Preview ’95 : Marie Osmond’s Fall ‘Maybe’

The ‘70s are back: disco, day-glo, Mary Tyler Moore. (Did she ever really leave?) And now, Marie Osmond. The wholesome icon from 1976 to 1979 starred with brother Donny in the popular ABC variety series “Donny and Marie.”

Osmond, now a 35-year-old mother of four, returns to series TV this week in the ABC sitcom “Maybe This Time.” Osmond plays Julia, the ultraconservative, just-divorced daughter of liberal-minded, five-times-married Betty White. Also starring in the comedy is Ashley Johnson as Osmond’s wisecracking 11-year-old daughter. ABC previews “Maybe This Time” on Friday; the series officially premieres in its regular time slot Saturday.

Osmond, a popular country-Western singer who has an enormously successful porcelain doll line for QVC, has had many offers over the years to do TV series. But the timing wasn’t right until “Maybe This Time.”

“It’s not like I didn’t want to do TV,” explains Osmond, who appears down-to-earth during a quick lunch. “I think a lot of it’s timing and the product. This just felt right. The timing was really good for me as well.” Plus, she’s worked several times before with White.

“I love her,” she says. “She’s one of the great ladies of show business.”

Osmond, who, like her sitcom character, went through a painful divorce, finished an 18-month tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” in May. When the revival hit L.A. last summer, Osmond’s critically acclaimed performance as the spunky Maria piqued the interest of TV producers.

“I really think ‘The Sound of Music’ and being here in L.A. was the catalyst for a lot of people coming out and seeing me and really talking about” doing a series, she says.

Michael Jacobs, the executive producer and co-creator of the series, was one of the network producers who came to “The Sound of Music.” But, he says, he had long been interested in working with Osmond.

“We share the same agency and every year my agent comes in and runs down the list of available talent. Marie’s name came up and I said, ‘You know. That’s who I would like to do a show with ...’ ”

Jacobs views the devout Mormon as being “real interesting and passionate for ... family values is the phrase. But before that phrase was coined that’s what Marie Osmond stood for. I felt that it is common knowledge that Marie went through a divorce that was very tough for her, especially given her religious upbringing and conservative background. I felt if that was included in her character--when a terrible thing happens to a good person and then position her against Betty White’s [liberal] position, that would make for interesting TV.”

Osmond, who just came from the read-through of the second script, is enthusiastic about her decision to do the series. ‘It’s a very funny show,” she says. “It’s a great group of people and a really fun ensemble as far as characters. Julia, who is trying to start her life over, basically believed she would be married once and have a family and that doesn’t happen in life all the time. So she is dealing with that. She doesn’t need anybody and she’s fine. Her mother wants her to date and fall in love again.”

“Maybe This Time,” she adds, “introduces this wonderful triangle of women and these wonderful mother-daughter relationships: my relationship with my daughter and my relationship with my mother and how Julia is more conservative in her approach to life. That doesn’t mean she’s a square or anything. She has a certain belief system.”

Jacobs finds Osmond to be a very “refreshing” person in Hollywood.

‘She’s naturally charming and she’s very funny,” he enthuses. “She is very real in what she believes. She holds to it and frankly, it’s a joy to write for somebody who is not only passionate about their work but passionate about their life and core belief system.”

Osmond, who has been performing for the past 30 years, acknowledges she didn’t lead a normal life as a youngster, “but I made it as normal as possible. I had a great set of parents who taught me how to believe in a God and said I needed to develop my own set of values and not to worry about how other people think, even though I was made fun of and told I wasn’t hip. I was lucky. I had really good parents and my parents knew when to leave me alone and when to be there to tell me ‘no’ and when to let me grow and make my own decisions and be very supportive about it.”

“Maybe This Time” is a homecoming of sorts for Osmond, who spent a lot of her childhood in and around Burbank, where the sitcom tapes at Walt Disney Studios. “My brothers worked at NBC for years,” she says. “We lived in the San Fernando Valley.”

Though Utah is still home base, Osmond and her second husband of nine years, musician/music producer Brian Blosil, have just leased a house in Los Angeles she describes as “beautiful--swimming pool and a big yard on a little over an acre. So it will be really nice for the kids.”

“Maybe This Time” previews Friday at 9:30 p.m. on ABC and moves to its regular time slot Saturday at 8:30 p.m.