Bobby Sherman, whose winsome smile and fashionable shaggy mop top helped make him into a teen idol in the 1960s and ’70s with bubblegum pop hits like “Little Woman” and “Julie, Do Ya Love Me,” has died. He was 81.
His wife, Brigitte Poublon, announced the death Tuesday and family friend John Stamos posted her message on Instagram: “Bobby left this world holding my hand — just as he held up our life with love, courage, and unwavering grace.” Sherman revealed he had Stage 4 cancer earlier this year.
Sherman was a squeaky-clean regular on the covers of Tiger Beat and Sixteen magazines, often with hair over his eyes and a choker on his neck. His face was printed on lunchboxes, cereal boxes and posters that hung on the bedroom walls of his adoring fans. He landed at No. 8 in TV Guide’s list of “TV’s 25 Greatest Teen Idols.”
He was part of a lineage of teen heartthrobs who emerged as mass-market, youth-oriented magazines and TV took off, connecting fresh-scrubbed Ricky Nelson in the 1950s to David Cassidy in the ’60s, all the way to Justin Bieber in the 2000s.