Every Friday night from 1976-79, I watched the Donny and Marie Show. My sisters and I had pretend silver microphones and sang duets in front of our bedroom mirrors, songs like Paper Roses, Puppy Love, and our favorite, “I’m a little bit country, I’m a little bit of rock and roll.” We laughed at Donny’s purple socks every time he raised his pant legs and one Christmas we received Donny and Marie Barbie Dolls from Santa and played for hours, until one day Donny’s head popped off and I decided it was taken by a ghost because I never found it.
Because Donny and Marie were Mormon and lived in our town we felt like they were almost part of our family. My cousin dated Marie and brought her to our house before a date once. Back in those days, we had orange shag carpeting on the stairs, and it was popular to cover the carpet on stairs with thick plastic nailed into the steps. I remember Marie walking up those plastic stairs in our split-level house with her megawatt smile and shaking all our hands.
Osmond Studios opened in Provo and as Donny and Marie recorded their TV show there, their famous friends came into town often, like the BeeGee’s and my childhood crush, Andy Gibb.
I was only 7 at the time, so limited in my ability to attend the show unless someone drove me. My older sister Marlina happily stepped into that role. Marlina was obsessed with fashion as evidenced by the stacks of Vogue and Cosmo she kept around her room. She loved the Osmonds and cut her dark hair and curled it under just like Marie. She was especially skilled at lip syncing Osmond songs and would perform them for Family Nights along with Liza Minelli and Barbara Streisand songs. Because I was obsessed with Andy Gibb, Marlina took me to my first concert in Salt Lake City. I was in 2nd grade and we were sitting so far away from the stage that my only memory is the clouds of hairspray Marlina kept spraying in my face in an effort to cement her hair in place.
I covered my wall in posters of Andy Gibb and listened to his records nonstop: I Just Want to Be Your Everything, Shadow Dancing, Thicker Than Water… I danced around my room holding his album covers and pretending he was doing The Hustle right in front of me in his tight white satin pants. I would stare at my posters and weep with desire, my insides jiggling like the green jello we ate every Sunday for dessert. My Mom made the jello fancy by adding canned pineapple to it and serving it in goblets with a dollop of cool whip on top. My Sunday job was to add the spoonful of Cool Whip.
In one especially delicious poster, Andy was wearing only a vest and a gold chain nestled into his hairy chest. I shared a room with my little sister, Marlise, and the day she took a pair of scissors to my poster and Andy off at the shoulders, a war nearly broke out. She said she couldn’t stand to look at his furry chest for one more minute. My Mom had to separate us. Andy Gibb came to Osmond Studios more than once, and my fabulous older sister made sure we got tickets. In one memory, we are walking down the side of the studios outside when we spotted Andy Gibb 10 feet away, standing next to his motorcycle. I stopped in my tracks, frozen like a Dairy Queen Dipped Cone. I couldn’t move or feel my sisters pulling on me to keep moving until one of them slapped me across the face to snap me out of my reverie. That slap had to have come from Marlina. After the taping, Marlina escorted me onto the stage to get Andy’s autograph, and my hands shook as I handed him a piece of paper and the only pencil we had–a half-size purple pencil with no eraser and teethmarks up and down all sides. I carried that pencil home like it was the crown jewels, and slept with it under my pillow until one day it disappeared, probably joining the mysterious land where Donny’s handsome head had ended up.
Marlina waitressed for a time at The Tiffin Room, located in the ZCMI department store at the Orem University Mall. One Saturday she dressed all 4 of us sisters up in our matching red dresses made by my Mom in her sewing room and took us to the Tiffin Room for lunch. She brought out her waiter friends to meet us as the restaurant patrons whispered and stared at us, wondering who we were.
Marlina had a rich fantasy life and was full of stories. She would come home from her shift at the Tiffin Room and tell us things like the BeeGees had come in and asked her to babysit their kids the following weekend. She would tell us what Barry ordered, or how Maurice and Robin joked with her. I believed everything she said, and it was only later when I grew up that I questioned whether these stories were even true.
It’s entirely possible the Gibb brothers ate at the Tiffin Room, but it’s highly unlikely she actually babysat for them. I started to question her stories after one family trip to Disneyland when she came back to the hotel much later than the rest of us, telling us that someone had pulled her out of the crowd and asked her to be Cinderella in the Electric Parade that night because she was so pretty. I believed her at the time, but later I realized the entire story probably had more to do with the perfume she always wore–Eau de Vodka.
One of my favorite Marlina field trips was when she took us to see Donny and Marie tape their Christmas special at Sundance. Everyone knew that Marie loved dolls, so Marlina bought Marie a beautiful doll to give her as a gift. Or maybe it was my Mom who bought it– she also loved dolls. I don’t remember a lot about that Christmas special except the the gorgeous singing, the impossible Osmond glamour, and my sister carrying that doll backstage.
Somehow my memories of the Osmonds and Marlina are all intertwined, and maybe that’s why I feel a burst of love and fondness when I come across memorabilia like the Jimmy Osmond Halloween Costume I saw at Bananas Vintage Shop last year. I didn’t buy it, but it did bring back a flood of memories of Friday night magic laughing at corny jokes with my sisters and singing the grand finale song from the show on road trips with dramatic gusto:
“May tomorrow be a perfect day/May you find love and laughter along the way/May God keep you in his tender care/Til he brings us together again.”
Then we’d smile, wave to our pretend audience, and shout, “Goodnight Everybody!” I still remember every word, and it always makes me miss my sisters.
