Donny Osmond Bares His Soul in Life Is Just What You Make It

It’s no secret that I love Donny Osmond, and this year it was even more transparent than usual since he was on Dancing With the Stars and hence a more natural topic of conversation. Still, it caught me by surprise when my friend Libbie handed me his memoir, Life Is Just What You Make It: My Story So Far. For one thing, I had no idea he’d written a book, nor did I realize quite how much I’d evidently been gushing about Donny. But now I was about to get his life’s story.

The funny thing about my fondness for Donny is that it doesn’t begin with his child star or teen dream days. Well, maybe that’s not so funny, since I was born during his career slump and he didn’t bounce back until I was nearing double digits. Still, it seems strange to me that prior to reading this book, my only familiarity with his early life as an Osmond Brother was watching the miniseries about his family. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to an Osmond Brothers album. I mean to amend that soon.

No, while I was familiar with the name, I thought of him mostly as a television personality, especially once The Donny and Marie Show started again and I was subjected to Richard Simmons screaming their names several times a day on those endless commercials. But then along came Mulan and the exceptional I’ll Make a Man Out of You, and I realized what an amazing singer Donny is. And not so long after that, I saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on PBS, and while the entire production dazzled me, it was his performance that really caught my attention, especially during the show-stopping Close Ev’ry Door. To this day, I’ve seen few performances to match the purity and sincerity of Donny singing what is probably my favorite Andrew Lloyd Weber song. (One of those, Ryan Kelly’s cover of Desperado, so enchanted me in part because it reminded me of Donny’s delivery of Close Ev’ry Door, as well as my dazed reaction.)

My Story So Far covers all of that territory, from before Donny joined the family group to after Joseph aired. Written with Patricia Romanowski, it’s a fascinating peek into the dynamics of a family who would build a media empire, only to see it crash and have to build it up again, stronger than ever. One of the endearing things about Donny is that he comes across as such a genuinely nice guy, and this book does absolutely nothing to disavow that notion. He seems incapable of truly trashing somebody; any time he expresses dissatisfaction with some element of someone’s personality, he tempers that criticism with praise of another aspect. He finds kind things to say about all sorts of people, from shock-jock Howard Stern to the group of teenagers who heckled him after a performance during his less popular years. He speaks frequently of his commitment to his Mormon faith, which helps inform many of his attitudes and habits, from abstaining from alcohol and profanity to simply being polite at every opportunity. This makes his book a refreshingly G-rated read.

One aspect of the book that I found particularly poignant in light of his death last year is that, particularly when speaking about the early days of the group, Donny compares himself to Michael Jackson. He says how he used to think that Michael was probably about the only other person on the planet who really understood what it was like to be him. Both were seventh in a line of nine children. Both joined their brothers’ groups and found themselves taking over the spotlight. They had to deal with fame from an early age and spent most of their free time practicing under the eyes of very demanding fathers. While I’ve always had a pretty negative impression of Joe Jackson, Donny presents George Osmond in a mostly positive light. It seems that he was an exacting taskmaster, but he never crossed the line into abuse like the Jackson patriarch did. Donny fondly remembers the few times when they got together as children, recalling Michael as sweet, shy and simply grateful to be able to have some normal kid time with a boy around his own age. It’s interesting to see the parallels between these two lives - strange to think how normal and well-adjusted Donny ended up being, while poor Michael, for all his talent, seemed to have little concept of how to operate in the real world.

Donny has plenty to say about many others in the music and television business as well. It’s dizzying to think of how many different people he has worked with on one project or another, from Andy Williams and Jerry Lewis to Groucho Marx and Rosie O’Donnell. But he speaks most often about his brothers, as well as his sister Marie, for whom he reserves special affection (and aggravation). Donny reflects on their beginnings as a group and the various ways in which they might have changed direction; he seems to particularly regret that his teen idol image prevented the group from truly branching out into rock and roll. He also discusses the disappointment that followed their concept album’s dismal sales, which he attributes to an excessive focus on its religious element as they promoted it. Considering his dedication to his church, I was a little surprised that he felt this way, but he was frustrated because he found that most of the songs worked on two levels but that there was no opportunity for people to listen to individual tracks from the album in a different way.

My copy of this book includes several chapters that were written a few years after the original edition. In this section, Donny says that his favorite aspect of his book is his discussion of his crippling social phobia, as his experiences have encouraged many others with similar issues to recognize that they are not alone and to get help. It’s strange to think of a man who’s been performing since the age of six freezing onstage as an adult, let alone going into a panic at the thought of returning an unwanted item to the store, but he candidly recounts this painful aspect of his life, which he overcame with lots of help from his beloved wife Debbie and his psychotherapist, Dr. Jerilyn Ross, who died earlier this month.

I can’t help wondering whether another edition of his autobiography is soon to be forthcoming, now that he’s been crowned Dancing With the Stars champion for the fall of 2009. Or perhaps that experience could be the beginning of a new book, because Donny, no doubt, has many adventures ahead of him, and I look forward to reading about them all.