Roberta Sherwood; Torch Singer

Roberta Sherwood, durable torch singer best known for her recordings of “Up a Lazy River” and “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You,” has died. She was 86.

Sherwood, who started performing in vaudeville as a child and continued singing into her 70s, died Monday in her home in Sherman Oaks of Alzheimer’s disease.

Born into a carnival family in St. Louis, she was a popular singer on the vaudeville circuit from age 11. But after her marriage to Broadway showman Don Lanning in 1938, Sherwood confined her singing to the Miami nightclub they ran for nearly two decades. In 1956, with her husband dying of cancer and three sons to feed, Sherwood ventured out into Miami Beach clubs.

Middle-aged by then, Sherwood slowly began to attract a following despite her matronly sweater (because of the air-conditioning) and glasses (the better to see the audience). With no drummer in her accompanying group, she banged on a cymbal to keep the beat.

Comedian Red Buttons and columnist Walter Winchell began touting the unusual performer, and soon she had bookings in clubs from New York’s Copacabana to Las Vegas’ Frontier Hotel and Hollywood’s Mocambo. She gained a recording contract with Decca and appeared on popular television variety shows of the late 1950s and ‘60s, including “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Steve Allen Show,” “The Jackie Gleason Show,” “The Garry Moore Show” and Edward R. Murrow’s “Person to Person.”

“I’m so glad those nostalgic old songs are back, and I’m just so proud and happy that I could stay up here long enough to come back with ‘em,” she told an audience in a Beverly Hills bar in 1976, after crooning a 1930s Al Jolson tune.

Among her other favorites that she recorded and frequently performed were “Make Someone Happy,” “How Deep Is the Ocean,” “These Foolish Things” and “Stormy Weather.” Of all her recordings, she considered her best to be “With My Eyes Wide Open,” telling The Times in 1982: “I can’t find one flaw in this one.”

Sherwood had lived in the San Fernando Valley since 1962--entertaining regularly for many years at such area clubs as El Gato. In 1980, she joined Anna Maria Alberghetti, Cyd Charisse and others to tour the country in a variety show.

In 1985, Sherwood received the Film Welfare League’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

She is survived by three sons, two grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.