Composer Robert B. Sherman died 5 March 2012. His son announced the death on Facebook, writing:
Hello to family and friends,
I have very sad news to convey.
My Dad, Robert B. Sherman, passed away tonight in London. He went peacefully after months of truly valiantly fending off death. He loved life and his dear heart finally slowed to a stop when he could fight no more.
I will write more about this incredible man I love and admire so much when I am better rested and composed. He deserves that.
In the meantime, please say a prayer for him. As he said, he wanted to bring happiness to the world and, unquestionably, he succeeded. His love and his prayers, his philosophy and his poetry will live on forever. Forever his songs and his genius will bring hope, joy and love to this small, small world.
I love you, Dad.
Safe travels.
Love,
Jeff
Born 19 December 1925 in New York City, he began playing the violin and piano, as well as painting and writing poetry, as a child. He wrote his first stage play, Armistice and Dedication Day, when he was 16 years old. He joined the Army at the age of 17, and led the first Allied troops to enter the Dachau concentration camp after the German military had fled. After the war, he graduated from New York’s Bard College in 1949, and within two years, began writing songs with his brother Richard. In 1958, they penned their first top ten hit, “Tall Paul” (sung by Annette Funicello). That hit brought the Shermans to the attention of Walt Disney, who eventually hired them as Staff Songwriters. The Shermans were responsible for “it’s a small world (after all)”, which debuted at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
The Sherman brothers won a Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture, and Academy Awards for Best Music (Original Song) and Best Music (Substantially Original Score), for their work on Mary Poppins (1964). They were nominated for another seven Oscars, five Golden Globes, and two Grammys.
The Shermans left the Walt Disney company after its founder’s death in 1966, going freelance. Their first non-Disney assignment was Albert R. Broccoli’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). The other genre film work includes: Gnomeo & Juliet (2011), War of the Worlds (2005), Bewitched (2005), Pooh’s Heffalump Movie (2005), The Return of Jafar (1994), two episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (“Time of the Apes”, 1991; and “Gamera vs. Guiron”, 1989), Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989), Amazon Women on the Moon (1987), Magic Journeys (1982), The Slipper and the Rose (1976), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), The Gnome-Mobile (1967), The Monkey’s Uncle (1965), The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964), The Sword in the Stone (1963), Moon Pilot (1962), and The Absent Minded Professor (1961).
The Sherman brothers were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005, and were awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2008.
Sherman’s wife Joyce died in 2001. He is survived by their four children, several grandchildren and one great-grandchild.