anyone. [at Disney]. “It just wasn’t the same without Walt.”
FILE – Composers Richard M. Sherman, left, who, along with his brother Robert, wrote the song “It's a Small World” for the Disneyland attraction of the same name, and Michael Giacchino, right, who composed the driving music for Disneyland's new attraction. -Redesigned “Space Mountain” ride, work in a sound room at the Walt Disney Imagineering offices in Glendale, California, July 5, 2005. Sherman, half of the prolific, award-winning pair of brothers who helped shape millions of childhoods for writing classic Disney songs, died on Saturday, May 25, 2024. He was 95 years old.
(Kevork Djansezian/AP)
After leaving the studio in 1968, the Sherman brothers wrote songs for films such as “Charlotte's Web” and collaborated on scripts for films such as “Tom Sawyer,” “Huckleberry Finn,” “The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella,” ” and “Lassie's Magic.”
They also wrote the music and lyrics for the Tony Award-nominated 1974 Broadway musical “Over Here!”, starring Maxene and Patty Andrews.
In addition to their two Oscar wins for “Mary Poppins,” they received five Oscar nominations for their work in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” “Tom Sawyer” and “The Slipper and the Rose.”
The Shermans, who were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, received the National Medal of Arts in 2008 for their creation of music that “has helped bring joy to millions”.
Richard Sherman, son of Tin Pan Alley songwriter Al Sherman, was born in New York City on June 12, 1928. The family moved to Beverly Hills in 1938.
While Richard attended Beverly Hills High School during World War II, Robert served in the Army in Europe, where he was among the first soldiers to enter the Dachau concentration camp after the Germans fled and was later seriously wounded in knee.
After the war, both brothers entered Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Robert studied literature; Richard majored in music.
After graduating, Richard had ambitions to become a symphonic composer and his brother had plans to write the great American novel. But, as Richard later recalled, “there was nothing going on with either of them.”
In 1951, they were sharing a small apartment above a dry cleaners on West Pico Boulevard when their father offered them a challenge: write a song that some kid would give his lunch money to buy.
They ended up writing a country song called “Gold Can Buy Anything (But Love),” which was recorded by cowboy star Gene Autry in 1951.
More songs followed, but the brothers went their separate ways after Richard served a tour in the army from 1953 to 1955.
The two had written songs with other partners before teaming up again in 1958 for “Tall Paul.” Among their hits was Johnny Burnette's 1960 recording of “You're Sixteen”, which peaked at No. 8. It reached No. 1 in 1974, when Ringo Starr recorded the song.
Although Richard was primarily the composer and Robert the lyricist, they typically worked together on both lyrics and music. In fact, when asked who does what, their standard response was, “He writes the lyrics and music, and I write the music and lyrics.”
Despite their close professional collaboration (they often completed each other's sentences), the Sherman brothers and their families led separate personal lives since the mid-1960s.
Their strained personal relationship was revealed in the 2009 documentary “The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story,” directed by Richard's son, Gregory; and Robert's son, Jeff.
“There wasn't a single specific incident. But I remember the walls that went up between our parents and our families in 1965,” Jeff Sherman told the Toronto Star in 2009.
“Bob and I loved and respected each other very much, and throughout our professional lives we maintained a facade of unity,” Richard said. “But to continue working together we reached an agreement to live our personal lives separately, completely separate. “We were comfortable working together, but otherwise it would have been explosive.”
They were, he said, “very different people.”
“More broadly, Bob is an introvert who wanted to write great novels and I was the showman,” he said. “I loved acting and he preferred to sit in the corner and read a book. …
“We are not idiots. Something good was happening to us. Success and creativity prevailed over small personal differences. There was no way we were going to let those differences destroy our work.”
Richard is survived by his wife of 66 years, Elizabeth; son Gregory and grandsons William and Matthew; daughter Victoria Wolf, son-in-law Doug Wolf and grandchildren Mandy and Anthony. He is also survived by his daughter from a previous marriage, Lynda Rothstein, as well as his two children and three grandchildren. A private funeral is scheduled to take place on Friday, May 31 at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles. Plans for a celebration of life will be announced at a later date.
