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Donny Osmond
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Donald Clark 'Donny' Osmond (December 9, 1957) is an American entertainer. He is a singer, musician, actor and former teen idol. He has also been a talk show and game show host, record producer, race car driver and author. He is known for being half of the brother-sister singing act Donny & Marie.
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Osmond was born in Ogden, Utah, to Olive May Davis and George Virl Osmond. He is the brother of Alan, Jay, Jimmy, Merrill, Wayne, Marie, Tom, and Virl Osmond. Alan, Jay, Merrill, Wayne, and Donny were members of the popular singing group The Osmonds (also known as The Osmond Brothers).
Osmond recently traced his family ancestry back to Merthyr Tydfil in Wales; his journey was documented by a BBC Wales programme, "Donny Osmond Coming Home". [1]
Osmond became a teen idol in the early 1970s as a solo singer, in addition to performing with his older brothers. He and David Cassidy were easily the biggest "Cover Boy" pop stars for Tiger Beat magazine in the early 70's. His signature solo song, "Puppy Love" vaulted him into international fame. The fame was further advanced by his appearance on the "Here's Lucy" show, where he sang "Too Young" to Lucille Ball's actress/daughter Lucie Arnaz.
As a teen heartthrob, Donny's signature color was purple, and he always wore purple socks on the television show Donny & Marie. In the mid '70s, he teamed up with his younger sister, Marie. The duo recorded several albums together prior to and while starring in their own television variety series, Donny & Marie, which aired on ABC between 1976 and 1979.
When Donny & Marie came to an end, Osmond worked to reinvent himself as a solo artist. He spent several years as a performer, before collaborating with Peter Gabriel and returning to the US charts in 1989 with the song "Soldier Of Love" and its follow-up "Sacred Emotion". The campaign to market "Soldier Of Love" received a lot of airplay with the singer being presented as a 'mystery artist', before his identity was later revealed. Although his first foray into Broadway musical theatre, playing the title role in Little Johnny Jones in a Broadway revival, ended in dismal failure with the production opening and closing on the same night in March 1982, Osmond found success on the musical theater stage through much of the 1990s when he starred in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for over 2,000 performances. During this period, he suffered from Social Anxiety Disorder[2]. Donny was the co-host of a talk show with his sister, in 1998, also called Donny And Marie. The show ran for two seasons, and marked the first time the brother and sister had professionally been together in twenty years. He went on to host Pyramid in two countries -- a syndicated television game show that ran two seasons, from 2002-2004, and a British version of Pyramid on Challenge in 2007. Osmond has also been tapped by CBS to host a revival of Name That Tune in 2007.
Within the past few years, he has released a Christmas album, an album of his favorite Broadway songs, and a compilation of popular love songs; his voice can also be heard in the Disney animated film Mulan, in which he sings "I'll Make A Man Out Of You". In 2004, Donny returned to the UK Top 10 for the first time as a solo artist since 1973, with the George Benson-sampling "Breeze On By," co-written with former teen idol Gary Barlow, from the 1990s UK boy band Take That. In the animated television series Johnny Bravo, Osmond voiced himself as a recurring character.
Donny can be seen dancing in the music video of "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "White & Nerdy". The song is a parody of Chamillionaire's "Ridin'", and is on Yankovic's 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood. In the video, Osmond's role is analogous to that of Krayzie Bone to Weird Al's Chamillionaire. Weird Al asked Donny to appear because he was the whitest guy he could think of. [3]
He returned to Broadway on September 19, 2006, in the role of Gaston in Disney's Beauty And The Beast. He was scheduled to perform for nine weeks but due to popular demand he extended his run through December 24th. Liz Smith, of the NY Post wrote "I am here to tell you he is charmingly campy, good-looking and grand as the villain "Gaston," patterned after our old friend Elvis and noting "Donny is divine".
Donny and Marie were part of a Pepsi Twist commercial with the Osbournes (Ozzy Osbourne and family).
Osmond has appeared in animated form on the Cartoon Network show Johnny Bravo three times, playing an eccentric, exaggeratedly happy character who often brings the other characters into song.
Osmond returned to ABC as host of The Great American Dream Vote, a prime-time reality/game show that debuted in March, 2007. The return would prove short-lived; after earning lackluster ratings in its first two weeks, the program was cancelled. [4]
Donny married Debra Glenn on May 8, 1978 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. Together, they have five sons, the eldest being Don Jr., born on July 31, 1979 and the youngest Joshua born on February 16, 1998. In August 2005 Donny became a first-time grandfather. Osmond, like the rest of his family, is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He received some criticism from members for not serving a mission as his religion encourages, but most of the furor over this lack of service has died down. In retrospect, he states, 'It would have been nice to be able to have served a regular full time mission, but when I was of that age, my career was such that everyone, including my parents and the leaders of the church, thought that I could do a lot of good in the world by continuing being in the public eye, by living an exemplary life and sharing my beliefs in every way that I could.' [5] He continues sharing his beliefs in an extensive letters-and-comments portion of his website. [6]
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- Osmond appears in the music video for White and Nerdy, a "Weird Al" Yankovic song from his new album Straight Outta Lynwood, Donny Osmond appeared dancing alongside Yankovic.
- In his 1997 Howard Stern Show interview, Osmond recounted a number of shared similarities with his pop star peer Michael Jackson, whom he befriended as a youth but lost touch with since the mid-1980's: They both had the "same kind of lifestyle", both families had 9 children, both Donny and Michael are the 7th child, they're both the same age, and their mothers have the same birthday. [7][8]
| Year | Song | UK | US Hot 100 | US AC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | "Sweet and Innocent" | - | 7 | - |
| 1971 | "Go Away Little Girl" | - | 1 | 14 |
| 1971 | "Hey Girl"1 | - | 9 | 21 |
| 1972 | "Puppy Love" | 1 | 3 | - |
| 1972 | "Too Young" | 5 | 13 | 23 |
| 1972 | "Why"2 | 3 | 13 | 19 |
| 1973 | "The Twelfth of Never" | 1 | 8 | 7 |
| 1973 | "Young Love" | 1 | 25 | 26 |
| 1973 | "A Million to One" | - | 23 | - |
| 1973 | "When I Fall in Love" | 4 | 55 | 31 |
| 1973 | "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" | - | 14 | - |
| 1974 | "I'm Leaving It (All) Up to You" (with Marie Osmond) | 2 | 4 | 1 |
| 1974 | "Morning Side of the Mountain" (with Marie Osmond) | 5 | 8 | 1 |
| 1974 | "Where Did All the Good Times Go" | 18 | - | - |
| 1975 | "I Have a Dream" | - | 50 | 45 |
| 1975 | "Make the World Go Away" (with Marie Osmond) | 18 | 44 | 31 |
| 1975 | "Deep Purple" (with Marie Osmond) | 25 | 14 | 8 |
| 1976 | "C'Mon Marianne" | - | 38 | 25 |
| 1976 | "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" (with Marie Osmond) | - | 21 | 17 |
| 1977 | "You've Got Me Dangling on a String"3 | - | 109 | - |
| 1977 | "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration" (with Marie Osmond) | - | 38 | 18 |
| 1978 | "On the Shelf" (with Marie Osmond) | - | 38 | 25 |
| 1987 | "I'm in It for Love" | 70 | - | - |
| 1988 | "Soldier of Love" | 29 | 2 | 20 |
| 1988 | "If It's Love That You Want" | 70 | - | - |
| 1989 | "Sacred Emotion" | - | 13 | 4 |
| 1989 | "Hold On" | - | 73 | - |
| 1990 | "I'll Be Good to You" | - | - | 10 |
| 1990 | "My Love Is a Fire" | 64 | 21 | - |
| 1991 | "Sure Lookin'" | - | 54 | - |
| 1991 | "Love Will Survive" | - | - | 24 |
| 2004 | "Breeze On By" | 8 | - | 37 |
1"I Knew You When" charted as a tagalong b-side of "Hey Girl" on the Hot 100.
2"Lonely Boy" charted as a tagalong b-side of "Why" on the Hot 100.
3"You've Got Me Dangling on a String" did not chart on Billboard's Hot 100, but peaked at number nine on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart.