Oscar-winning composer talks the making of 'Mary Poppins'

P.L. Travers, the woman who created the magical nanny Mary Poppins, "was very, very, very difficult to work with," says Richard Sherman.

Sherman and his brother, Robert, helped conceive the story and wrote the music and the lyrics for the beloved 1964 Disney movie "Mary Poppins."

The movie was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, won five, including best song ("Chim Chim Cher-ee") and best score for the Sherman brothers, and was the top box office hit of 1965.

Travers hated it, Sherman, 83, said during a phone interview from his Beverly Hills home. She didn't like the story, she didn't like the animation, she didn't like the music. She refused to allow a sequel. And when she finally agreed to a stage adaptation in 1994, she insisted that producer Cameron Mackintosh not hire any Americans to work on the show.

So Mackintosh hired George Stiles and Anthony Drewe to write music and lyrics and Julian Fellowes, the creator of PBS' "Downton Abbey," to write the book. But much of the Sherman brothers' original score remains in the show, which opened in London in 2004, on Broadway in 2006 and comes to the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday for eight performances.

During one of his conversations with Travers while the movie was in production, Sherman said he told her, "We're never going to touch a word of your books."

So when he heard "Mary Poppins" would be adapted for the stage by others, "I said to myself what I said to Mrs. Travers. The original picture is never going to be touched."

Besides, he said, he likes the stage "Mary Poppins."

"I'm very happy they developed a lot of material that was very special for the play," he said. "They did a wonderful job and wrote very good songs. It's a nice wedding of two sets of writers."

The Sherman brothers had a big hit in 1958 with the song "Tall Paul," sung by Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, which brought them to Walt Disney's attention. In 1960, Disney asked them to read Travers' first book, "Mary Poppins," published in 1934. He had just secured rights to the book after 20 years of trying to convince Travers to let him make a movie version.

"Bob and I were story guys," said Sherman, whose brother died last year. "We developed characters through songs."

Sherman said the biggest challenge he and his brother and screenwriters Don DaGradi and Bill Walsh faced was that Travers' books - four Mary Poppins books had been published by 1960 - were short on plot.

"She gave the world a wonderful collection of little stories that had no story line," he said. "You have to have a curve, a story line. But Walt Disney knew she had the substance of a wonderful piece of entertainment."

Sherman said that he and his brother "concocted a story line that the father, who was a closed individual, realizes family is the most important thing in life. That wasn't in her books."

Now the story of how "Mary Poppins" became a movie is becoming a movie itself. "Saving Mr. Banks" - George Banks is name of the father in "Mary Poppins" - is scheduled to open next December.

Its cast is headed by Tom Hanks, who plays Walt Disney, and Emma Thompson, who plays P.L. Travers. Jason Schwartzman will play Richard Sherman and B.J. Novak will play Robert Sherman.

Colin Farrell will appear in flashback sequences as Travers' father, who died when she was 7; Paul Giamatti plays her chauffeur; and Bradley Whitford plays screenwriter DaGradi.

The Sherman brothers spent 10 years under contract to the Walt Disney Studios. Besides "Mary Poppins," they wrote scores for "The Jungle Book," "Winnie the Pooh," "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "The Slipper and the Rose," as well as the Disney theme park song, "It's a Small World (After All)."

Their song "You're Sixteen" was a hit for Johnny Burnette in 1960 and for Ringo Starr in 1978. Their stage musicals include "Victory Canteen," "Over Here!," "Dawgs," "Busker Alley" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

charlie.patton@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4413