He may be remembered as the youngest, and cutest, member of the singing family, but Jimmy Osmond has had a busy and varied career.
He talks to Viv Hardwick about his latest role in the musical, Chicago, which is coming to the North-East.

"THERE is so much dialogue. I can sing and dance my way out of anything, but when it comes to Chicago it has such massive dialogue. So I’m trying to memorise the words. But I want to do stuff that scares me…. and this scares me. Everything scares me for the first time and then I get comfortable with it,” so says Jimmy Osmond on his leading role in the popular Kander and Ebb musical.

The show tours to Sunderland Empire and York Opera House in March and April, with former EastEnders’ Emma Barton as co-star.

Jimmy, 45, says that Chicago will be a big challenge because he loves the show – “but who doesn’t” – and his character of Billy Flynn, the attorney, dealing with headline-hitting issues that are just as relevant today as they were back in the Thirties.

“It’s so true. People will do anything to get celebrity and you can walk out of Chicago and say ‘hey that could happen just as easily today as it did back then’,” Jimmy says.

“If you’d have told me I’d have the chance to sing Razzle Dazzle I’d have thought you were nuts. But now, having been in the West End, which was one of my big dreams, in Grease, and seeing my big ugly face all over these double- decker buses, I think it’s so cool.

“It’s so fun to perform Beauty School Dropout (as the Teen Angel) because you can be so out there in this dream sequence. Everyone is pulling for you. You know me well enough to realise that I don’t take myself too seriously.

“It is kind of the secret good part because these kids are so talented and working so hard and I come in with this song in the second half and everyone is into it. The cast has so much energy and I don’t think I ever had that much energy,” he says modestly, claiming that the Osmonds’ leg-shaking efforts like Crazy Horses were a long time ago.

The question he often faces is why he puts himself through so much on stage when he’s one of the driving forces behind the Osmonds’ massive business empire, runs a theatre and continues his late mother Olive’s children’s charity foundation.

Jimmy has just been part of arranging a deal in Las Vegas for his brother, Donnie, and sister, Marie, to perform six shows a week for two years at The Flamingo.

“I keep telling people that I’m the kind of guy who likes to live life and tries to do things. I don’t want to just exist and be some boring guy on the golf course and not do anything. That isn’t living to me. What’s fun is to push yourself in every aspect of your life and to learn something every day. The truth is that Chicago is a huge challenge and a huge opportunity and not one that I thought I’d have. I want to live life to the max,” he says.

Jimmy plays down any thought of the performances being sold in his name. “I think that the Osmonds’ tours are sold on our name, but Chicago has its own celebrity.”

He reveals that his wife, Michele, and four children will be commuting between the US and the UK while he’s on tour in Chicago.

“It’s the toughest thing ever and thank goodness for Skype (the free internet connection) and because I’m a family man my Skype is going 24/7. On Sunday nights we have dinner together, so I sat there in the middle of the night (in the UK) and they were way early (in the US) and I had room service and they were sitting at the table and I felt like we were all together.

I think my kids are proud of me for continuing to try different things. The way we do any project is together and that’s the way I grew up. We went on the road as a family. You can’t go it alone,” he says.

Another debut was pantomime in Northampton last Christmas. He says: “Forgive my naiveté, I’ve never really seen a lot of pantos but I have a lot of friends that have been in them. I was so shocked because I grew up the Hollywood way where we did slapstick and did variety shows, but never when the audience gave back as much as they give back in panto.

“In America, we just sit there and look at a show. But it is unforgiving in panto, if you make a mistake they tell you. A lot of the kids had never heard of me or my hits, so you just had to get in there and deliver.”
I remind him about wowing us with a certain hit at the age of nine – which he dubs “the unmentionable song” or Long-haired Lover From Liverpool to those who really can’t remember – and he says: “I produced a show for the 50th anniversary tour and we were going to leave it out. But we were at Wembley Arena and all of a sudden the entire audience started stomping their feet and they sang it and we went ahead and did it.

“It’s like you don’t mess with people’s memories and it’s very cool for me, now that I’m old enough to appreciate everything that I was a part of all that. It was precocious at the time, but the good news is that people don’t care what you did before, they want to know what you’re doing today.”

As the youngest of the nine Osmond children, he says that “together time” for him and his brothers and sister tends to be more “one-on-one” visits these days. “We don’t all get together as we used to be portrayed on television because there isn’t the one big cabin any more.

The last thing we do is sing together because the truth is we just love each other and the last thing we want to talk about is work, because we’ve worked our whole lives. I know if I was in trouble they’d be there for me. Our mettle has been tested for so many years, but in spite of ego and showbusines, we keep a line of communication.”

So how come he’s not the spoiled baby brother of the Osmonds?
“There’s still time,” he says.

■ Chicago tours to Sunderland Empire, March 30-April 4. Box Office: 0844-847-2499, and then York Grand Opera House, April 20- 25, 0870-606-3595.

■ Jimmy Osmond’s West End debut in Grease, at The Piccadilly Theatre, ends on February 28.