Olive Marie Osmond aka Marie biography

Real biography: Olive Marie Osmond (born October 13, 1959, in Ogden, Utah) is an American actress, singer, doll designer, and a member of the show business family, The Osmonds. Although she was never part of her family's singing group, she gained success as a solo country music artist in the 1970s and 1980s. Her best known song is a cover of the country pop ballad "Paper Roses." In 1976, she and her singer brother Donny Osmond began hosting the TV variety show Donny & Marie.

Contents1 Early life2 1970s music career3 1980s music career4 Acting career5 The Marie Osmond Show6 Dancing with the Stars if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } Early life

Born Olive Marie Osmond to Olive and George Osmond, Marie Osmond was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, along with her eight brothers Virl, Tom, Alan, Wayne, Merrill, Jay, Donny, and Jimmy Osmond. Since an early age, her brothers maintained a career in show business, singing and performing on national television. Osmond debuted as part of her brothers' act The Osmond Brothers on the The Andy Williams Show when she was three, but generally did not perform with her brothers in the group's television performances through the 1960s.

1970s music career

Aside from her two eldest brothers, who were hearing impaired, Marie was soon the only family member not involved in the music business. After the initial success of The Osmonds in 1970, Marie's older brother Donny Osmond was gaining success as a solo artist on the Pop Music charts and was becoming a teen idol.The Osmonds' management convinced Marie to try her hand as well. She signed with the family's record label, MGM Records and began making concert appearances with The Osmonds. Her style was more directed towards country music, in contrast with her brothers' pop music.

In 1973, Osmond cut her first single as a solo artist, "Paper Roses". The recording became a #1 country hit, reached the Top 5 on the Billboard magazine pop chart, and achieved crossover success. The song earned a gold record as did the album of the same name. Osmond released another single, "In My Little Corner of the World", and a same-name album in 1974, with both entering the Billboard Top 40 in 1974. The title song on her next album Who's Sorry Now, released in 1975, went to #20 the month after its release. The title song from Osmond's final solo album of the seventies, This Is The Way That I Feel, reached #39 within two months of its 1977 release.

In 1974, Osmond had two pop music duet hits with her brother Donny Osmond: "I'm Leaving It All Up to You" and "Morning Side of the Mountain." The former song was a Top 20 country hit. In 1976, Marie and Donny began to host their variety show Donny & Marie, which ran on ABC until 1979. In 1978, Marie and Donny released their film Goin' Coconuts,, which was not a financial success. The following year, Marie starred in a sitcom pilot titled "Marie." which did make the new season schedule. The year after that, Marie had her own variety show on NBC, also titled Marie, which ran for half a season.

1980s music career

Marie went into brief retirement from the music business and pursued a career in acting in the early 1980s. She turned down the lead role as Sandy in Grease because she didn't approve of the script's moral content [1], [2], and the role went to Olivia Newton-John. She appeared in some TV movies and did voice-over work for children's cartoons. Prior to the comeback success of her brother Donny in the late 1980s, Marie made a comeback in country music as a solo artist by signing a deal with Curb Records in Nashville. In 1985, Marie and Dan Seals sang a duet called "Meet Me In Montana" which became a #1 country hit that year.

Her follow-up to "Meet Me In Montana" was a solo hit called "There's No Stopping Your Heart," which reached #1 in early 1986 for Marie. Her singles mainly focused on the more-popular Countrypolitan style. In late 1985, she released the "There's No Stopping Your Heart" album of the same name. In 1986, the single "Read My Lips" became a Top-20 country hit. She hit #1 again with a duet with Paul Davis with the song "You're Still New to Me." The Top-20 hit "I Only Wanted You," became her last major hit on the Country charts, to date. Osmond continued to release singles throughout much of the '80s, including "I'm In Love And He's In Dallas," and the last charting single came in 1990 with "Like a Hurricane."

Acting career

Marie and her brother Donny hosted a variety show on ABC titled the Donny & Marie show from 1976 to 1979.

Marie's first "made for TV" movie was The Gift of Love which originally aired on ABC December 5, 1978. The movie was loosely based on the O. Henry story "The Gift of the Magi." Her co-star in the movie was Timothy Bottoms and she received her first on-screen kiss in this movie.

Osmond had a recurring role on Ripley's Believe It or Not for two seasons (1985-86) where she introduced segments based on the travels and discoveries of oddity-hunter Robert Leroy Ripley.

Along with actor John Schneider, Osmond is the co-founder of the Children's Miracle Network. The singer played her mother, Olive, in the TV movie Side By Side: The True Story Of The Osmond Family. She also starred in the TV movie I Married Wyatt Earp. She garnered rave reviews in the Broadway musicals The King and I (as Anna) and The Sound of Music (as Maria) in the mid-1990s. She returned to television first in the short-lived 1995 ABC sitcom Maybe This Time and then with brother Donny in 1998 to co-host Donny And Marie, a talk/entertainment show that lasted two seasons.

She appeared as herself in the 2001 TV movie Inside The Osmonds, which showed how the brothers' egos, their father's fiscal mismanagement, and the family's quest to build a multimedia empire led to their downfall. The film was produced by her younger brother, Jimmy Osmond.

In 2006, she was a judge on the short-lived FOX celeb reality show competition Celebrity Duets.

Osmond had a radio show syndicated to adult contemporary radio stations, Marie And Friends that was canceled after 10 months.

The Marie Osmond Show

It was announced by Access Hollywood (Jan 08) that Marie has a new talk show in the works that will premiere in Fall 2009. The program will be produced and distributed by Program Partners.

Dancing with the Stars

Main article: Dancing with the Stars (US season 5)On August 29, 2007, it was announced that Marie Osmond would appear as a celebrity contestant on the fifth season of the ABC show, paired with Jonathan Roberts, 2004 US Rising Star Latin Champion.

After her samba on week five, she passed out during the judges' critique. The show cut to a commercial break while she recovered. The show moved on to her scores without judges' commentary and she did not appear until the end of the live show.

The morning of the week seven results show, Marie's father, George Osmond, died at age 90. She did not appear on the show and the hosts announced at the beginning of the show that Marie and Jonathan were safe from elimination. After the commercial break, Jonathan told Samantha Harris that he had spoken to Marie and she wanted to continue with the show in her father's memory.

The pair performed a Rumba and Jive in week eight, and was declared safe, despite criticism from the judges

During week nine, November 20, 2007, of the competition, Marie was again safe, despite having the lowest judges' scores two weeks in a row. This made her the oldest woman that had ever made it to the finals.

On November 26, 2007, Marie disappointed the judges during her freestyle performance when she attempted to imitate a doll as a nod to her fans. Judge Bruno Tonioli described her freestyle as "The loopiest thing I have ever seen. It defies critiquing. It's like Baby Jane and the Bride of Chucky." She received the lowest scores in Dancing With the Stars finals history. On November 27, 2007, Marie came in third place on the fifth season of Dancing with the Stars.