Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Utah: The Magic of the Osmonds with Sharon McMahon

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

In this solo state episode, Sharon takes us back to the 1970s to follow the rise of two of the most iconic names in showbiz… Donny and Marie Osmond. Follow along as we learn about the siblings’ long history in entertainment, from five year old Donny’s first appearance on the Andy Williams Show to Marie’s number one country hit at the tender age of thirteen. The brother and sister pair have spent their entire lives in the public eye, but have risen to the challenges of the business with talent and dedication. Think you know all the Donny and Marie trivia there is to know? Sharon shares some little-known facts about the stars! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my friends. Welcome. Always a pleasure to have you. And today's no different. I've a really just fun and funny story for you today about some people whose names you might recognize that are from the incredible state of Utah. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Let's go back in time to the 1970s, which was really the era of exploration, innovation, especially when it came to entertainment. It was the dawn of the blockbuster movie. For example, Jaws made its debut in 1975. And by the 1970s, 95% of homes had TVs in them. Families began to watch hours of television together. This was a massive cultural shift that happened rapidly in the United States. And it also became the age of the iconic duo like Laverne and Shirley, Starsky and Hodge, Sunny and Cher, Kermit and Miss Peggy, and also the dawn of the variety show. So if you are not old enough to remember variety shows, remember how talk shows were real big in the 90s?

Tons of talk shows. And there's still talk shows, obviously. real big in the 90s, tons of talk shows. And there's still talk shows, obviously, today. In the 1970s, variety shows were very popular. People like Carol Burnett and Dean Martin and the Smothers Brothers and Andy Williams and Johnny Cash and the Jacksons all had TV variety shows, which leads me to another dynamic duo that had a variety show in the 1970s, Donnie and Marie Osmond. I had to do it. I had to do it. If you don't know who Donnie and Marie Osmond are, buckle up. So Donnie and Marie Osmond had a variety show that debuted in 1975. But before that began, Donnie was already a famous heartthrob and TV performer. But it was really Marie, his younger sister, it was sort of her first time on television.

Just to give you a little bit of background at who these people are, Donnie and Marie Osmond are siblings, and they were two of nine children. Their parents, Olive and George, had Verl, Tom, Alan, Wayne, Meryl, Jay, Donnie, Marie, and Jimmy. Marie, the only daughter out of all nine of their children. And when they were growing up, Olive would tell Marie, it is your job to keep these boys humble. And one of the reasons that was her job is because her older brothers were already making a name for themselves. They were already showcasing their talents around their hometown of Ogden, Utah. George, Donny Henry's father, was a postmaster and he loved to sing. And so he taught his sons barbershop quartet harmony. And so starting in the late 1950s, their older sons, Alan, Wayne, Meryl, and Jay made frequent appearances around the community

at church functions, civil events. They earned money for church missions. They were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And just to give you a little idea here, in 1958, their boys were nine, seven, five, and three. We're not talking about like 17-year-old boys. These are young children that he taught to sing very well. And they were popular enough that they would get booked to come to all of these events. And so within a couple of years, these boys had developed such notoriety for themselves in the community that they were invited to audition for the Lawrence Welk show in California. And you could go back and listen to my episode about Lawrence Welk. That is another absolutely fascinating story. But the audition for Lawrence

Welk did not work out. However, on that same trip to Southern California, George took his sons to Disneyland. And while they were walking down Main Street, they decided they were going to do some barbershop quartet singing. And somebody overheard them. Tommy Walker, who was the director of entertainment at Disneyland, heard them singing as they were walking down Main Street and decided to hire them to perform on a segment called Disneyland After Dark. This was no surprise, a variety show.

And it was basically celebrating Disneyland After Dark. And it had people like Louis Armstrong, etc. And so the Osmond Brothers got their start performing at Disneyland. Andy Williams, who was another popular variety show host, saw the Osmond Brothers perform on that Disneyland After Dark special and then was so impressed he booked them to appear on his show. The four oldest Osmond Brothers then became a regular on Andy Williams' show from 1962 to 1969. show from 1962 to 1969. And Andy Williams, by the way, was very well known for singing the song Moon River. So Donnie, being one of the younger siblings in the group, made his debut on the Andy

Williams show in 1963. He was five and he sang the song You Are My Sunshine. And from then on, he began to join his older brothers in a five-person singing group. And Marie, who was two years younger than Donnie, made one appearance, but she did not regularly join her brothers when they were on the Andy Williams show. And later on in his career, Donnie Osmond loved to sing the song Moon River. And he said that of all the songs I perform, Moon River reminds me of where entertainment began for me. Because the Andy Williams show was where Donny Osmond got his start. Remember, his older brothers were on the Disneyland special and Donny was too young at the time. So as these boys, five Osmond brothers, grew into being teenagers. They wanted to kind of move away

from the variety show act that they had spent years crafting, and they wanted to start a rock and roll band. And their dad was like, don't approve. No approves given. I don't know about rock and roll. But in the early 1970s, they got signed to MGM Records and they wanted to produce their own music. And they began producing pop music, rock music. One of their first hits was a song called One Bad Apple, went to the top of the charts in 1971. Are you seeing any similarities between the Osmond family and another famous family of singing siblings? If so, you would be correct. The Osmonds and the Jacksons actually were very good friends. In fact, Donny Osmond was friends with Michael Jackson all the way up until the time Michael Jackson passed away.

I mean, if you think about it, the Jacksons and the Osmonds were in such unique positions. Like how many people can relate to that? I have children who are famous singers and they sing as a sibling group. Not that many people can say they understand. And so when you had these families who could understand what each other was going through, it really bonded them. And you can also see other similarities in that the Jackson family had kind of two breakout stars from their family, Michael and Janet, and the Osmond family had two breakout stars from their family, Dottie and Marie.

One thing about the song One Bad Apple, which was the Osmonds' first sort of top hit, was that it had long been rumored that that song was written for the Jackson 5, but that the Jackson 5 had turned it down. But in reality, the studio who was producing the Osmonds' music had seen the similarities between the Jackson 5 and the Osmonds, music had seen the similarities between the Jackson 5 and the Osmonds. And the song was given to Donny Osmond, who was 13 at the time, to try and sort of duplicate the success of the Jackson 5. They saw how popular the Jackson 5 were. They wanted to create another group that had that was that was reaching that same level of success. And in some ways that worked. Their songs began to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, stayed at the top of those charts for many weeks. So fans of the Osmonds coined this called The Osmonds. It was produced by Rankin and Bass. Rankin and Bass, by the way, was the group that made like the classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed

Reindeer movie that everybody has seen, like stop motion animation. So the pilot episode has six brothers and their pet talking dog, Fuji. Marie was not in the cartoon. And some of their episodes were called things like Sir Donald of Bavaria. And it says the brothers arrive at a museum in Bavaria and Donnie dreams that he, Jimmy and Fuji are sent back to medieval times. The next episode was called Paris. The brothers are in Paris and they must save a restaurant from going out of business. Another episode was called the Yukon. Jimmy accidentally books the brothers to go to Yukon. I mean, they visit Australia and a kangaroo falls in love with Jimmy. It is kind of funny.

The final episode is called Coming Home to Utah. After the Osmonds toured around the world, they finally returned to the beautiful home state of Utah. And unfortunately, the Osmond cartoon series only lasted for one season. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends and together we have the podcast office ladies where we re-watched every single episode of the office with insane behind the scenes stories hilarious guests and lots of laughs guess who's sitting next to me Steve in the studio every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests.

And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. So by 1973, the Osmonds fame had started to cool a little bit. The three older brothers that were in the group, Alan, Wayne, and Meryl had started families. They were getting married. And so they were kind of losing a little bit of that like boy band feeling. And they struggled with refining

their sound. They had recorded bubblegum pop. They had recorded easy listening. They'd recorded hard rock all within a span of three years. And generally speaking, when people do crossover music, it's kind of like a slow transition, right? If you think about like Taylor Swift, she didn't record country, pop, and hard rock on her first album. People want to know what to expect when they're listening to an artist, and that lack of focus potentially hurt their

popularity. So it was also around this time in the early 1970s that Donnie began his solo career, and his voice had sort of changed from this little boy soprano into this lovely, smooth baritone. And he became a total heartthrob. He was singing songs like Sweet and Innocent and Puppy Love. He was one of the biggest cover boy pop stars for the Tiger Beat and Sixteen magazine in the 1970s. for the Tiger Beat and Sixteen magazine in the 1970s. Obviously, many girls probably had his picture tacked up in their bedrooms. And so from 1971 to 1976, Donnie had 12 top 40 hits, including five top 10 hits. Most of that, by the way, the Osmonds were still performing as his backup, but he was releasing the songs under just his name. During this time, you might be wondering, well, like, where is Marie during all of this? She was beginning her own musical career as a country artist.

And she was a young teenager. She was 13 years old in 1973. And she hit number one on the country charts with a cover of the song Paper Roses. So she's essentially heating up the country charts. Her brother was heating up the pop charts. And in 1974, Donny and Marie decided they wanted to record together. So they recorded two pop music duets. One was called I'm Leaving It All Up To You, and the other was called Morningside of the Mountain. That did well for them. And by 1976, they made the transition to TV together on their variety show, Donny and Marie. Donny was 18, and Marie was 16 years old. And so when the show debuted, they were the youngest entertainers in TV history to host their own variety show.

It was on on Friday nights and it opened, this amuses me so much, it opened with Donnie and Marie singing while dancers on ice skates performed choreographed numbers underneath their platform. They did comedy skits. And occasionally, this is also interesting, occasionally, the show would feature roughly 15 minute musical adaptations of famous feature films like Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz. And they would often have a mixture of celebrity guest stars and original cast members from those movies. And that every episode concluded with a musical finale and a cascade of balloons that fell from the ceiling and it matched the color of that week's sets and costumes. And they would sing

their trademark song at the close of every episode, May Tomorrow Be a Perfect Day. One of their most famous songs of all time that they recorded together was called I'm a Little Bit Country, I'm a Little Bit Rock and Roll. And it was sort of a nod to their respective musical careers. So all of this seems to be going swimmingly, right? They're extremely successful. They have their own TV show, their own recording careers. But being in the public eye absolutely takes its toll. During this time, remember, Marie is a teenager. She says that she was taken out back into the parking lot and told that she was obese, disgusting, a disgrace to her family,

and that she needed to keep food out of her fat face. And she says that she weighed 103 pounds. So she felt this tremendous amount of pressure to maintain the show's success because there were 250 people working on this show. And if she didn't look the way the producers wanted her to look, it was going to cost 250 people their jobs. She says she developed disordered eating and she lost weight. She weighed like 97 pounds, which is very underweight for a woman who's 5'5". And again, she was a teenager, a teenager. And that pressure had lifelong consequences for her. Marie was subjected to weight and body scrutiny over the course of her entire career. And you've probably noticed that she does promotional work for diet and exercise programs like Nutrisystem and Body Gym by Marie Osmond, etc. Donnie has also talked about his time on Donnie and Marie, and he said that during that time, he developed an incredible amount of performance anxiety. He said, I tried

to be perfect. Anytime I would make a mistake on stage, I would berate myself and I was very hard on myself. I was raised with the theory that you as an audience member paid good money for this ticket. And it's my job to put on a good show so that the ticket is worth the price of admission. And those anxieties followed Donnie for decades until he finally sought help. He became a spokesperson and was on the board of directors for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. In 2004, he gave an interview where he said, I've talked with so many people who were unwilling to do anything about their anxiety disorder because they were too embarrassed. And I want to let people know that they're not alone and that help is available. Switching back into the 1970s, Donnie and Marie frequently wore

costumes that matched each other in color. For example, very snazzy, like pink and purple costumes. And then they were given their own Donnie and Marie Barbies that wore costumes that match some of the costumes they wore on their show. It's a big deal to get a Barbie. I mean, it really is a big deal to get a Barbie. Donnie is wearing like a pink shirt with like a very exaggerated pointed collar and like a purple vest and a sparkly silver belt and purple pants. And Marie is wearing a pink and purple flowy dress. Donnie toured with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He played Joseph in that show over 2000 times over the course of a long career. The Donny Marie show was a fantastic hit the first couple

of seasons, and then viewership began to decline a little bit. Donny got married and people were like, no, Donny is married. Like that was like heartbreaking to some people. He was off the market. And so some of the girls who like to watch his show were like, oh, I just am so heartbroken. A new TV show debuted opposite of the Donny and Marie show, Wonder Woman. And that pulled off even more of their female audience. So after four seasons, Donny and Marie left the air. They were one of the very last variety shows standing. the air. They were one of the very last variety shows standing. Here's another Donnie and Marie fun fact. They were both optioned to star in the movie Grease. Marie was supposed to play Sandy instead of Olivia Newton-John. And Donnie was supposed to play Teen Angel. And they opted ultimately to not star in Grease because their family was producing their own movie.

And they were going to star in their own movie. And the movie was called Going Coconuts. Maybe you have never watched it. That would be my guess is that you've never watched Goin' Coconuts. It was a complete flop at the box office. Here's the gist. Here's the plot of the movie. While performing a concert with Donnie in Hawaii,

Marie acquires a beautiful necklace, unaware that it's being tracked down by a group of thieves. Hijinks ensue, and Donnie and Marie get into one pickle after another. In the 1980s, the Osmonds began to fade out of the spotlight. Some people felt like maybe they're a little too unhip or a little old-fashioned. Marie began recording country albums again. She had number one hits on the country charts and Marie herself got married. She got married to a man named Stephen. They had a son. And then a couple of years after getting married, they divorced. So shortly after divorcing Stephen, Marie married another man, Brian. And Marie and Brian had two children together, Rachel and Matthew, and then they adopted

five more children. And then in 2007, Marie and Brian divorced and Marie remarried her first husband, Stephen. And she wore the same dress at their second wedding that she wore in her first wedding. They ultimately ended up choosing the date of May 4th because it was her mother's birthday and it was her son's birthday. And her mother had passed away and her son, Michael, who was one of the children that she adopted with her second husband, died by suicide. And so she wanted to choose that day to honor the spirits of her son, Michael, and her mother, Olive. So in the 1990s, Donnie and Marie began to Marie was on a TV show with Betty White called Maybe This Time. And Donny was the voice, the singing voice of Captain Lee Shang in Mulan.

That famous song from Mulan, I'll Make a Man Out of You. That's sung by Donny Osmond. Did you know that? He actually has a fantastic singing voice. These are not just like cutesy people. They actually are very, very talented. Marie also was in The King and I. She played Maria in The Sound of Music. And in 2008, they began a residency at the Flamingo in Las Vegas. And they had initially intended for that residency to only last for six months, but it ended up running for 11 years. An 11-year residency is nothing to sneeze at. I have a personal story to tell you about this. So we have a family friend who has an adult

daughter with Down syndrome. And throughout her entire life, the daughter has been absolutely obsessed and enamored with Donny Osmond. She has karaoke music sung by Donny Osmond that she loves to listen to. She has pictures of Donny Osmond. She has loved him as long as she can remember. And so she decided that she would save up her money so that she could take a trip with her family to Las Vegas, specifically so that she could see Donny and Marie in residency. And so their family gets there. They had gotten good seats because their daughter saved up for a long time. And Donnie was singing like a ballad type song. And he saw our family friend's daughter with Down syndrome sitting right down in front.

And he came down off the stage and knelt in front of her and sang the rest of the song directly to her. And then like gave her a little peck on the hand. And when I say that her entire life was made, it's hard to overstate how much that meant to her he did that totally on his own by the way and I love that story I think that it just shows that the level of care that he had I thought that was fantastic so October 4th 2019 Las Vegas designates October 4th as Donnie and Marie Day in Las Vegas. They had got stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The entire Osmond family did. And today, Marie keeps very busy with her nonprofit organization, Children's Miracle Network, which raises funds for children's hospitals. Donnie performs solo at a Las Vegas residency.

One other thing that I found very interesting about Marie is that she has said that she will not be leaving any of her fortune to her children and that they are going to have to earn their own money. You don't hear that very often of like, you guys are getting nothing, so find a job. of like, you guys are getting nothing. So find a job. In 2007, Donnie and Marie's dad died. He was 90. And he had at the time, nine children, as I mentioned, 55 grandchildren, bunch of great grandchildren, and they had made plans to all go, all of them, go on the Oprah show as a tribute to their dad, who had started this entire sensation by teaching his sons to sing and taking them to Disneyland, where they just so happened to get discovered. And then a couple of days before the show was set to tape, George died.

And the Osmond family decided to go ahead with it anyway. And on Thursday, November 9th, 2007, the entire Osmond family appeared on the Oprah Winfrey stage as a tribute to their father. And the show ended up airing on the same day as his funeral. as his funeral. By the way, when you look at pictures of Johnny and Marie and you look at pictures of them as teenagers, you're like, how do you look almost exactly the same? Like I need the secrets. I need the secrets of what it is that you're doing because you look dang good. It's too good. Give me your secrets, Marie. Oh, this was fun. What a fun couple. And I love that memory of Donnie singing to our family friend's daughter with Down syndrome. Thank you so much for being here. I always love having you along. I'll see you again soon. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you.

And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.