Donny Osmond knows about reinvention.
An interviewer once told him he’d counted seven times Osmond reinvented his career, but the lifelong performer laughed and said he thought there’d been more than that. It makes sense for someone who’s spent almost his entire 66 years in show business.
Osmond remembers talking with his friend Michael Jackson about reinvention.
“He reinvented himself in the ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’ albums,” said Osmond from a tour stop in Nashville, Tenn. “It took me longer. He left me in the dust with his superstardom. It takes a lot of work to reinvent in this business. People pigeonhole you.”
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Osmond will bring his award-winning Las Vegas show, which captures highlights from his six decades as a performer, to Pikes Peak Center on Tuesday. The 90-minute production, featuring a band and eight dancers, debuted at Harrah’s Las Vegas in 2021, his first solo residency since his 11-year residency at Flamingo Las Vegas with his sister, Marie Osmond, closed in 2019.
The past 60 years saw him go from adorable child performer in the ’60s, belting out Top 10 hits and making gold albums with his brothers in The Osmonds, to teenage heart throb in the ’70s, with hits like “Sweet and Innocent,” “Go Away Little Girl” and “Puppy Love.” That was also the decade of “Donny & Marie,” the variety show he co-hosted with his sister. The duo also had a stack of Top 10 hits and successful albums.
His career dropped off in the ’80s — he calls them “horrible” — until his 1989 single, “Soldier of Love,’ hit No. 2 on the charts and launched his comeback.
“The transition from the ‘Donny & Marie’ show to being a mature performer,” he said. “That show, as great as it was, was very silly and comedy. Then ‘Soldier of Love’ came out. It took 10 years. Peter Gabriel came into my world and helped me create new music.”
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His career went on to include the popular single “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” from the 1998 Disney film, “Mulan,” stints in musical theater in the ‘90s and early 2000s with “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and the Broadway production of “Beauty and the Beast,” and the big win at the end of “Dancing With the Stars” in 2009. He jokes he had to sleep on the couch with his trophy due to the sensual nature of the dance numbers.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said about the dance show. “It was very sexy, though anything but that in rehearsal. It was two and a half months of hard work, on top of doing five shows a week in Vegas.”
Earning that Mirrorball Trophy did more than give him street cred as a dancer, it helped audiences see him in a different light.
“For a lot of people, especially when you come from a teeny bopper career, and it was mostly guys, it wasn’t cool to like Donny Osmond,” he said. “I played Hard Rock Cafe in Miami and a third of the audience were guys. What began the process was winning ‘Dancing With the Stars.’”
Vegas is like home to Osmond these days, though he’s originally from Utah, where he grew up in a Mormon family. He began performing there at 7, sharing the stage with a host of famous faces, including Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack. He remembers his first show at the Sahara hotel and casino when Mickey Rooney made a surprise appearance.
“Elvis called my mom all the time,” Osmond said. “Nice man. Sent us flowers every opening night.”
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One part of his Vegas show pays homage to Andy Williams of “The Andy Williams Show,” who often invited The Osmonds on to perform. Osmond made his debut on the show in 1963, singing “You Are My Sunshine” when he was 5. In the show he does a duet with a clip of Williams singing his signature tune, “Moon River.”
“It takes you back to that era and rings true to a lot of people in the audience,” Osmond said. “Little kids come to the show and have no idea who Andy Williams is, but then we get to the ‘Mulan’ song, and they light up like crazy. It’s fascinating from my perspective to see all the demographics who know me for different reasons.”
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