Bobby Sherman obituary: The Times

Singer from the bubblegum pop era who said he found more satisfaction in his later career as an emergency medic, dies aged 81.

Long after his days as a blue-eyed teen idol were over, Bobby Sherman was working as an emergency medic with the Los Angeles Police Department. Called out to tend to a woman who was haemorrhaging and had passed out, he noticed that her husband was staring intently at him. Finally, the man blurted out, “Look, honey, it’s Bobby Sherman!” With that, the woman opened her eyes, saw the now middle-aged one-time heart-throb and started fiddling with her hair. “Oh great, I must look a mess!” she told her husband. Sherman reassured her that she looked just fine.

It was a perfect example of how baby boomers who grew up in 1960s America never forgot the pin-up whose image had graced bedroom posters, teenage magazines, T-shirts and even lunch boxes. “My audience was so young and impressionable, they would buy everything and anything associated with Bobby Sherman,” he recalled. “I could have sung Auld Lang Syne and they would have bought it.” 

 

The lasting impact he left on those of a certain age was reflected in popular culture with a namecheck in The Simpsons in which Marge confessed to her daughter Lisa that she had once had a crush on Sherman. There was also a 1997 appearance as himself in the sitcom Frasier.

At his peak at the end of the 1960s, he had on four occasions within 12 months achieved million-selling singles that made the American Top Ten. The No 3 hit Little Woman was followed by La La La (If I Had You), Easy Come, Easy Go andJulie, Do Ya Love Me. 

The songs, which were simple, cheerful, catchy and disposable, helped to define the bubblegum pop phenomenon, alongside hits such as Sugar Sugar by the Archies and Yummy Yummy Yummy by Ohio Express, and earned him the nickname “Bubblegum Bobby

Many similar acts were one-hit wonders but Sherman had a multimedia appeal. While he was scaling the charts, he also had a TV special on ABC, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, guested on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, had cameos in episodes of The Monkees and The Partridge Family and sang on the Johnny Cash and Andy Williams shows.

He also starred in the TV comedy western Here Come the Brides, playing the shy, stuttering younger brother of his co-star David Soul (obituary, January 5, 2024). “I’d film five days a week, get on a plane on a Friday night and go someplace for matinee and evening concerts Saturday and Sunday, then get on a plane and go back to the studio to start filming again,” he recalled. “It was so hectic for three years that I didn’t know what home was

In Britain Sherman’s only chart entry came in 1970 when Julie, Do Ya Love Memade a modest entry in the lower reaches of the Top 30 while the British bubblegum act White Plains had a bigger hit with a cover of the song that got to No 8.

As with all teen acts, Sherman’s musical career faded as his young female fans grew up, found boyfriends and went to college. By 1972 his records were not even making the Top 100 and he had been eclipsed by younger stars such as David Cassidy and Donny Osmond. It was then that he embarked on a career teaching first aid and CPR at the Los Angeles Police Academy and working as an emergency medic

When my two sons, Christopher and Tyler, were growing up, I had visions of them falling out of trees and off bikes, and I wanted to be prepared for any emergency, so I took first aid and just fell in love with it,” he explained. “The more I learnt, the more I wanted to know, and the next thing I know I’m an instructor..

His sons survive him together with his second wife Brigitte Poublon, whom he married in 2010. His first marriage in the 1970s to Patti Carnel, the mother of his children, ended in divorce and she went on to marry David Soul. 

Robert Cabot Sherman Jr was born in 1943 in Santa Monica, California, the son of Juanita (née Freeman) and Robert Cabot Sherman, who ran a dairy and rose at 3am to deliver milk to more than 1,000 customers every day. From an early age Sherman played guitar, piano and trumpet and was studying child psychology at Pierce College when in 1964 a girlfriend whose family had Hollywood connections invited him to a July 4 party at a beachside home filled with movie stars

The band booked for the evening included a friend he had known in high school and he was invited to sing a couple of numbers. “After it was all over, Jane Fonda and Natalie Wood came up to me and said, ‘We think you’re talented, are you being managed?’ I said, ‘No, not really.’ And they said, ‘Well you should do something about it’.’”

Wood arranged meetings for him with MGM and an agent, and in no time he had been booked to appear on the TV teen show Shindig! At the audition he did not even sing and lip-synced to Freddy Cannon’s hit Palisades Park but was immediately contracted to do 26 shows on which he sang covers of hits by “British invasion” groups such as Herman’s Hermits, accompanied by squeals from adoring girls in the audience

In later life he enjoyed being recognised by the matronly figures who had once been his teenage fans. “Any time I go out, I don’t try to hide from them. I don’t wear disguises. I’m just as eager to see them as they are to see me,” he said

Yet after he had traded hit records and magazine covers for CPR, he rated his second career as the more rewarding. “There’s not a better feeling in the world than when you’re responsible for saving someone’s life,” he said.

Bobby Sherman, teen idol, was born on July 22, 1943. He died of cancer on June 24, 2025, aged 81.