Beware of Donny Osmond: He’s In It to Win It on ‘Celebrity Family Feud’
When it comes to competition, Donny Osmond is all in.
For six decades, the born entertainer has been in a nonstop race — be it top singles, TV ratings, ticket sales or reinventing himself — and he keeps coming up a winner.
The showman first took the stage at age 5 alongside his older siblings, the Osmond Brothers, on The Andy Williams Show in 1962 and hasn’t really slowed down.
You’ll see him show off his competitive side once again as he greets host Steve Harvey on Celebrity Family Feud, where he squares off against comedian Ken Marino and his family. “I’m so competitive,” Donny tells us. “I don’t think Steve Harvey knew what he was getting into when they booked me.”
Disney/Chris Willard
Joining Donny on Celebrity Family Feud (Tuesday, Aug. 13 at 8/7c on ABC, next day on Hulu) are his wife Debbie (they have been married for almost 45 years now), his older brother Merrill Osmond, his fourth of five sons Chris Osmond (who was on Claim to Fame), and his oldest grandson Dylan.
Here’s a quick rundown of our conversation:
You also hosted a game show in your career, so you had to be familiar with the Feud format and the survey questioning. So when you went up to battle against Ken, how were you? Were you nervous?
I can’t tell you the outcome, but what I can say is that I am extremely competitive, if that gives you any clues. But here’s the secret, and a lot of people make this mistake when you’re standing up there and he asks the question: You have to anticipate hitting the button. That’s what a lot of people get wrong. And so I anticipated. I will leave it to see if I was actually fast enough or not.
Did any particular survey question really throw you for a loop? Anything hilarious as an outcome?
I have been performing for over 60 years. Nothing goes past me. Nothing will trick me. Nothing will get me. There are no surprises for me. Throw me anything. It doesn’t matter. You’re talking to a veteran here, Barb.
Remind Oh, I’ve followed your career. [I left out the part that when I was 8, Donny and Marie was the very first concert I ever saw and I nearly fainted.]
In fact, when Ken and I first got up to get the first question, and it’s quite funny because we started shaking hands, but our grip was so competitive that I was taking him down and he was trying to take me down, and it was almost like Steve Harvey had to break the fight up a little bit. So that began the process and then it got worse from there. So that just started it. So it became a feud of families.
Did you know Ken Marino before going on the show? [If you haven’t seen him in Party Down, it’s a must-see. The guy is hilarious.]
It was a random matchup, totally random. And, of course, I was familiar with his comedy and stuff on television. A great actor, funny actor. But no, we swapped numbers afterwards. He’s a funny guy, funny guy.
© Starz! / Colleen Hayes / Everett Collection
When you were preparing to go on the show, did you already know who would be in the fast-money round if you did make it?
Well, obviously you’re talking to somebody who almost did a career in racecar driving. So if anyone’s fast, it’s me. I almost went into professional driving. I was in my early 30s, just before I did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat [which he’s returning to in London later this year for a new run], I raced in the Long Beach Grand Prix and ended up winning it.
What charity are you playing for on Celebrity Family Feud?
City of Hope, an amazing organization. In fact, we’re raising money during this tour for City of Hope as well. [Donny took his Vegas residency show on the road this summer.] Everyone has been affected either directly or indirectly by cancer. … Also, what they’re doing to eradicate Type 1 diabetes is phenomenal. They’re in California and I took a tour, and it was absolutely amazing. They took me into the laboratory, they showed me stuff that they’re doing with bone marrow transplants, and I thought, I’ve got to get behind this organization because they take on patients that other hospitals just have given up on and cure them.