MOVIE MUSIC UK

Composer Richard M. Sherman, one of the greatest and most influential songwriters in the history of Hollywood, died on May 25, 2024, after a short illness. He was 95 years old.

Richard Morton Sherman was born in New York, New York, in June 1928, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He grew up in a musical household – his father, Al, was a composer and arranger in Tin Pan Alley in New York, and was a contemporary of George Gershwin – and then after the Shermans relocated to Los Angeles in 1937 Richard attended Beverly Hills High School, where he was a classmate of André Previn. After completing his national service, Sherman and his brother Robert started a songwriting company, and they enjoyed success writing popular songs for artists including Annette Funicello. This success brought them to the attention of producer Walt Disney, who eventually hired them as staff songwriters for the Walt Disney Studio.

Sherman wrote songs for several Disney productions in the early 1960s, including The Absent Minded Professor (1961), The Parent Trap (1961), and The Sword in the Stone (1963), but achieved lasting fame and critical acclaim following the release of Mary Poppins in 1964. The songs that Sherman wrote for that production – “Feed the Birds,” “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “Chim-Chim-Cheree,” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” among others – became immediate classics and pop culture icons, and won Sherman Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.

Over the course of the next twenty years Sherman would write songs for dozens of other Disney productions; he received Oscar nominations for his work on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968, Bedknobs and Broomsticks in 1971, Tom Sawyer in 1973, The Slipper and the Rose in 1977, and The Magic of Lassie in 1978, and also wrote for projects such as The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970), Snoopy Come Home (1972), Charlotte’s Web (1973), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1974), and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977).

Sherman was also instrumental in designing the musical sound of Walt Disney’s theme parks, and songs that he wrote can still be heard today; “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” is heard in the Carousel of Progress at Walt Disney World in Florida, “It’s a Small World” – which was originally written for the 1964 New York World’s Fair – is still heard in the Disney Park installations of the same name, and “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room” is heard in the Enchanted Tiki Room attractions across the world.

Sherman received numerous personal awards and accolades for his work. In 1976 he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 1990 he was honored as a Disney Legend, in 2005 he was inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2008 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush, the highest honor the United States Government bestows on artists. In addition to his Oscar wins and nominations, Sherman was nominated for a BAFTA, four Golden Globes, nine Grammys, and a Laurence Olivier Award in 2002 for the London West End musical version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In addition to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, several of his other screen musicals were also adapted for the stage, including Mary Poppins in 2004, The Jungle Book in 2013, and the revue A Spoonful of Sherman in 2014. He was also the subject of a documentary film – The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story – which was released to critical acclaim in 2009.

Amazingly, Sherman was still composing well into his 90s; he wrote new songs for the 2018 film Christopher Robin, and appeared on-screen playing the piano, and just last year contributed a brand new theme to the animated short film Mushka, composed by Fabrizio Mancinelli.

Sherman had been married to wife Elizabeth Gluck since 1957, and they had three children. His songwriter brother, Robert B. Sherman, pre-deceased him in 2012.

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A quick personal note: I met Sherman a handful of times, and was able to have a conversation with him twice, once at a Fans of Film Music event in 2012, and then at a screening of the film Saving Mr. Banks in 2013. After that 2013 screening I wrote the following on Facebook: “I got to speak to and shake hands with Richard Sherman tonight – for those who don’t know, he’s the composer of all the songs for Mary Poppins, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, all the songs you hear at Disneyland, and dozens of others. It occurred to me just how influential he is and how many absolutely unforgettable songs he’s written – he really is one of the legends of the classic American songbook. He’s up there with Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Jerome Kern, and he’s still so approachable, so funny, so bright, so full of stories – and he’s 85. A completely remarkable man.” I stand by every word.