Marie Osmond

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Photo by Christopher Peterson/BuzzFoto.com
American singer, actress and doll designer Marie Osmond visits WCBS-FM 101.1 in New York City. Marie is in town for her newest show “Donny & Marie: A Broadway Christmas.”
Forget Radio City, “Elf” and the annual office bash. The Christmas party of the season is being thrown by Donny and Marie Osmond at the Marquis Theatre.
“Donny & Marie: A Broadway Christmas” marks the showbiz veterans’ first time together on the Great White Way, where she has headlined “The King and I” and he has starred in “Beauty and the Beast.”
This is no staid, sentimental evening of carols and hymns. It’s a rousing, Red Bull-fueled show that wraps Yuletide ditties around hit songs (theirs and others’) and career memories (seen in various video clips) like a big red bow.
It’s much like the TV variety show that made them teen phenoms in the ’70s, complete with trademark teasing (his win and her third-place finish on “Dancing With the Stars” gets major play), solo sections and numbers together with a crew of backup dancers.
Is the show a little bit Vegas flashy? You bet – and that’s not lost on the sibs, who have been sharing a Sin City stage the past two years. Is the choreography, along with the costumes and Marie’s bangs, a little jacked up? Oh, yeah. That’s half the fun.
The other half is that both stars seem to love what they’re doing. They’re in good voice, deliver 110% percent and, with over nine decades of experience between them, know how to work an audience. Offstage, that finds Donny perching on ladies’ laps and Marie smooching bald men’s heads. (For the record – yes, I left with a lipstick-stained noggin.)
Onstage, Marie, 51, prowls around in soaring heels and sparkly dresses, but it’s when she opens her mouth that she really shines. She brings colorful shadings to “Paper Roses” and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” which she recalls singing during a USO tour with Bob Hope. A frantic Broadway medley and overstaged “Pie Jesu” – sung in honor of her late son – could both be toned down.
Donny, 53, spends his time in the spotlight mocking his pinup pop idol image, while winking that he’s still got it as he croons “Puppy Love” and “Go Away Little Girl.” He sounds terrific on a Christmas song about New York City and showed that he can still rock out, with help from the eight-piece band, on “Crazy Horses,” a song his brothers wrote for a show in Paris in the ’70s.
Having worked together for more than 45 years, Donny and Marie have an appealing chemistry that makes you feel at home – laughing with them and even sometimes at them. What more could you ask of your holiday hosts?
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