Richard Sherman, Composer of Mary Poppins, Dead at 95

Richard M. Sherman, the Academy Award-winning songwriter, who along with his late brother Robert, composed music for classic films including Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Jungle Book, and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, has died at the age of 95.

Over the course of their prolific career, the Shermans composed over 1,000 songs for more 50 movies, and were responsible for more movie musical songs than any duo in film history, according to Billboard.

Their brothers’ other notable film scores included The Aristocats, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Charlotte’s Web, and The Tigger Movie.

Additionally, the Shermans composed “It’s a Small World (After All),” for the Disney theme park attraction of the same name, and wrote “You’re Sixteen,” which later became a No. 1 hit for Ringo Starr.

The Shermans’s accolades included a total nine Academy Award nominations with two victories; four Grammy nominations with two wins; and 23 gold- or platinum-certified albums.

Notably, the duo’s score for Mary Poppins, featuring iconic songs like “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” won the Academy Award for Best Original Score at the Academy Awards in 1964, with “Chim Chim Cher-ee” taking home the Oscar for Best Original Song.

In 1968, the Shermans earned their third Academy Award nomination thanks to “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” being a finalist in the Best Original Song category. Three years later, they picked up two more Oscar nominations for their work on Bedknobs and Broomsticks: Best Original Score and Best Original Score, the latter for the song “The Age of Not Believing.”

In 2015, the brothers were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.