New, Improved Marie Makes a Move

We are sorry to say that Marie Osmond is leaving town. Perhaps she was just too nice for L.A. Anyway, she and her husband, Brian Blosil, sold their house last week, packed up the seven kids and moved back to Utah.

Osmond, 39, took time for lunch recently at the Four Seasons to promote her new book, “Behind the Smile.” She was so gosh-darned perky and helpful, it was hard to picture her having been in the throes of postpartum depression. But that’s what the memoir, published by Warner Books, is all about. Osmond writes with candor and humor about how she fell into a pit of despair after the birth of her youngest child--and of her hard-fought journey back.

“I was sitting on the kitchen floor, heaving in sobs, and all I could think was: ‘This can’t possibly be me,’ ” she writes. Behind the famous smile, she had lost a sense of who she was. Deeply buried childhood traumas like sexual abuse gnawed at her. Of that, she wouldn’t discuss details, except to say that family members were not responsible and, in fact, were unaware of it at the time. Osmond said overcoming her depression taught her to ease up on herself and ask for what she wants--life lessons that were hard for her to grasp after 30 years as a show-biz people pleaser.

Osmond said she decided to come forward, and then to write her book, to strip away the shame other women feel. She said she now realizes she was trying too hard to have it all.

“Two years ago I was a workaholic, trying to do it all at the expense of myself. I stressed myself out, having the perfect house, clean immaculate children. The other day, I came home and the house was a mess. My children were running around. And I said, ‘Wait a minute. They look happy.’ So instead of screaming, I sat down and played a game with them.

“The fact is, men come home to women. Children come home to their mothers. If Mommy ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy,” she said.

Baretta Isn’t Talking

It seems Robert Blake has been swamped with interview requests since his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, was gunned down outside a Studio City restaurant on Friday. So far, the only interview Blake has given is to the LAPD. But everybody from Larry King to Tom Brokaw to the National Enquirer wants to be the first to talk to the former “Baretta” star. Blake turned down a juicy $100,000 offer from the supermarket tabloid, according to his lawyer, master spinner Harland W. Braun.

Doing It His Way

When the TV networks started sniffing around Public Radio International’s “This American Life” a couple of years ago, host Ira Glass says he wasn’t seduced, even though they “waved around huge, crazy money.” Instead, Glass and his producers held out for creative control. They landed a $120,000 grant that freed them to shoot their own documentaries, which they then could pitch to network executives.

The first, directed by Emmy-winning documentarian Bennett Miller, follows 26-year-old reporter Davy Rothbart as he investigates his own mother, who channels a 500-year-old monk named Aaron. “It’s about how they’re the most normal-seeming family in the world,” Glass said. “Yet they’ve never discussed as a family whether they believe her.”

A second documentary is still in the planning stages. Meanwhile, there’s always “This American Life,” which has attracted more than 1 million listeners since its 1995 debut. Glass recently performed at UCLA’s Royce Hall to promote the show, broadcast Saturdays at 10 a.m. on KCRW (89.9-FM).

Labor of Love

Early labor pains didn’t stop Danica Perez from signing copies of “The Glow: A Journey to Motherhood” (Simon & Schuster), which features 26 revealing photos of her pregnant friends, many of them celebrities. Once a model, now a photographer, Perez spent 12 years snapping shots of the famous and the fecund.

Guests--including a very preggers Lisa Rinna--flocked to the Giorgio Armani boutique in Beverly Hills, some sipping apple martinis while Perez grimaced and scribbled. Among the boldfaced names spotted were Dyan Cannon, Ed McMahon, Vanna White, Shawn and Larry King, Dee Dee and Dan Cortese, and Bernadette and Sugar Ray Leonard.

Perez, 42, is expecting her third child, and the book party was her final outing before the blessed event. “The doctor said I could be here if I just sit.” After that, she said, “I’m toast.”

*

Times staff writers Gina Piccalo and Louise Roug contributed to this report. City of Angles runs Tuesday-Friday. E-mail: angles@latimes.com.