Having scored huge successes directing the films She Done Him Wrong (starring Mae West) and Morning Glory (which won Katharine Hepburn her first Academy Award), he was at the height of his career when he died after a brief illness.

As an adolescent he appeared on Broadway in plays such as Judith of Bethulia (1904) with Nance O'Neil and in David Belasco's 1905 smash hit The Girl of the Golden West with Blanche Bates where he was a young Pony Express rider.

[4] In 1921, Sherman was in San Francisco attending a party as a guest of friend Roscoe Arbuckle at the St. Francis Hotel.

Even after he became a successful silent film star, he continued to perform on Broadway, his last role being in The Woman Disputed, which ran from September 1926 through March 1927.

"[3] In 1930, RKO executive William LeBaron gave him the opportunity he was looking for; allowing him to star in and direct the film, Lawful Larceny.

[8] Over the next three years, he starred and directed himself in seven more films, including Bachelor Apartment (1931) with Irene Dunne, The Royal Bed (1931) with Mary Astor, and The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932) with Joan Blondell.

He also directed Broadway Through a Keyhole (Twentieth Century Pictures, 1933) with Russ Columbo, and Born to Be Bad (United Artists, 1934) with Loretta Young and Cary Grant (who he had worked with on She Done Him Wrong).

His final work, Night Life of the Gods (Universal Pictures), was released in 1935, after Sherman's death, and was another critical and financial success.

[18] At the time of his death, Sherman was directing Becky Sharp, the first film to be shot entirely in the three-strip Technicolor format.

[11][20] Louella Parsons broke the news of Sherman's death on her Hollywood Hotel radio broadcast, treating it as a scoop.