The Legacy of Bobby Sherman: Teen Idol Turned Hero Who Left Fame Behind for a Life of Service and Love

You couldn’t throw a pet rock in the 1970s without hitting a teen idol, whether it was Donny Osmond, Michael Jackson, David Cassidy, Tony DeFranco (remember him and the DeFranco Family?) or Bobby Sherman. And in the case of Sherman, who passed away on June 24 at the age of 81 from kidney cancer, he was virtually everywhere—magazine covers, lunchboxes, cereal boxes, the music charts, television and in the hearts of millions of adoring fans.

Those fans papered their walls with his face and knew every lyric to hits like “Little Woman,” “Julie, Do You Love Me” and “Easy Come, Easy Go.” He had the hair, the voice and the kind of unassuming sweetness that made him feel like the boy next door—if the boy next door also happened to be a bona fide pop star with his own TV show. But just as as quickly as Bobby Sherman conquered the pop culture landscape, he quietly—and very deliberately—stepped away from it.

While his contemporaries either clung to fame or struggled to recapture it, Sherman took a different path entirely, reinventing himself as a police officer, an emergency medical technician, a public servant, a teacher, a husband, a father and eventually a man better known for saving lives than performing music. “I was never thirsty for stardom,” he once said. “I just wanted to keep active. I didn’t really hang up the reins, I just started doing different things.”

Shermania!

But before that reinvention, there was hysteria, mobs of screaming girls, stacks of 25,000 fan letters a week and, yes, the fan who shipped herself to his hotel in a box just to meet him. “There was a knock at the door, and a delivery guy had left a big box,” he recalled. “I opened it, and there was a girl inside. I was just stunned. That kind of thing happened more than you’d believe. Girls would climb fire escapes just to get to my room. I wasn’t worried about me—I was worried about them.”

Ann Moses, the former editor of Tiger Beat magazine and author of Meow! My Groovy Life with Tiger Beat’s Teen Idols, remembered it all vividly. “He felt like a big brother to me,” she said. “He was so cooperative, always warm, always respectful. No matter what I needed—autographs, a quote, a personal note for a story—he was there with a Sharpie in hand, no complaints. He appreciated what Tiger Beat did for him. Not everyone did.”

In the “Bobby’s Life Story” series in Tiger Beat, as told to Ann Moses, he detailed what had happened: “Following my high school days, I entered Pierce College in Southern California where I studied psychology and electronics. Always in the back of my mind I had some kind of urge to go into show business, but there was really nothing tangible. It seemed like starting out in show business was such a far-fetched idea. So, I was basically stuck with my psychology, which really interested me. In the last couple of months in college, I decided I really wanted to go into show business for a career, but the only problem was I didn’t know where to begin. And before I had a chance to worry about it, I was getting all involved.

“I was dating a girl who knew the director who was doing The Greatest Story Ever Told [George Stevens], which was being made at that time,” Sherman continued. “So, she called me up one day and said she had been invited to a party by an old friend of hers and would I like to go? I said, ‘Sure.’ So we went to the party and people like Natalie Wood and Roddy McDowall and Jane Fonda were there. They had a live band, and it was just ironic that I knew a couple of the guys in the band from high school and we used to play music together. They said to me, ‘Why don’t you sing, Bobby?’ I said, ‘I couldn’t do that. It’s not even my party.’ But the girl I was with said, ‘Well, why don’t you?'”

Elsewhere he added, “I was just singing along at this party—Freddy Cannon’s ‘Palisades Park’—and someone said, ‘Who’s handling you?’ I said, ‘Nobody.’ Next thing I know, I’m auditioning for Shindig! and got 26 episodes for ABC. It just took off from there.”

TV and music star

Shindig! was a musical variety series that aired from 1964 to 1966. When it was canceled, Sherman admits he was disappointed, but not devastated. “I always knew a show like that couldn’t last forever,” he said. Still, with his name becoming more recognized and fan mail pouring in, he took advantage of the momentum and hit the road for personal appearances. But it didn’t take long for burnout to set in. “One night I was going over my appearance schedule with my agent, and I just blurted out, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ve got to try something else.’”

That marked the beginning of what he calls his “dark days.” Though the dry spell only lasted eight months, it felt much longer to him. “It wasn’t about the money—it was mental,” he explained. “I just wanted to do something.”

He started auditioning for acting roles, but getting his foot in the door proved tough. He landed a few small TV parts—Honey West, The FBI and an episode of The Monkees. That last gig turned out to be a turning point as he met producer Ward Sylvester and Screen Gems exec Steve Blauner, who later approached him with an unusual question: “Can you stutter?”

They were developing a new lighthearted Western series called Here Come the Brides, and saw potential in Sherman for the role of shy, stammering Jeremy Bolt. “They handed me a two-page scene and flew me to New York to test,” he recalled. “It was the scene where Jeremy confesses his stutter to Candy while she’s hanging clothes.” He gave it his all alongside a dozen other hopefuls.

When he flew back to L.A., both Sylvester and Blauner met him at the airport. Their greeting said it all: “Hi, Jeremy!”

The fire that burns twice as bright, burns half as long

While Here Come the Brides helped launch him as a television star, it was Sherman’s music career that truly sent his popularity into the stratosphere. His breakout single “Little Woman,” released in 1969, became a million-seller and earned him a gold record. What followed was a whirlwind stretch of pop stardom: seven Top 40 hits, seven gold singles, five gold albums and near-constant touring. At the height of it all, Sherman was reportedly receiving more fan mail than anyone else on ABC, surpassing even the network’s biggest prime-time stars.

But by the mid-1970s, the frenzy began to cool. The charts were shifting, bubblegum pop was giving way to disco and harder-edged rock and the faces of teen idols were changing. Sherman remained active for a time—recording, touring, and making TV appearances—but the momentum had clearly slowed. Rather than chase fame, he began stepping back, seeking something more meaningful.

“I started training as a medic and the LAPD heard about me,” he explained. “They asked me to teach CPR and first aid. Next thing I know, I’m going through the academy, becoming an officer, teaching emergency childbirth to these big, tough guys who’d watch the training video and start passing out. I did that for 35 years.” He also spent eight years with the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and once delivered a baby during a roadside emergency.

And while Sherman never longed to return to the spotlight, he did dip back in briefly for a Teen Idol reunion tour with Peter Noone and Davy Jones. “It was a great time,” he said. “The audience was full of women who were teenagers back then… and they brought their daughters and granddaughters. But they still screamed like teenagers. Even the underwear came flying—just, you know… bigger.” The tour wrapped after 9/11, but he had already found his second act.

Personally speaking

Bobby Sherman was married twice, first to Patti Carnel in 1971, with whom he fathered sons Christopher Noel and Tyler Carnel, though the marriage ended towards the end of the decade. In 2010 he married Brigitte Publon, who he was with until his passing. Additionally, he was a grandfather to six.

He and Brigitte shared a passion for helping children, which led to the creation of the Brigitte & Bobby Sherman Children’s Foundation, which not only opened a youth center and orphanage in Ghana, but also began serving hundreds of meals a day to people in need in their local community. Asked if the foundation was among the things he was most proud of, Sherman remained humble. “It’s one of the things that made life meaningful,” he said. “Brigitte has a very large heart. That’s one of the things that attracted me to her.”

Ann Moses, who knew Sherman at the height of his career, wasn’t surprised at the way his life unfolded. “He was the most grounded of any of the entertainers I worked with,” she recalled. “When his fame began to fade, he didn’t panic or try to chase it. He just quietly moved on to something more fulfilling. I think it was brilliant. And it was exactly who he was.”

Even in later years, he remained humbled by the attention he continued to receive. “Some fans came up with 16 magazines and I’m like, ‘Where did you get that?’ But it’s touching. I never bought a Bobby Sherman record—but they did. They’re the reason any of this happened.”

Asked once what advice he would give to aspiring performers, he answered, “Perseverance. Just keep pitching. You’ll have a lot of disappointments, but use them—don’t let them work against you. Believe in what you’ve got and be ready when opportunity knocks. Practice helps, sure—but so does knowing how the business works. Be prepared and don’t stop moving forward.”

Sounds like the story of his life.