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Flashback
Jimmy Osmond recalls a visit to the UK, 1974.
March 4, 2006
Daily Telegraph

Submitted by Gerry Ferry

It was 1974, the yeat that Love Me For A Reason was released, and I would have been 11. On a previous tour we had stayed at the Churchill Hotel in Portman Square, London, and our fans had ended up smashing the plate-glass windows, so we had a hard time getting hotels to take us. Instead we rented some sheikh's house in Surrey, which had a pont and its own cricket field. We had quite an entourage, six of us boys (my two eldest brothers Virl and Tom are hearing-impaired and did not perform with us), Marie, my mum and dad would always come. We would also always have about six or seven rent-a-thugs, as we would call them - they were ex-football players - because it was quite an ordeal with the number of fans who woulf follow us around. We actually rented out jets for some touts. They put our name on the side of it and we thought we were pretty fancy for a while.

We had been in the UK a lot in the previous years. On one occasion both we and the Jackson Five were staying in the same London hotel (ourpaths would cross quite often); there were about 5000 girls outside singing all night long. We were all trapped and bored out of our minds, so we got together and played soccer in the hallways.

I didn't get to choose the clothes I wore in those days - the designers woould just tell me, and I would say, 'Yessir.' Sometimes we could choose what we had on our big belt buckles (I had a monkey on mine). But primarily the older brothers (Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay) would make the decisions for us younger ones. They sacrificed a lot - they had great success and had been headed in a heavier musical direction - and then Donny came along, and I came along with my cheeky hits like Long Haired Lover from Liverpool and it kind of tarnished the credibility of what they were doing. They were really the ones behind the scenes pulling the strings. That's why I have spent a lot of time in the past 14 years being the guy that steps up to keep us together. This year might be one of the last big tours we do. I feel a great responsibility to do what they did for me.

As a band we always worked our tails off. It was unbelievable. When we were doing the Andy Williams Show every week (up until 1967), we'd get up before the sun and eat this healthy cereal, which I hated. (My mum would make sure we ate good food.). Then we'd go to NBC and see what they wanted us to do this week, like ice-skate - we would think, 'OK, we don't know how to ice-skate, but we will have to learn or lose our job.' So we'd skate until we had blisters on our feet.

I don't really have any regrets that I missed out on a normal childhood because mine was full of magical memories - I had mentors who were legends in showbusiness. I started performing when I was three, my first live shows were with Frank and Nancy Sinatra at the old Hilton in Las Vegas. Elvis would headline there too, and when he wasn't using his suite in the hotel, he would let us stay in it. He was always really kind to us and loved talking to my mum, because she reminded him of his mum, who had recently passed away. A lot of those white jumpsuits we wore in the 1970s, they were his doing. He introduced us to all of his designers.