LAS VEGAS – After a recent performance at the Flamingo Hotel, Marie and Donny Osmond pose for pictures and sign autographs for a group of eager fans, just as they do every night.
Dressed in a black brocade coat, fishnet stockings, tall black boots and rhinestone hoop earrings, the newly petite, nearly 50 Marie Osmond looks very much as if she’s into a new chapter of life.
Besides her Vegas gig, a TV talk show debuting next fall, and an upcoming album, Osmond’s written another memoir – “Might As Well Laugh About it Now,” in which she manages to recall such difficult memories as the heartache of two divorces and her struggles with weight.
“Maybe because I started working at such a young age, I did learn to laugh,” Osmond said in an interview. “Look at girls today … we get so humiliated that we run from things. And to me that’s missing out on life.”
Osmond’s been singing since childhood, with and without her eight brothers. She is best known for the rosy-cheeked, wide-eyed image she attained while co-hosting the ’70s TV variety show “Donny & Marie,” and has had successful runs singing country music, performing in Broadway plays and designing porcelain dolls.
As the mother of eight, Osmond was one of the first celebrities to talk openly about postpartum depression in her 2001 best-seller, “Behind the Smile.”
Why a second book?
“I really wanted to put some things down that were really meaningful to me,” Osmond said. “It’s really about attitude … you can either let life get you down or you can laugh about it.”
Co-author Marcia Wilkie said each story can stand on its own and is prefaced with a personal photo.
“The reason we wrote it that way is because many women who are busy will just pick up a book and start in the middle,” Wilkie said. “Maybe you flip it open and see a photo that interests you – you can start the book anyplace you want.”
Many of the stories are nostalgic recollections of growing up – arguments about pierced ears, baking bread with her mother, how as a self-conscious prepubescent her most prized possession was a girdle.
“Self-esteem isn’t something you buy for your kids, it’s something you earn,” Osmond said. “I was the hottest teenager dubbed into 17 languages and I’d come home after 17 hours of work and my mom would say, ‘OK, go scrub the toilets.”‘
