If you think about stars who never seem to fade, Marie Osmond readily comes to mind. In this post, Connie Wilson looks at her early life, personal crises and amazing triumphs.

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Marie Osmond, the second youngest of the singing Osmond family and the only girl amongst 8 children, endeared herself to the nation as one-half of “The Donny and Marie Show” on ABC from 1976 to 1979.

Those who remember the 3-year-old’s debut on “The Andy Williams Show” might say it began even earlier, in 1962 when she toddled out onstage to join her brothers on television as a performer for the first time, but adults remember her duet with her brother (“I’m a little bit country; I’m a little bit rock and roll.”)

It wasn’t until the release of “Paper Roses” in 1973 that Marie Osmond had a number one country hit of her very own that charted in the Top Five on Billboard Magazine and won her a gold record for her solo efforts. After that, Marie released “In My Little Corner of the World” in 1974, which was a Billboard Top 40 hit and she also made it to Number 20 with “Who’s Sorry Now?” Her duet in 1974 with Donny on “I’m Leaving It All Up to You” and “The Morning Side of the Mountain” performed respectably, but their foray into film-making with “Goin’ Coconuts” in 1978 flopped.

Still, Marie had a sitcom that made the TV schedule and her own variety show on NBC (“Marie”) ran one-half a season. In the early eighties, she was offered the part of Sandy in “Grease,” a part later played by Olivia Newton-John, but turned it down, saying the morality of the movie offended her Mormon sensibilities.

Despite duets with Dan Seals (“Meet Me in Montana”) in the late eighties and a number one duet with Paul Davis on “You’re Still New to Me”, her last musical charting was in 1990 for “Like A Hurricane,” 18 years ago.

In 2001, youngest brother Jimmy produced a look inside the Osmond family entitled “Inside the Osmonds,” a television movie that blamed the brothers’ egos, their father’s fiscal mismanagement, and a misguided attempt to build a multi-media empire for the fall of the Osmonds’ fortunes. Although Marie did some work in television (1978’s “The Gift of Love” with Timothy Bottoms saw her receive her first onscreen kiss) and was hostess of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” in 1985-86, the glory days seemed gone forever.

A stint on Broadway playing Anna in “The King and I” in the mid nineties and a stint as Maria in “The Sound of Music” at about the same time failed to restore the luster of the Osmond name; subsequent gigs as a judge on "Celebrity Duets” in 2006 and a syndicated radio show called “Marie and Friends” was canceled after only ten months.

Marie Osmond has the sort of wholesome reputation that makes you believe she would never have the sort of tawdry dirty linen we routinely see being laundered by Hollywood’s younger set, these days. A devout Mormon, her most commercially successful venture since “The Donny and Marie Show” left the air in 1979 has been a line of Marie Osmond Dolls, produced under license with Charisma Brands and marketed on QVC, the home-shopping network, and sold in Disney Theme Parks. Indeed, one of Marie’s Cinderella dolls went for $14,000 at an auction celebrating Disneyland’s 50^th Anniversary in 2005, selling to a couple from Ankeny, Iowa. Her porcelain collector dolls have won “Trendsetter of the Year” awards and Awards of Excellence from Dolls Magazine.

But Marie’s personal life is not all dolls and roses, and recently, it has seemed rougher than usual. There were even reports, denied by her publicist, of an August, 2006 suicide attempt. Following on the heels of her much-publicized 1999 post-partum depression bout after the birth of her third child, some wonder at the denials. Reported Doug Robertson of the Desertnews.com in “Marie Osmond, Yesterday and Today” (12/17/06), “In 1999, 5 months after the birth of her third child, Marie gave the credit cards to her nanny, drove up the California coast and holed up in a small hotel, never intending to return to her family. Blosil (her husband) reached her on a cell phone and drove up to be with her. She was suffering from post-partum depression, which left her so inert that she had been unable to get out of bed or even decide what to wear in the aftermath. Osmond and Blosil were separated for several months, but reconciled.” (There were 2 separations and 2 reconciliation attempts during Marie’s first marriage to Stephen Craig, which lasted only 3 years).

Marie’s first marriage, on June 26, 1982, when she was 22 and Stephen Craig was 25, saw her wearing a glittering gown with 35 yards of silk taffeta and a 16-foot train to walk down the aisle at the Salt Lake City Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be married by Minister Paul H. Dunn. Four thousand five hundred guests attended the wedding reception. Marie had known her groom, former Brigham Young basketball star Stephen Craig, for only five weeks before they married and they had a three-day honeymoon. (About.com: Marriage). One year after their marriage, the couple had son Stephen James Craig, now 25. By 1985, the marriage was over, with Marie charging “mental cruelty” in her May, 1985 filing and being granted a divorce from the ex-professional basketball player, real estate guru and production designer by October of 1985.

Marie was now 25, with one child from her first marriage, son Stephen. Only one year after her divorce from her first husband, she was married again on October 28, 1986, this time to Brian Blosil, whom she describes this way in her book Behind the Smile: My Journey Out of Postpartum Depression: He (Blosil) was funny and charming. His priorities were very similar to mine: a strong relationship to God, a dedication to family, and a love for children. He helped me learn how to recover and set my own boundaries. Actually, he was so careful about not imposing on me that I had to ask him to marry me.”

Mr. and Mrs. Blosil set about proving their dedication to family, adopting 5 in a family of 8 which includes: Stephen James Craig Blosil (her child by her first husband), now 25; Jessica, 21; Rachael, 19; Michael, 17; Brandon, 12; Brianna, 11; Matthew, 9 and Abigail, now 6.

On March 10, 1987, Marie Osmond told “The Daily Intelligencer,” “You start backwards if you live together before getting married. I think you should start with being friends, not with intimacy first. That’s not what marriage is about, anyway. It is about friendship and wanting to be one, about wanting to know everything about each other and to help each other. If you both feel that way, it’s smooth sailing. Selfishness is the problem.”

On March 30, 2007, twenty years after making that statement, Marie Osmond and Brian Blosil announced that they were divorcing after nearly 20 years of marriage and 8 children, with the comment, “Our marriage has always been a faithful one and neither of us is assigning fault for the divorce.”

In May of 2006, just about a year before their divorce, Marie’s two teen-aged daughters, Jessica and Rachel, posted sexually explicit correspondence on MySpace, according to www.contactmusic.com. Jessica (then 18) announced that she was a bi-sexual who craved sex “as many times as possible” and Rachel (then 16) revealed a fantasy of having sex with David Bowie, calling herself “a slut” and “a whore.”

Their mother, America’s wholesome Mormon sweetheart, was understandably shocked and released this statement: “I am saddened by some of the choices that two of our children have made. The insidious potential for harm from adolescent Internet sites like MySpace.com only exacerbates these kinds of problems. If my being a celebrity figure is good for anything, let it be as a voice of warning to other parents that no matter how protective we think we may have been with our children in the past, we need to become more knowledgeable and even more vigilant now, in order to protect them.” (5/2006). This Tipper-Gore-like voice for better supervision of one’s child was sounded again recently, on May 9 (2008) when Marie Osmond commented on the Vanity Fair pictures of Miley Cyrus, saying, “My parents never, never left us alone…But, in Miley’s case, her dad stepped out, and that’s when it happened. How do you say no to somebody like Annie Leibovitz when you’re a little girl.” (Starpulse).

The vow to become “more knowledgeable and even more vigilant” in order to protect her own brood failed to keep son Michael, the 17-year-old, from checking into a rehab facility for drug abuse in November of 2007, according to MSNBC’s Access Hollywood (11/14/07). Marie’s statement then: “My son Michael is an amazing young man, shown through his courage in facing his issues. As his mother, I couldn’t be more proud of him. The press and public have always been kind and gracious in the past and I know they will continue to respect our privacy during this time.”

In August of 2007, Marie Osmond was announced as one of the competitors for television’s popular show “Dancing with the Stars.” In week 5, after dancing the Samba with her partner Jonathan Roberts, she passed out. In week 7, Marie’s father, 90-year-old George Osmond, died. Just 12 days after Michael checked into rehab, Marie and Jonathan performed a freestyle dance with Marie dressed as a young girl, with pigtails and doll-like facial make-up. Judge Bruno Tonioli said, “It was the loopiest thing I have ever seen. It defies critiquing. It’s like Baby Jane and the Bride of Chucky.” The couple was eliminated in third place on November 27, 2007, after receiving the lowest scores in Finals history.

With a divorce, a public collapse, her son’s commitment to drug rehab, and the death of her father all occurring within 9 months, the freestyle dance on “Dancing with the Stars” might have been an idea that seemed good, at the time, but just didn’t work. [The movie “Ishtar” comes to mind, as a cinematic equivalent, but Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty weren’t coping with quite so many personal crises at the same time they made that stinker.]

Is there no good news for Marie Osmond? As mentioned earlier, her doll collection continues to thrive. Also, in January of 2008 “Access Hollywood” announced that Marie would take part in a new talk show under the auspices of Program Partners that would premiere in the fall of 2009.

Good luck to her! Any single mom in her fifties raising eight children, 5 of them teenagers, needs all the help she can get...but then with that smile, I wouldn't worry about her one bit!