by Marie Osmond
“Do you like it?” I asked her.
“No! It’s gross. Think about it, Mom. It would be like you wearing Uncle Donny.”
She had a point. (Although I’ve never thought of Donny as being warm and fuzzy!)
I almost always showed my mother the new line of dolls I was designing, and if her face lit up, I felt like I had succeeded. The first face I ever sculpted was my mother’s, as a tribute to her enthusiasm for dolls. I presented her doll, “Olive May,” on a midnight QVC show in 1995. I began describing the doll and what my mother meant to me. I was anxious about how my debut sculpt would be received by collectors, so when the QVC producers started waving at me furiously two minutes into the show I thought it was a disaster. I tried to show more of the careful details I had added to this doll, from the ribbon ruffle along the collar of her blue satin dress to the beauty mark by her eye, a trademark of every doll I personally sculpt. This seemed to only make the producers more frantic, giving me time-out hand signals and waving me to come off the set.
I felt horrible, but what was more upsetting to me was that my mom was watching and would see that the doll I made for her was a failure. I tried to smile and excused myself from the show for a moment.
“Is something wrong?” I asked the producer at the sideline.
“Are you kidding?” he said, his eyes darting around, looking for something to put on air as quickly as possible.
I started to walk away.
“Marie!” he said. “Every doll we had in stock sold out. You set a QVC collectibles record. Three million dollars in less than fifteen minutes!”
When I got back to my dressing room the head of QVC programming was on the phone. He said, “We had to get you off the air. You were melting down our phone system.”
I hung up the phone feeling elated. Breaking a record was great, but I was through the roof feeling like I had gained acceptance as a true doll artist among the collectors. I always knew that I could design dolls, especially from all of my real-life experience working with the best costume designers in the world, as well as hairstylists and makeup artists. But to create a face myself and have people like the resulting doll was, for me, as good as going to number one on the Billboard charts.
In the same way that we emotionally connect to a good song, a doll can take you to a memory, a time of innocence, a life before complications and heartache. I know this is why it was so difficult for me to sculpt myself as a baby. Looking closely for hours at the photo of myself that I was using as a model released in me a mixture of many unexpected feelings.
I wept knowing that I was now parentless. I smiled at the memory of hearing how my father had cried when I was born, so happy he was to finally have a little girl. Recalling the pain of my shyness as a young girl made me feel sorrow. Thinking of my strong faith and values as a teenager gave me a feeling of self-esteem, and, at the same time, regret that my self-esteem was so often injured over the years, drained away by life situations. In this photo of me as a baby I’m willing and trusting, not knowing that disappointment but also unbelievable fortune, heartbreak but also help, hope, and kindness from people who will love me, all lay ahead. Every experience shapes me, changes me, and molds me into who I am today. I thought about the characteristics being molded into my own children from my choices and attitude.
I looked at this picture of me and saw millions of other babies. We do all look quite alike in those first weeks. Like fresh blocks of clay, unmarked but also undefined.
Clay has been used for thousands of years, not just for shaping and creating, but also for its power to absorb the bad (toxins and pollutants) and provide the good (healing and purification). It’s adaptable, strong, and can come through the fire. It’s perfect for self-portraits.
I refilled the saucer with some clear water, dipped my fingers, and began to shape the clay that would become a doll. Me, as an innocent baby, being sculpted by hands that belonged to the woman I had become. A woman with a bit of knowledge that only comes through time: We’ve got to get life under our fingernails if we want to create something worth keeping. I’m all for loving ourselves enough to use the good china in the process.
Dressed to Spill . . . Out
Talk about pressure on Jonathan (Roberts) and me to perform on Dancing with the Stars! Not only did my brothers Jimmy, Merrill, and Jay show up to watch, but International Ballroom Champion Shirley Ballas was in the front row. I about fainted. (Not really.)
At this point in my career, I can leap to conclusions. When it was taking three adult women to get me dressed, I knew it was time to change course and improvise.
“Suck it in,” my girlfriend and coworker tried to say softly as she stood behind me. But the physical exertion from her attempting to zip up my gown turned her whisper into a battle cry.
The other two women in my dressing room trailer were employees of the studio costume department, and they had arrived to help me get dressed. Each one gripped a side of my cherry-red sequined tango dress and pulled toward the center of my back. Those two women would never have been so inappropriate as to tell me to “suck it in,” though one’s face was sweaty and creased, like a woman in labor, and I think the other was cursing me in Hungarian. They had not known me for twenty-three years, like my girlfriend. She no longer felt the need to mince words with me, and she had no problem mincing my flesh if that’s what it would take to get me dressed in time for the show.
“Did you know that the term ‘liposuction’ was derived from the original Latin phrase ‘Suck it in’?” I offered up, a bit of humor to calm the feeling of crisis. I learned that method from my mother.
One of my dressing assistants burst into laughter and then began to weep with equal passion.
“This is never going to work.” Her voice trembled in defeat as the stage manager knocked on the trailer door and leaned in momentarily.
“We need you now, Marie,” he said. “Eight minutes to air!”
I smiled and answered as if the stage manager were announcing something as casual as the chance to view a gorgeous sunset.
“We’ve got a little costume malfunction,” I said and flailed my hand in the universal “leave us alone” gesture. “I’m really close to being ready. We need to fix one minor problem and I can’t move right now. We are hurrying as fast as we can. Be with you in a sec. . . .” I rattled on for about fifteen or twenty secs, buying time. This was yet another worry-pacifying trick I learned from my mom.
The door closed and I heard a voice on the stage manager’s walkie-talkie blurting out, “Where is she? This show is live!”
“Push my back fat below my waistline and then zip,” I advised, as I gulped in a short breath and tried to relocate my floating ribs into a locked position under my earlobes.
My girlfriend used her knuckles to knead my skin inside the fabric as she micro-moved the zipper upward. There was no place for it all to go anymore. I half expected well-formed French fries to squeeze out near my hip in the same way it does on my son’s Play-Doh Happy Meal set.
I wondered if it was the actual French fry I snitched from Abby’s plate the previous night that made my costume no longer fit. I had tried this gown on twenty-four hours before and it was too big, needing a whole inch taken in. Randall, the head designer, had congratulated me on my diet discipline. “Three inches!” he announced, noting how much my waistline had lost since the first week of Dancing with the Stars.
“That probably explained it,” I thought. Randall’s assistant assumed he meant for my dress to be taken in three inches. The extreme alteration had turned the underwires of the bodice into bulldozer shovels and, thanks to the physical inheritance—also from my mother—if I had dropped my chin, I would have suffocated.
I made an executive decision about the dress, partly because we were seven minutes away from an audience of 25 million viewers, but mostly because there was already one Dolly Parton and, as much as I love her, one is enough.
“Forget the zipper!” I said. “Plan B. Ready?
Go!”
The other dressing assistant produced her emergency sewing kit, which happened to contain a spool of stretch lace that matched the edging of my dress.
A bees’ nest of fast and furious ideas poured out of all four of us on how to fix the problem. Velcro, clear plastic, fish netting, and finally a pullover sweater were offered up.
Since I was the one who had to actually wear the dress onstage, I decide that I would be the “Queen Bee.”
“Cool it!” I piped up above the buzzing. “I’m the emergency designer. We need one vision. I’ve had this happen before . . . when I was pregnant. Do what I say! Please!”
Though my two dressing assistants appeared confused, I didn’t have time to explain my past makeshift designs on the Donny & Marie talk show when my “with child” body changed so rapidly that wardrobe fittings were useless. The shows where I was never seen rising from my chair were the ones where my blouse had been slit up the back to make room for my belly, and then held in place with duct tape.
The duct tape rescue wouldn’t work on this show. I had to dance.
I unrolled the spool of stretch lace onto the counter and each of the three women cut off a long piece. My plan was to fold the zipper under and attach lace across the back to hold the dress in place. I hoped.
The stage manager opened the trailer door again. “Three minutes! And it will take us two minutes to walk to the stage, Marie. The world awaits your arrival.”
Stage managers who have a calm presence and the ability to move celebrities around despite chaos are in high demand. This one was a master at his job because he was still smiling, even though the veins on his neck were sticking out far enough to have hung macramé plant holders off of them. He took my hand and helped me down the trailer steps and we walked with the three women clinging to my back, stitching a moving target with a precision that would challenge the skills of the best surgeon.
In the opening moments on Dancing with the Stars, host Tom Bergeron announces each couple as they descend one of the long lighted staircases that bookend the orchestra. On the back side of the sparkling set wall is merely a flight of utilitarian aluminum steps rising up to a rugged wood platform behind the glamorous entrance doorway. All of the other celebrities were in their places on the platform, waiting for their names to be called, when I finally made it to the set. Jonathan Roberts, my professional dance partner for the season, sighed in relief when I joined him.
“When we get down to the dance floor,” I said to him, “I’m going to stand in front of you. Wrap your arms around my waist and cover my back. Don’t let go!”
Jonathan looked confused until he viewed my shoulder blades, with the various pieces of crisscrossed lace, a jaunty zipper seam, and some netting hanging out of my waistline.
I held my shoulders high, clutched my arms to my sides to keep the top half of the dress from drooping, and smiled while we made our show-opening entrance. As timing would have it, our tango wasn’t scheduled until the second half of the show, giving my emergency costume sewing crew twenty minutes to put me back together again. It was probably the fastest redesigned gown in television history, and when Jonathan and I took to the floor for our tango, I was saying a silent prayer that all the pieces stayed in place. No Super Bowl Janet Jackson mishaps for me!
Later that evening, one of the dressing assistants arrived to retrieve my dress from my trailer.
“I wanted to thank you,” she said, scooping up the costume jewelry bracelets from the countertop.
“No, I have to thank you!” I replied. “The two of you saved my life tonight.”
She leaned toward me and dropped her voice. “You were so calm about it, though. Other celebrities on this show would have had a meltdown on us. It was almost fun with you.”
I had to hug her. “Listen,” I said.“You know I don’t drink or do illegal drugs, so I have to get a ‘buzz’ from somewhere. And there’s nothing like the adrenaline rush of a good wardrobe malfunction to make you feel really alive!”
Maybe it’s my years of being on the road, or having so many brothers, or so many kids, or having so many more complicated things happen in my life, but I can’t imagine having a meltdown over a dress. I hope I never do. And if I do, I think I’ll realize that it’s time to exit my entertainment career. As my daddy taught me early on when we toured as a family singing group: “It’s all for one and one for all.” I may be the one in the public eye, but I know I’m the face of a team of people who put their talent, their hearts, and their time into getting me there. A dress will come and go, but the people around you will remember, for years, their interaction with you. And it’s people who have the power to bring happiness, never a gown. Not even a gorgeous, sequined, feathered, too-tight gown! Other people lift you up, especially when your dress is held together with lace, pins, and a prayer.
After the dressing assistant left, I looked over at my girlfriend, who was enjoying a piece of crunchy toffee between two slices of breakfast Danish, like a sandwich. She had made one for me, too. As every female knows, after a good rush of adrenaline, you’ve got to replace your blood sugar.
You’ll Be There
On the tour bus with my brother Jimmy and my forever “partner in crime” and true-blue friend since age ten, Patty Leoni. She’s the sister I never had.
The first time I became an aunt I was only ten years old. I loved the idea of being an aunt, and still do, from that first Osmond grandchild, Aaron, through forty-eight more nieces and nephews, all the way to Jimmy’s youngest child, sweet little Bella. They all call me “Auntie M,” exactly like the character in The Wizard of Oz movie. Hey, hold on a minute! Wasn’t Auntie Em prematurely gray and a drab dresser who spends her days counting chickens? That does it! Not one of them is invited into my tornado cellar.
My nieces and nephews are charming, smart, amazing people. I know I’m biased, but they truly do represent their parents well in their communities and the world. The adult ones are teachers, nurses, creative entrepreneurs, businesspeople, involved moms and dads, and even entertainers. The ones who are still children really have it together, too! Many of them are honor roll students, involved in team sports, play musical instruments, have been in bands or choirs, and do a lot of volunteer work. My brother Alan’s eight sons formed the singing group the Osmonds Second Generation (2ndG), and they do shows throughout the year. Almost all of the young men served two-year missions for our church.
As much as I love every single one of them, one niece in particular really changed my life in a significant and lasting way. She has never called me “Aunt” and I haven’t seen her face-to-face in many years, but I think about her often and carry her in my heart. She was born in 1981, at a time when I was just getting ready to forge out on my own and sample a new life, independent of my family.
I had decided I was ready to leave Utah and live in Manhattan and study acting. My parents weren’t all too thrilled at the prospect of having me relocate two thousand miles away from them, but they had always encouraged each of us to expand our minds and our talents and couldn’t really voice too much opposition to my dream. My best friend, Patty, was ready to make the move with me. I thought I would finally be able to make my own choices without having to always consider how it would affect ten other people. As much as I love my family, I was young and single and saw no reason not to pursue my own goals.
One afternoon, Patty and I were sitting on one of the benches at the extra-large dining table my father had built into the bay window of the kitchen, talking about our future plans. I’m sure, in her highly organized way, she had a steno pad and pen poised.
When the phone rang, I jumped up right away because we were expecting news about the birth of my brother Tom’s fifth child. My mother had called earlier to tell me she was at the hospital with him and his wife.
This was before wireless phones, so our rotary-dial wall phone had an extra-long cord on it. In my family it was a top priority to be able to travel from the sink to the stove to the r
efrigerator without setting the phone down. The cord on this phone was so long you could have roped calves with it. On this day, I stretched the phone cord over to the table so Patty could hear all the good news, too.
Unexpectedly, my mother’s voice was filled with sadness. I could feel my heart start to pound under my rib cage. I was afraid to hear what she would say.
“Tommy’s baby was born a couple of minutes ago,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “It’s a girl. But the doctors don’t expect her to live long.”
I stood, stunned, tugging on the long phone cord, as if the information coming through it was garbled and wrong.
“Your brother is standing next to me and wants to say something to you,” my mother told me. Then I could hear Tom on the phone, though due to his hearing impairment I knew he would never be able to hear me.
There were sobs coming from my brother that wrenched my stomach and made my legs feel like they would collapse under me. I had never heard him cry that way. I have always been close to Tom and I knew that he and his wife were struggling in their marriage. At this point, the tragedy of losing a baby seemed to be a heartache that would be unbearable.
“Hello, my only sister,” Tom said. “Can you hear me? I need you.” That was all he was able to say before handing the phone to our mother.
My mother managed to explain to me that the baby had never developed a skull, leaving her brain massively damaged. It was a miracle that she had survived to full term, let alone the birth.
I had gone numb with shock.
“They named her Jennifer,” my mother said. “She’s a beautiful baby. You need to come to the hospital right now to see her.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I know I can’t see her. I’ll fall apart.”
Being around sick or injured children had always affected me deeply. I couldn’t stop my overwhelming feelings of sorrow that something so awful could happen to a small child. I was terrified to see my tiny helpless newborn niece, to hurt for her. I couldn’t face my brother’s pain knowing that there would be nothing I could do to fix it.
