By Bianca Sierra
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Robert Cabot Sherman Jr. (July 22, 1943 – June 24, 2025) was an American singer and actor who was a teen idol in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He had a series of successful singles, notably the million-seller “Little Woman” (1969). Sherman left show business in the 1970s for a career as a paramedic and a deputy sheriff, but performed occasionally into the 1990s.
Sherman was born to Robert Cabot Sherman Sr. and Juanita (née Freeman) Sherman in Santa Monica, California. He grew up in Van Nuys, California, with his sister Darlene.
Sherman’s first wife was Patti Carnel; the couple had two sons before they divorced. Sherman married Brigitte Poublon on July 18, 2010, in Las Vegas.
In March 2025, Sherman’s diagnosis of stage 4 kidney cancer was made public. He died at his home in Los Angeles on June 24, 2025 at the age of 81.
In 1974, Sherman guest-starred on an episode of the Jack Webb television series Emergency! (“Fools”, season 3, episode 17, aired January 19, 1974), and found a new calling. Eventually, he left the public spotlight and became a paramedic. He volunteered with the Los Angeles Police Department, working with paramedics and giving CPR and first aid classes. He became a technical Reserve Police Officer with the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1990s, a position he still held as of 2017. For more than a decade he served as a medical training officer at the Los Angeles Police Academy, instructing thousands of police officers in first aid and CPR. He was named LAPD’s Reserve Officer of the Year in 1999.
Sherman also became a reserve deputy sheriff in 1999 with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, continuing his CPR and emergency training of new deputy hires. He retired from the sheriff’s department in 2010.
Sherman and his wife co-founded the Brigitte & Bobby Sherman Children’s (BBSC) Foundation. The foundation’s mission is to provide motivated students in Ghana with a high quality education and music program, and to provide tools to pursue higher education.
