Composer Richard Sherman performs at the 2015 Los Angeles Children’s Chorus Annual Gala.
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
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Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Composer Richard Sherman performs at the 2015 Los Angeles Children’s Chorus Annual Gala.
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Oscar-winning composer Richard M. Sherman, who formed the songwriting team with his late brother Robert, has died at age 95 of age-related illnesses. Scores were created for two dozen films, many for Disney – among them, Mary Poppins (for which they won two Oscars), jungle book and Chitti Chitti Bang Bang.
Sherman was born in New York on June 12, 1928. When he was 9 years old, he and his family moved to Beverly Hills, California. thing.
In 1958, their song “Tall Paul,” a collaboration with Annette Funicello, reached the top ten, attracting the attention of Walt Disney.
They were actually Disney songwriters from the 1960s to the 1980s—from Parent TrapIn 1961, they composed many film scores and even theme park songs for the company, such as “It’s a Small World (After All).”
But this is the score Mary PoppinsStarring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, it cemented their reputation. Filled with such standards as “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” the film’s tender ballad “Feed the Birds” was a favorite of Walt Disney’s.
“He would call, not every Friday, but he would call and say, ‘Come here, let’s talk,'” Sherman recalled. “So, we would go over there and pass the time with whatever we were doing, because we were always doing something. And he would look out the north window of the office and say, ‘Let’s play.'” I would play and sing “Feed the Birds.” Son, a bag of Tuppence.” He’d say, “Yeah, have a great weekend, kids!”
Producer Cubby Broccoli, who holds the rights to Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, hired them to adapt the author’s children’s book, Chitti Chitti Bang Bang. Sherman said he and his brother had fun writing the title song about a magical flying car. “We wanted the song to sound like a motor,” Sherman explains, “because that’s the trick, the whole thing just backfires and becomes ‘bang bang.'” This rhythmic song won an Oscar Nominated.
While they were very much on the same page as the songwriters, the brothers had a complicated and sometimes contentious relationship, which was documented in the 2009 film, Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story. Their last original score was for Disney Tigger movie In 2000, both Mary Poppins and Chitti Chitti Bang Bang Adapted for the stage. In 1976, the Sherman Brothers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Robert Sherman died in 2012 at the age of 86.
