Bobby Sherman, an actor and singer who became an easygoing pop-music star and teen idol in the late 1960s, and who continued performing until well into the 1980s, has died. He was 81.

His wife, Brigitte Poublon, announced his death Tuesday morning on Instagram, providing no other details. She revealed in March that Sherman had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, though she did not specify the type of cancer.

Sherman was 25 when he was cast in the comedy western that made him a star. On “Here Come the Brides,” a one-hour ABC series, he played a bashful 19th-century Seattle lumberjack. George Gent, reviewing the show for The New York Times, declared Sherman “winning as the shy and stuttering youngest brother,” although he predicted only that the show “should be fun.”

“Here Come the Brides” ran for only two seasons (1968-70), but that was more than long enough for Sherman to attract a following: He was said to be receiving 25,000 pieces of fan mail every week.

He had become a successful recording artist, beginning with “Little Woman,” which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969 and proved to be his biggest hit. He went on to score three other Top 10 singles in 1969 and 1970: “La La La (If I Had You),” “Easy Come, Easy Go” and “Julie, Do Ya Love Me.”

By the end of 1972 he had seven gold singles, one platinum single and 10 gold albums.

When TV Guide in 2005 ranked the 25 greatest teen idols, Sherman took the No. 8 spot, ahead of Davy Jones and Troy Donahue. (David Cassidy was No. 1.) He appeared countless times on the cover of Tiger Beat, a popular magazine for adolescent girls. Even Marge Simpson, leading lady of the long-running animated series “The Simpsons,” had a crush on Bobby Sherman, as she confessed to her daughter Lisa in one episode.

Robert Cabot Sherman Jr. was born on July 22, 1943, in Santa Monica, California, the younger child and only son of Robert Cabot Sherman, a milkman, and Juanita (Freeman) Sherman. He was 11 when he learned to play the trumpet. It was the first of 16 musical instruments that he often said he had mastered.

Bobby grew up in Van Nuys, California, where he graduated from Birmingham High School. During his high school years he was part of a dance band and discovered his love of singing. He attended Pierce College in nearby Woodland Hills but did not graduate.

At age 19, he met actor Sal Mineo, who wrote a couple of songs for him and helped him record them. Mineo invited him to perform at a Hollywood party, and Sherman soon had an agent.

He made his television acting debut as a kidnapping victim on a 1965 episode of the detective series “Honey West.” By then he was a regular performer on “Shindig!” (1964-66), a rock-music variety show that was initially so popular that it aired twice a week in its second season.

At the height of his popularity, Sherman toured almost constantly. In a radio interview decades later, he said, “I didn’t really have time to have an ego.”

He also appeared on variety shows, including “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Johnny Cash Show” and “The Everly Brothers Show,” all in 1970, as well as “The Andy Williams Show” in 1971 and “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” in 1972. He had his own special on ABC in 1970.

“Getting Together,” a sitcom about two young songwriters that premiered in the fall of 1971 on ABC, was meant to be a second star vehicle for Sherman. (The other songwriter was played by Wes Stern.) But it was no match for its prime-time competition: “All in the Family,” in its first full season on CBS. “Getting Together” was canceled after 14 episodes.

After that, he was seen on popular series like “The Mod Squad” (1972), “Fantasy Island” (1981) and “The Love Boat” (1978 and 1982). He also acted in two feature films: “He Is My Brother” (1975), a family drama, and “Get Crazy” (1983), a rock ’n’ roll comedy, in which he and another former teen idol, Fabian, played a concert promoter’s sleazy henchmen. In 1986, Sherman was a regular on “Sanchez of Bel-Air,” a short-lived situation comedy.

His childhood dream had been to be a child psychologist. When he had had enough of show business, he still wanted to work in health care. He became, among other things, an emergency medical technician and chief medical training officer for the Los Angeles Police Department, teaching first aid and CPR to department recruits.

Sherman’s marriage in 1971 to Patti Carnel, a junior college student, ended in divorce in 1977. In the 1980s, Carnel married and divorced David Soul, who had been Sherman’s co-star on “Here Come the Brides.” (Soul died last year at 80.)

Sherman married Poublon, a real estate agent, in 2010. She runs the couple’s charity, which helps children in Ghana.

In addition to her, he is survived by two sons, Tyler and Christopher, and six grandchildren.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Anita Gates
c. 2025 The New York Times Company