Former teen heartthrob Bobby Sherman has died. He was 81 years old.
The actor and singer’s death was announced Tuesday by his second wife, Brigitte Poublon. His family previously said in March that Sherman had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
“Bobby left this world holding my hand — just as he held up our life with love, courage and unwavering grace through all 29 beautiful years of marriage. I was his Cinderella, and he was my Prince Charming,” Poublon said in a statement released on John Stamos’ Instagram.
“Even in his final days, he stayed strong for me. That’s who Bobby was — brave, gentle and full of light.”
Leading up to his death, Poublon said she read her husband fan letters from all over the world, which lifted his spirits.
“He soaked up every word with that familiar sparkle in his eye,” she said. “And yes, he still found time to crack well-timed jokes — Bobby had a wonderful, wicked sense of humor. It never left him. He could light up a room with a look, a quip or one of his classic, one-liners.”
Born in Santa Monica, Calif. on July 22, 1943, Sherman grew up playing a number of instruments, including guitar, piano and drums, practicing in a soundproof room built by his milkman father.
He first rose to fame as a teen idol in the 1960s, appearing as a house singer in the musical variety show “Shindig!” He followed that with a starring role in the series “Here Come the Brides,” about a trio of lumberjack brothers in the post-Civil War Pacific Northwest. The show was loosely inspired by the 1954 musical “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”
He later appeared in “The Partridge Family” and its short-lived 1971 spinoff “Getting Together.”
From the early 1960s to the mid-’70s, he also released 10 albums and more than 100 songs, including Top 40 hits like “Little Woman,” “Julie, Do Ya Love Me” and “Easy Come, Easy Go.”
“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 told The Washington Post in 1998 of trying to balance his work as an actor and singer. “It was so hectic for three years that I didn’t know what home was.”
Later in his career, he appeared in a number of other series including “The Love Boat,” “Murder She Wrote” and “Sanchez of Bel Air.” Though his last onscreen appearance was a cameo as himself in a 1997 episode of “Frasier,” his music continued to be heard on the soundtracks of multiple TV shows and movies.
Sherman largely left the entertainment industry in the mid-1980s to work in law enforcement and emergency response. He joined the Los Angeles Police Department, where he taught CPR and other life-saving techniques to incoming academy recruits. He later became a reserve deputy sheriff for San Bernardino County before retiring in 2010.
“Those who truly knew him, Bobby was something much more [than a teen idol],” Poublon said. “He was a man of service. He traded sold-out concerts and magazine covers for the back of an ambulance, becoming an EMT and a trainer with the LAPD. He saved lives. He showed us what real heroism looks like — quiet, selfless and deeply human.”
He and his wife also founded the Brigitte & Bobby Sherman Children’s Foundation, with a mission to empower underserved youth in Ghana through education and music.
Along with Poublon, Sherman is survived by his sons, Christopher and Tyler, and six grandchildren.
