Tuesday June 24, 2008
The Osmonds: Back on the road
Fifty years on and the Osmonds are still going strong.
By S. INDRAMALAR
entertainment@thestar.com.my
THE Osmonds are a tight-knit bunch. There were only four of them present at this interview last week – Merrill (the original lead singer of The Osmonds), 55, Donny, 50, and his sidekick Marie, 48, and Jimmy, the youngest Osmond, 45 – but it already felt as if I had walked into a family reunion. There was ribbing, there was sharing and, yes, there was plenty of praise thrown back and forth between the four.
“My brothers are truly the original boy band. They are great songwriters and this show is really to celebrate their musicality through the years,” says Marie, the only girl in the combo.
She’s a little bit country; he’s a little bit rock ’n’ roll: Donny and Marie today. The seven performing Osmonds – Alan (59), Wayne (56), Merrill, Jay (53), Donny, Marie, and Jimmy – performed at the Arena of Stars in Genting Highlands last Saturday in the final concert for their 50th Anniversary world tour. It marked the first time they had performed together in 28 years.
It was a grand show with 8,000 fans lapping up Osmond greats such as Let Me In, Love Me For a Reason, The Proud One and Crazy Horses; and Donny even causing some hysteria among the women in the crowd.
“The tour has been fun. At first it was just supposed to be a tribute to my brothers but it ended up a celebration of everybody. We are really having fun being together. Even though we are grateful for all our fans all over the world, it has been fun for all seven of us to be on tour as we don’t get together as often as we’d like,” says Jimmy.
It does seem as though this musical family can’t get enough of each other. The jokes just keep on coming throughout the hour-long interview at The Olive, Genting Hotel.
“Why didn’t we do it (tour) earlier? Well Merrill’s batteries wouldn’t charge!” jokes Jimmy. “You would think a 50th anniversary tour means that we are all a bunch of old guys but we aren’t really old. We just started really young.”
A fan holding up an album cover during the concert in Genting Highlands. “Well, he is old,” says Marie pointing to Merrill. And they laugh good-naturedly at each other.
“We could not do it (a reunion tour) earlier because we were all involved in different projects and the timing wasn’t right until now,” explains Merrill.
At their peak in the mid-1970s, the Osmonds ran a US$80mil empire in the mountain town of Orem in Utah. They erected a gargantuan entertainment production facility comparable to the big time studios you would find in Los Angeles today.
The facility housed a TV and movie studio equipped with about US$1.6mil worth of state-of-the-art electronics, where the Donny and Marie show was taped. The family had to sell the studios when they were on the brink of bankruptcy in the early 80s.
Originally, the group consisted of Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay. They were later joined by Donny, Marie and Jimmy. The elder two siblings – George Virl and Thomas Rulon – were born deaf and did not appear on any of the records. They have, however, appeared on the Donny and Marie show.
In the 50 years the Osmonds have been in show business, they have sold over 100 million records and released over 140 albums. No small feat by any standards. And though it seemed as if The Osmonds’ reign as teen idols came and went swiftly, the family has in actual fact never stopped performing with shows in Las Vegas, book deals, television appearances and so on.
“We are, I believe, the longest running group in the history of music. You’ve had other groups who have disbanded and then come back together for tours but my brothers have always been performing so this is really kind of an event. That’s what the media is saying.
“For us to still hold together and love each other and like each other still, it’s great,” says twice-divorced Marie, adding that her eight children love their uncles to bits. “My five year old goes around singing Crazy Horses.”
A sense of humour, says Jimmy, is what has kept the family grounded through the decades, in a career that has been chequered with highs and lows.
“You can’t take yourself too seriously, you know. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and laugh. Or else ...,” says Jimmy.
It takes two, baby
One would suspect that a sense of humour came in handy, particularly for Donny and Marie, when they had to don those ridiculous costumes for their variety show which aired from 1976 to 1979.
The show created by Sid and Marty Krofft – the famed creators of offbeat television programs such as H.R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Lost – featured cutesy, fun and wholesome entertainment comprising an opening act, a series of comedy sketches and a closing musical number.
The show often featured guest stars like Lucile Ball, Betty White, Jerry Lewis and Milton Berle. However, though millions of viewers tuned in to see handsome Donny and pretty Marie, the highlight of the show almost always were the loud costumes the two had to wear.
Don’t remember? Here’s something to jolt your memory. In one episode, the siblings recreated the Wizard of Oz, and Marie played Dorothy in a red chequered dress and pigtails while Donny was the Wizard and had a yellowish curly wig and sparkling fez hat. And what about the episode celebrating Marie’s 18th birthday where the two wore matching silver jumpsuits.
Of course, nothing could beat Donny as Captain Purple, dressed in (horrors!) a hideously purple muscle suit (with purple underwear worn outside, Superman-style) and purple socks, while sidekick Marie was in a red-orange mini-skirt and wig.
The Osmonds performing at the Arena of Stars in Genting for their 50th Anniversary Tour 2008 Repertoire. Do they miss the costumes and the campy skits?
“Would you miss wearing purple socks and silver jumpsuits?” retorts Donny. “Actually, Marie and I just signed a six-month contract to recreate the Donny and Marie show in Las Vegas starting next month.
“It is quite interesting how nostalgia is really back. People like to go back and relive the memories that they had and so that’s what we are going to do. There’s going to be a lot of dancing and singing. I don’t know if we will be wearing purple socks again but it’s going to be a fun show and a great show,” he reveals.
Explains Marie: “It’s not that we are constantly living in the past – our Puppy Love and Paper Roses days – but we acknowledge that that was a great piece of our lives.
“Donny has gone on to have No.1 records and I have gone on to have No.1 records. I have done Broadway and he’s done Broadway, I’ve written books and he’s written books and we’ve done a lot of things; so to come together in Vegas again at this point, it’s just really fun because we are celebrating the show that kicked off an amazing career for us both.”
Humbling experience
Although they have never been out of touch with their fans, the Osmonds are humbled by how they have been embraced all over the world.
Says Donny: “This tour was Jimmy’s idea. He started the whole thing going. He did a show in Las Vegas to celebrate the brothers’ 50th and that sort of sparked the idea. We thought, let’s do one show in England and it sold out in an hour. Then we thought, let’s do a second show in England and that sold out too.
“So that grew into sort of a whole British tour and then we decided to include Asia too as it had been 28 years since we had been to certain places, including Genting Highlands.
Adds Jimmy: “I just don’t believe that after 50 years people are still coming out like this. Elvis Presley told us once that the moment your fans start bringing their children, you’ve passed the generation gap.
“We can truly say that has been happening.”
Family and faith are the two main factors that have kept The Osmonds focused, grounded and in the business, reckons Marie.
“We were raised a little differently. We were raised to be entertainers and not celebrities. We really feel that it is our job to make whoever comes to our show feel they’ve got their money’s worth and that they’ve had a wonderful experience.
“I’ve always said that I’ve had the perfect stage parents because they were there for us at every stage of our lives. They’ve always said that if you can get along with your family you can get along with anyone, and I believe that because you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your siblings.”
The Osmonds recently appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, just a day after the passing of their father, George who was 90. Why did they agree to go on the show at such a distressing time?
“Have you ever tried to say no to Oprah?” asks Donny.
Explains Jimmy: “That’s a good question because obviously the death of your father is a very emotional thing. We were going to cancel and then Donny and I had a chat and we thought about what our father would have wanted us to do.
“And Oprah was so wonderful and she made the whole thing into a tribute to our parents, not just our father. And when we went to the funeral the day after as we all got together as a family directly after the funeral, that’s when it aired and it was almost weird as it seemed like the whole world celebrated the lives of our parents and the accomplishments of this great man.”
Back in the limelight
Was it difficult rehearsing for a world tour after 28 years not performing together?
“We did a ton of rehearsals. Donny made sure of it. He cracked the whip to make sure we worked hard. We rented a garage and showed up every day,” says Jimmy, joking again, of course.
In actual fact, getting ready for the tour was a cinch as they knew each other so well.
“We had to learn some new choreography and new harmonies but it was good and we are glad we put in the effort,” he says, adding that the tour was a farewell tour for the seven Osmonds.
What? No more Osmonds?
“Well, it’s actually a miracle that we’re all here together now. Our oldest brother Alan has MS (multiple sclerosis) so it’s going to be difficult for him to do much.
“And as for me, I have six children and six grandchildren and I want to spend more time with my family,” says Merrill.
Before leaving the four, I asked if they had any pearls of wisdom for young or aspiring celebrities.
“Be prepared for hard work. This whole journey is an experience that you can look back on when you are old. People look at this as power and fame but if that’s all it is for you, then you are missing the real journey,” says Merrill.
“Don’t believe the press and have fun,” says Marie.
“Yeah, just don’t take yourself too seriously,” says Jimmy.
Adds Donny: “There are so many people who want to be stars but they are not willing to pay the price. It’s hard work to build a career and it’s hard work to maintain it. Always be grateful for everything that happens to you.”
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