Bobby Sherman, the teen idol who stirred the hormones of an entire generation, dies.

There's an episode of The Simpsons in which Marge, saddened to see her daughter heartbroken, tries to comfort her by telling her that her childhood crush was Bobby Sherman . Lisa cackles maliciously at how corny and outdated her mother's confession is. But anyone who appears on The Simpsons has, for better or worse, made history.

A pivotal teen idol of '60s pop culture, singer of the mega-hit 'Little Woman' and a featured character in several television series, Sherman died this Tuesday, June 24, at the age of 81 from cancer. His wife, Brigitte Poublon, announced on Instagram: "Bobby left this world holding my hand - just as he held our lives with love, courage, and unwavering grace." It was the artist himself who, earlier this year, revealed that his cancer was in stage 4.

In addition to a brief but meteoric musical career, Sherman was a regular on the covers of Tiger Beat and Sixteen magazines, appeared on shows like 'Here Come the Brides,' 'American Bandstand,' and 'Where the Action Is' (he was named one of TV Guide's 25 Greatest Teen Idols in History), and became a teen superstar whose face appeared on lunchboxes, cereal boxes, and posters on the bedrooms of millions of young American girls hopelessly enamored with his bangs and blue eyes.

Sherman had four Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: "Little Woman," "Julie, Do Ya Love Me," "Easy Come, Easy Go," and "La La La (If I Had You)." He had six albums chart on the Billboard 200, including "Here Comes Bobby," which spent 48 weeks on the album chart, peaking at number 10.

Her career took a major leap forward when she appeared on the ABC rock and roll show "Shindig!" in the mid-1960s. From there, she made the leap to the sitcoms "Here Come the Brides" and "Getting Together."

Born in 1943 in Santa Monica, California, Sherman grew up in the San Fernando Valley singing Ricky Nelson songs and performing with a high school rock band. “I grew up in a pretty strict family,” he told the Sunday News in 1998. “Law and order were important. Respecting others, remembering other people’s feelings . I was the kind of kid who didn’t do things just to be mischievous.”

He was studying child psychology at a community college in 1964 when his girlfriend took him to a Hollywood party that would change his life. He went on stage to sing with the band hired to entertain, and afterward, none other than Jane Fonda, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo approached him to ask who his agent was, to the kid's surprise. He gave them his phone number, and a few days later, he received the call to appear in "Shindig!"

He then starred in "Getting Together," a spin-off of "The Partridge Family" about a struggling composer trying to make it in the music world. He soon became the first actor to star in three television series before the age of 30, which launched a recording career that took off in a big way with the gold record for "Little Women" in 1969.

Sherman became the image of the good boy every mother wanted for her daughter, at a time when teenage rebellion threatened to turn everything in the United States upside down. “While the rest of the world seemed disordered and menacing, Sherman’s smiling face shone on the bedroom walls of hundreds of thousands of teenagers, a reassuring totem in the face of the riots, drugs, anti-war protests, and free love raging outside,” said The Tulsa World in 1997.

He was a regular guest on shows like 'The Ed Sullivan Show', 'American Bandstand', 'The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour' and 'KTLA Morning News', and his career also included appearances on the big screen with films like 'Wild in Streets', 'He is My Brother' and 'Get Crazy'.

After leaving the entertainment world, he became a certified emergency medical technician and instructor for the Los Angeles Police Department, where he taught first aid and CPR to police recruits. He donated his salary.

Regarding his fame days, Sherman stated in 1997: "A lot of times, people say to me, 'Well, if you could go back and change things, what would you do?' And I don't think I would change anything, except to be a little more aware of it, because I probably could have had a little more fun. It was a lot of work. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears. But it was the best of times."