Las Vegas Weekly

September 15, 2008 · 4:24 PM

Exclusive interview: Marie Osmond’s incredible 20-hour work day, juggling dual roles as single mom to eight kids and performing as a Strip headliner

By Robin Leach

Donny & Marie, onstage at the Flamingo.

Photo: TVT

Marie Osmond is a wonder-woman and human dynamo. Her 20-hour work-day, juggling her new dual roles as Strip headliner at the Flamingo and being a single mother to eight kids at her new Vegas home, still leaves her room to launch a new book -- and get ready for a new daily TV talk show next year! She’s reveling in it all -- and you can see the sheer enjoyment onstage when she’s singing, dancing, jumping, joking, laughing and comfortably talking with the audience and when she teams with big brother Donny.

Before we get to our candid and exclusive interview lets take a look at their new show -- and these are the first photos! It is one big whopping winner! No, its not a lavish multimillion dollar splashy Cirque spectacular, but it packs an Ike-sized punch with emotional high-energy. It makes you feel good all over and you wish the duo didn’t have to leave the stage so soon! It’s infectious. It’s fun. Its got everything going for it that Vegas hasn’t seen – and has wanted -- in many a year. It proves you don’t need big bucks for mega-success if you’ve got tons of talent and enlarged enthusiasm.

Donny and Marie are back performing together again for the first time in 29 years – and their magnetic personalities are brighter and more powerful than ever. Right from the time the curtain rises and Marie bounces on in her sparkly silver, fringed dress and Donny in his metallic grey suit, the dynamic is already at the high point. It doesn’t drop one moment and the non-stop electrifying experience keeps building throughout until the final incredibly exciting dance number. They’re backed up by 10 master musicians and a dozen dazzling dancers.

The stage has a parapet build out, so the twosome can get right out into the audience -- and in fact at one point they race around the showroom, dancing on the tables to be that up-close and personal. It’s an awesome moment -- let alone a Richard Simmons exercise routine! How they don’t lost their breath is beyond me! Its infectious and you want to race behind them Pied Piper-style. One overly enthusiastic lady did just that with Donny the night I saw them and he wound up having to pick her up in his arms from center stage to dump her back at her seat!

Donny is a video genius, and unlike many other shows on the Strip he’s used it as a part of the process and not as a block or interruption. He doesn’t use technicians –- he relies on his own skills to computer program the lights, the sounds and the special effects. It adds to their victory voltage. Strangely enough his dissolves from yesteryear videos of his sister into today’s hot look don’t only make her look better but you simply can’t believe she’s just two years shy of a 50th birthday! “I wanna be that hot, hotter older woman,” Marie shouts out. The audience loves her back with positive affirmations and cheers! When they perform a video sing-along duet with an old clip from Stevie Wonder, the audience is mesmerized and its uncanny how Donny can duplicate Stevie’s high-pitch on My Cherie Amour.

Marie transitions from a Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy number for the troops into a serious operatic aria without a hiccup -– and both get a standing ovation. You just know she’s enjoying herself and can’t think of a better way to make a living to look after her super-sized family. It all ends too quickly as they go from rockabilly zoot suit and sultry flapper dress into the final dance challenge that recalls her third-place finish -– despite the fainting -- on Dancing with the Stars.

Fellow Flamingo headliner, magician Nathan Burton, watched the show with us and told me they’ve all good-naturedly “dropped in” on each other’s performances. All three of them were backstage for our Luxe Life photos. At one show, when Nathan went into the audience looking for a volunteer for his straightjacket illusion, it was Donny who jumped up to come onstage and lock him extra-harder than usual. Said Donny: “I’ve seen this trick done before and I still don’t know how it works. That’s why I volunteered to see if I could stop him getting loose. I didn’t.” At another show, Nathan peered into the audience to ask the audience to select a box of cereal. He then magically produced the requested Rice Krispies from a sealed safe hung from a stage rafter and joked: “You don’t get Rice Krispies at Donny & Marie’s show.” But a loud voice from the balcony screamed, “Oh yes you do.” People turned in their seats to see Donny standing on the balcony rail!!!!

Nathan told me it was 17-years earlier, when he was still a teenager, that he first opened for Marie who was on tour in Arkansas where he grew up and as a teenager did school shows and birthday parties as a budding illusionist. When Marie arrived at the Flamingo he showed her the poster he’d kept since they first worked together in 1991 and now she’s signed it he ‘s having it framed as the ultimate small-world souvenir. “Now we’re sharing the same showroom on the Vegas strip” he exclaimed proudly, “and having the greatest fun. I’m even teaching Donny some magic.”

There wasn’t a single member of the audience, that third preview night I watched, who felt they hadn’t seen the very best. They cheered, they stomped, they applauded -– and many of them told me they’d be back twice more on their trip because it had been so brilliant. Admittedly, their VIP meet-and-greet package in the first-row stage seats is a $250 tab, but with ducats starting at just $85 in the warm intimate theater it’s a bargain in a town of top-tier ticket prices. No wonder Flamingo head honcho Don Marrandino has already extended the option for the second six months of their initial first year and is in contract talks for a full second year renewal -- after just three shows! The gala celebrity opening is set for Thursday of next week (Sept. 25) -– and maybe he’ll announce then the renewals!

NOW TO OUR MARIE OSMOND ‘EXCLUSIVE’- HER FIRST INTERVIIEW SINCE OPENING THE NEW FLAMINGO SHOW:

The conversations began with a long morning telephone chat -– and then continued after her show with a steak-house dinner at the Flamingo that ran past midnight. I’ve known Marie for many years, but it’s still hard to believe she’s been racking up entertainment industry successes for more than 40 years. She was just three years old when Andy Williams put her on his lap in 1963 and introduced her as, “the youngest Osmond brother!” By the age of 13, she was at the top of the charts with “Paper Roses” and in 1974 she won a gold record and a Grammy nomination for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best new Album. She went on to a staggering record career with world wide concert tours, top 10 New York Times best-selling books and starred in The King & I on Broadway. Marie still runs her Collector Dolls business and appears in the NutriSystems weight-loss commercials

Donny will still commute to his family in Provo, Utah for the run of the show but Marie has decided to get a home here and move full-time to Vegas!

RL: How does it feel to become a local?

Marie Osmond: I am actually enjoying it. When I took this we were debating it. Donnie and I always knew for the past 10 years we would do something together again, and we both thought about it really seriously the last two years. The timing was good. We fell in love with the showroom at the Flamingo. It is not a big Cirque show. It is intimate. We grew up on Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin. It is that great intimacy with the audience. You will see that we want to do something for everybody. My age demo is 6-85, that is because of my dog, and kids have grown up with me.

First though I had to look at all the ramifications of moving and working here every night, I have 8 children and I am a single mom. You have to make sure they come first. It has worked out really great.

RL: How is it juggling eight kids -– the youngest being six? So you have their school by day and your own work schedule at night?

MO: I went to bed at 2am this morning, I got up at 6am, got the kids to schooll, I laid down for 15 minutes when they left before I made 15 calls about everything that’s going on. I hope I can get a little nap in before they get home and I have to leave for the show -- but maybe not. That is my life. I knew that when I took this gig and women don’t sleep a lot, especially working moms.

RL: So you thrive on the pressure, the tension, and the excitement.

MO: I don’t think you thrive on it, but I am ADD, so I can deal with it.

RL: So the first time in nearly 30-years you are back together doing a variety show with your brother. I know you did Miss America together. I know you did a week at MGM together, but did the chemistry ever vanish or was it an instant spark all over again?

MO: The chemistry has always been there; don’t you think that is a part of the Donnie and Marie magic? If you think about it Robin, there isn’t a brother and sister act out there. We did have the Carpenters but the one thing we have is that I am bona-fide “nuts.” You never know what is going to happen onstage. Heavens no -- we don’t even know what’s going to happen its all so spontaneous and more fun that way.

RL: Do you even know what is going to come out of your mouth?

MO: You just go off the audience. I love this kind of showroom, if the audience wants to have fun, I will have fun with them. That also allows you to do a show night after night and keep it fun. After doing King and I in New York for two years, when you have a set script, you have to think of ways to keep that show fresh without varying the words. But this show at the Flamingo is live so you can do anything you want. Even my brother doesn’t know what to expect when I get going.

RL: So your banter and repartee is totally fresh every night but it’s also sassy and sarcastic.

MO: It is sibling, but everyone understands that sibling relationship. We have great chemistry; we are like an acid pill. That is how we stay looking so young. It is always in good humor because we respect each other. There is also something about knowing that other person is there to catch you. There is a comfort level. We have worked with everyone on the planet so I actually relax more onstage than I do throughout the day. It is one of the only controlled environments I have.

RL: How long have you and Donnie been talking about this reunion and the decision to move to Vegas and become a resident Strip act?

MO: I think it has been over a long period of time. It came to fruition a year and half ago. That is when I decided to rekindle things too. I took care of my mom and dad for eight years and being the only girl, that is what I do. I put weight on, I have lost 40 pounds, and you put five pounds on every year when you are sitting in the hospital at 3 a.m. trying to stay awake. I decided to do Dancing With The Stars and lose the weight and get back into the action of things.

RL: Is that what triggered this new show?

MO: When I passed out onstage Donnie had me sign a six-month contract when I was unconscious. Then I woke up and said, “Oh, crap.”

RL: You came in third on that show, but that fainting episode was pretty worrying. You really went right out -- unconscious.

MO: You should have seen my head, I had a bruise. My leg even got a bruise too. I had the face of Elvis on my leg. I was getting 10-1 on the phones. I was so flattered. That last dance I did I had five lifts but all I remember is the judges saying my costume was terrible because I hit my head so hard that I thought I won. That’s why we have a dance challenge in the show –- either with Donny or a male member of the audience. I’m a better dancer than he is!

RL: You are now a single mom, have you ruled out marriage again?

MO: That is the last thing on my mind. An eligible bachelor might come my way while I remain single in Vegas. Sounds good, but with eight kids I doubt it. It is a handful, but I have a great support system. They like coming to see the show. Even my 25-, 21-, and 19-year-old like it.

RL: It is hard to believe you have a 25-year-old son!

MO: Well I had him when I was 4. I have to tell you the funniest thing. I am working on a book right now and I was in a restaurant with my co-writer. We were working on some things and these kids came up to me and I asked, “Is this autograph for your mom?” He was 16, and he goes, “No, this is for me.” And I go, “Oh, you like older women, huh?” He says, “I’m 15, you are single right?” I said, “Yeah.” I said I like movies, I was just joking around and he looks at me and said, “Okay, but you will have to drive.” I just about fell on the floor. I think the younger generation likes the fact that I just like to have fun, I like to laugh and I think people like that. Life is hard, but you have to laugh about things. That is the title of my book You Might As Well Laugh About it Now. It comes from the philosophy that tragedy plus time equals humor.

RL: So you have found a Vegas home. Do you do the shopping, drive the kids to school and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

MO: I do. I even make the ice cream. I am a mom that is what I do first. You don’t have 8 kids to have someone else do it. Do I have help, yes. You have to and I have a whole new staff. Moving to Vegas is a big learning curve, but in these early days I’m happy to report everything is good.”

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