Donny Osmond and his technicolour career

Donny Osmond after he reinvented himself in the late 1980s.
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After Donny Osmond finished second in “The Masked Singer” in its first season, I had to ask myself how many times he has re-invented himself over the years.

From my earliest memory of him singing with his siblings and hosting a variety show, to his re-birth in the 1980s virtually out of nowhere, and his thousands of performances in musical theatre and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat” in the 1990s, Osmond has proven he is built to last.

“A little bit rock and roll”
Although his earliest success came singing with his brothers, followed by his rise to fame as a teen idol, I first saw Donny Osmond hosting a variety show with his sister Marie.

“The Donny and Marie Show” ran from 1997 to 1979 on Saturday nights on Channel 13 on the peasant vision dial.

It featured a lot of song, and dance, and skits.

A few things really stick out.

One was the song Donny sang with Marie starting with “I’m a little bit country” and Donny following with, “And I’m a little bit rock and roll.”

The other thing was the sibling rivalry between the two, and how Marie used to tease Donny, especially about his purple socks.

Their other brothers would appear as well.

We discovered more history about the family too. The original Osmonds were like a barbershop quartet who got their big break on the “Andy Williams Show”. Their two oldest brothers, who did not sing with the boys, were hearing impaired. The family were also members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly called the Mormons. This all seemed foreign to show business types, but growing up in Southern Alberta we knew a lot more about the religion.

A few years later, there was even a TV movie on the Osmonds, also on Channel 13, starring Joseph Bottoms and, fittingly, Marie Osmond as the parents of the Osmond children. It was called “Side by Side: The True Story of the Osmond Family” and came out in 1982.

The 1980s
Donny Osmond continued to perform in the 1980s, but was largely out of the spotlight. He did appear in episodes of “The Love Boat” in 1980 and 1982, and the 1982 TV movie “The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch”.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the 1990s.

Osmond hired Stephen Machat, an entertainment lawyer and manager, who connected him with singer and songwriter Peter Gabriel.

The result was the single “Soldier of Love” which went all the way to number two on the Billboard Hot 100, propelling Osmond back into the spotlight.

Initially, he was announced as a mystery singer on the radio, but soon enough Osmond was out of the shadows. His image as a ‘70s teen idol had been left behind in favour of one as a contemporary young pop singer. He cemented that image with a follow-up top 20 single called “Sacred Emotion” that went all the way to number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The years after
Since then, Donny Osmond has been busy. He teamed with his sister again for a daytime talk show that lasted from 1998 to 2000; hosted the game show “Pyramid” from 2002 to 2004; hosted the 2008 Miss America pageant; and teamed with Kym Johnson on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2009. He also played Joseph more than 2,000 times in the musical theatre production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat” through much of the 1990s then returned to Broadway in 2006 for “Beauty and the Beast”.

Parting thoughts
It seems like Donny Osmond has been around forever, but he is only 62 years old, which means he could keep performing for a long time.

He may be one of the best performers at reinventing himself and finding new and different ways to keep on performing. From teen idol in the 1970s to pop singer in the 1980s, Broadway singer in the 1990s, and on to reality shows such as “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Masked Singer” in the 21st Century, Donny Osmond keeps coming back.

Osmond has in fact had a technicolour career, and it all started in the 1980s.