"Practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their thinking..."
But as one who is very far from perfection, I cannot guarantee the absence of sentiment from my tribute to Bob Sherman on this afternoon's edition of Last Word: BBC Radio 4, 16:00 and thereafter on Listen Again via iPlayer.
How strange that I should have just been remembering and writing about that Practically Perfect nanny, Mary Poppins, when the news comes of the passing of one-half of the song-writing partnership responsible for scoring Walt Disney's film of her exploits...
Robert B Sherman, who died yesterday aged 86, is pictured, above left, alongside his younger brother, Richard M Sherman, with whom he wrote hundreds of songs that were an integral part of the pop-culture of the 1960's and '70s, including movies, the scores for which provided the accompaniment to the formative years of so many of us post-war baby-boomers.
The words and music for Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Winnie the Pooh, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, those non-Disney movies ChittyChitty Bang Bang and The Slipper and the Rose, plus dozens of 60's teen-love songs (among them, "Tall Paul" covered by Mickey Mouse Club 'Mousketeer', Annette Funicello) and a raft of unforgettably catchy songs and tunes for the Disney TV shows and theme-park attractions are a part of the pop-culture heritage of several generations.
Among those who sung the hits of these tune-smiths (in addition to the couple on the left) were Hayley Mills (in The Parent Trap), Burl Ives (Summer Magic), Maurice Chevalier (In Search of the Castaways), Tommy Steele (The Happiest Millionaire), Angela Lansbury (Bedknobs) Sally Ann Howes (Chitty), Gemma Craven and Richard Chamberlain (Slipper) and Phil Harris and Louis Prima (with their scat-duet, "I Wanna Be Like You" in Jungle Book) not to mention a raft of cover artist recordings from Louis Armstrong to Michael Crawford and Barbara Cook via Ringo Starr's 1974 No 1 hit, "You're Sixteen".
Their years at the Disney Studio saw them write 150 songs for 27 movies, but their upbeat, optimistic compositions appeared in a wide range of film projects from live-action musical adaptations of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (for which they also wrote the screenplays) to animated films such as Charlotte's Web and Snoopy Come Home.
Bob and Dick's two greatest film triumphs, Mary Poppins (which won the Academy Award for Best Score as well as Best Song) and ChittyChitty Bang Bang were written within four years of one another and, despite being original movie musicals at a time when all the great Broadway shows were being lavishly filmed, excelled to a degree denied many of their stage-derived competitors.
In the 'seventies, the Shermans had enjoyed an original Broadway triumph with Over Here! Set during World War II it starred Patty and Maxene Andrews (of the Andrews Sisters) and launched the careers of, among others, John Travolta and Anne Reinking. Decades later, Poppins and Chitty – by that time treasured screen classics – made the successful transmigration from cinema to both the West End and Broadway stage.
The sons of the successful tin-pan-alley song-writer, Al Sherman, Robert and Richard were a remarkable partnership: despite sharply differing personalities and the ups and downs of various sibling rivalries, they suppressed whatever divided them and combined their talents to collaborate on an unashamedly sentimental songbook that sings the praises of love, hope, belief, aspiration and perseverance; a legacy of numbers that come from (and speak to) the heart and will live on for years.
Two decades after I first fell under the spell of their work for Mary Poppins (what a work of brilliance: an original film score with over a dozen numbers, more than half of which – like 'Let's Go Fly a Kite' and 'A Spoonful of Sugar' – are undisputed standards!) I had the great good fortune to meet Bob and Dick at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank.
This was just the first of many meetings, separately and together, during which I had the opportunity to listen to their stories of the joys and delights of working for Walt and, equally, the trials and tribulations of having to cope with Mary Poppins' creator, P L Travers!
I greatly treasure the friendship I enjoyed with Bob and Dick and was honoured to contribute to the 2009 film profile of their lives, The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story...
Bob was a private rather than a public man; a person of reflective moods, whose many talents included a gift for poetry, painting and sculpture.
He and his brother received many honours including being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and receiving the National Medal for the Arts - the highest honour conferred on artists or patrons of the arts from the United States Government.
My condolences go to Dick and to Bob's family and I can think of no better tribute to their work than Dick Van Dyke (no jokes about the accent, please!) singing the song that won the Sherman Brothers the Oscar for Best Song back in 1964...
And my own favourite song from the film, "Feed the Birds" – as sung by Julie Andrews to Jane and Michael (Karen Dotice and Matthew Garber) – and then as used for a background score (evocatively arranged by Irwin Kostal) to the emotionally-charged scene where, following the run on the bank, the children's father (David Tomlinson) takes a solitary, late-night walk through the misty, wet, deserted parks and streets of London on the way to meet his employers and learn his fate...
Finally, here's the song that Bob and Dick wrote for the Disney designed UNICEF pavilion at the 1964/65 New York World's Fair and which is now featured at all the Disney theme parks and is, literally, playing somewhere in the world 24/7/365!
And if you're stuck with it in your head for the rest of the day, I apologise!
ROBERT BERNARD SHERMAN 19 December 1925 – 5 March 2012
So, to mark the occasion, here's little piece of Irish nonsense featuring Tommy Steele, Fred McMurray, Lesley Ann Warren, Hermione Baddeley and Greer Garson in a scene from Walt Disney's 1967 musical, The Happiest Millionaire.
The songs were written by Richard M and Robert B Sherman of Mary Poppins fame and this one is called, 'I'll Always Be Irish'...
As I was standing, recently, shivering on the brink of accepting a job that is going to be one of the most challenging I have ever undertaken in my career, I came across this inspiring quote from an address given by General Douglas MacArthur in 1955:
Youth is not entirely a time of life it is a state of mind. It is not wholly a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips or supple knees. It is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life. It means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease...
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair — these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.
Whatever your years, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life.
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only are you grown old...
Or, to put it another way, courtesy of song-writers Richard and Robert Sherman, from the 1971 Walt Disney film, Bedknobs and Broomsticks...
Browsing an auction-site the other day, I spotted my face!
OK, it was very small - minute actually - but there I was on a poster for the 2001 documentary film Walt: The Man Behind the Myth
In truth, I only make the briefest of cameo appearance in the film (talking about the relationship between Walt Disney and Mary Poppins author, P L Travers) compared with such notable names as Dick Van Dyke, Ray Bradbury, Buddy Ebsen, Robert Stack, Dean Jones, Chuck (Bugs Bunny) Jones and a number of legendary Disney animators including Ward Kimball, Marc Davis, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.
Anyway, along with the other interviewees (all of whose photos, by the way, somehow got a bit squashed!) here I am on the poster...
Click image to enlarge
"WHERE?"You ask. OK, penultimate line, three-in from then left after Mary Poppins songwriters, Richard and Robert Sherman. Found me?
Speaking of Dick and Bob Sherman - prolific composers who, between them, wrote the most memorable songs of all our childhoods - I've received the following invitation to a special screening in Hollywood tonight (but obviously I'm not going to be there!) of The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story - another documentary in which I make a guest appearance...
Click image to enlarge
What is really fascinating about the Sherman's story is not that they wrote standards like 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang', 'I Wanna Be Like You', 'Winnie-the-Pooh', 'The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers', 'A Spoonful of Sugar', 'Feed the Birds', 'Chim-Chim-Cheree' and (let is not forget) 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious', but that these men who together created so many memorable musical moments were, most of the time, consumed by sibling rivalry. As the poster has it: Brothers. Partners. Strangers.
Anyway, on this occasion, as you can see (or, rather, can't see) I'm, regrettably, not on the poster! BUT I am in the trailer --- well, not exactly, 'in', but - towards the very end (so, do be patient) you will at least hear my dulcet tones!
And here's the Sherman's most-played song (probably the most played song ever in the history of songdom): the endlessly repeated theme to the 'it's a small world' attraction continuously played (on average) 12 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year in Disneyland, Walt Disney World's The Magic Kingdom, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland. Don't blame me if you're left humming it all day long!
According to Miss Mary Poppins:
The words and music for Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Winnie the Pooh, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, those non-Disney movies Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Slipper and the Rose, plus dozens of 60's teen-love songs (among them, "Tall Paul" covered by Mickey Mouse Club 'Mousketeer', Annette Funicello) and a raft of unforgettably catchy songs and tunes for the Disney TV shows and theme-park attractions are a part of the pop-culture heritage of several generations.
In the 'seventies, the Shermans had enjoyed an original Broadway triumph with Over Here! Set during World War II it starred Patty and Maxene Andrews (of the Andrews Sisters) and launched the careers of, among others, John Travolta and Anne Reinking. Decades later, Poppins and Chitty – by that time treasured screen classics – made the successful transmigration from cinema to both the West End and Broadway stage.Youth is not entirely a time of life it is a state of mind. It is not wholly a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips or supple knees. It is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life. It means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease...
Click image to enlarge
Click image to enlarge
