As Marie's son is found dead, has the curse of The Osmonds struck again?

By Paul Scott for MailOnline
Updated: 04:19 EDT, 2 March 2010

They made millions from their holier than thou image - but behind the smiles lurked mental illness, bankruptcy and even sexual abuse.

True to form, as she struggles to cope with the grief of her son's suicide at the weekend, Marie Osmond has  - not for the first time  -  locked herself away with her famous family and with God. The shutters have come down, she has asked for privacy and is said to have joined her brother, Donny, in praying long into the night.

Meanwhile, her devout singing Mormon brothers are said to be planning to begin an Osmonds concert in Florida tomorrow night with a communal prayer for their distraught sister.

Marie herself  -  who is said to be 'beside herself with grief' following the death of her adopted 18-year-old son Michael  -  has cancelled the concerts she was due to perform this week with Donny at a Las Vegas casino. But for the rest of the singing siblings, it appears, the show must go on.

Perfect smiles: Donny and Marie Osmond in their heyday

It was ever thus for a family that has seen the highs of international fame and fortune, but hidden the trauma of bankruptcy, mental illness, feuds and claims of sexual abuse behind the veneer of Colgate smiles and saccharine pop songs.

Marie's son threw himself from the roof of his Los Angeles apartment building on Friday after writing a suicide note saying he wanted to end the 'torment' of his battles with depression, and drink and drugs addiction.

His death is just the latest trauma to befall his 50-year-old mother, who admitted four years ago that she had attempted suicide after falling victim to post-natal depression, and who has confessed to suffering sexual assaults at the hands of a family member she has steadfastly refused to name.

She has not been alone in having to cope with the demons that have long dogged the performing family, who famously didn't smoke, drink, swear or indulge in pre-marital sex.

That holier-than-thou lifestyle won the child stars 80 million record sales, their own TV shows and the adoration of teen fans the world over, but exacted a heavy toll.

Donny, the most famous of the six performing Osmond brothers, suffered crippling depression after his once golden career bombed; another brother went bankrupt; one is fighting a brain tumour; and another is stricken with multiple sclerosis.

Troubled: Marie and son Michael in 1998. He threw himself off his apartment building on Friday

Meanwhile, lurking in the background was the spectre of the brothers' brutal and domineering father, George, who sacrificed his children's childhoods on the altar of fame and fortune.

Osmond senior, a devout Mormon, had been an army sergeant during the war and went on to work as an insurance salesman.

He and his wife Olive's eldest sons, Virl and Tom, were born deaf, but the four who followed  -  Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay  -  began singing as a barbershop quartet to raise money for Mormon missions abroad.

Before long, George saw his chance to cash in on his sons' winsome looks and singing talent. In the late Fifties he entered them in a competition at Disneyland, where they were later spotted by the father of singer Andy Williams, who arranged for them to appear on his son's show.

The boys were soon joined by six-year-old Donny, with only sister Marie and the baby of the family, Jimmy, climbing aboard a few years later.

The reality of life as a member of The Osmonds was far from the apple-pie image of the dream American family.

At home, Marie had her own bedroom, but the brothers were forced to sleep on military-style iron beds in a bunk-room built onto the house by their father.

Every morning at 5.45 a bugle would sound and the whole family had to jump out of bed, line up and shout out their numbers from one to nine before being put to work on their song-and-dance routines.

'He would shout "head count", and we would all line up and bellow out our number,' recalls Jimmy.

Mistakes and bad behaviour were punished by beatings. 'In some cases, the way we were treated would be classed as abuse today,' says Donny.

The talented youngsters soon became regulars on U.S. television, but it was not until 1971, when Donny was 13 and was installed as lead singer (their father bluntly told elder brother, Merrill, that he was being sacked from the role) that they hit the big time with songs such as Crazy Horses and Love Me For A Reason.

But while millions of girl fans were going mad for them, the siblings were worked relentlessly by their ambitious father  -  who often insisted they perform three shows a day.

A few years before Donny became the lead singer, he secretly wrote a letter to his mother at home in the U.S. to beg her to take him home from a tour of Sweden.

Family ties: Marie and Donny Osmond performing in 2007

But George, who died of natural causes in 2007, had trained the other children to spy on their siblings, and intercepted it before Donny could post it.

Merrill and Jay, who had never wanted to go into showbusiness in the first place, were instructed to forget their dreams of studying medicine, and instead the children were privately schooled by a series of Mormon teachers.

As the family's success grew, Donny and Marie were given their own television show, and they built a TV studio onto their house in the Mormon state of Utah, from where it was broadcast to millions.

But their father's ambition was not matched by financial acumen. He invested in a series of disastrous business ventures and blew almost all of the £40 million fortune made from the sales of such hits as Puppy Love and Paper Roses.

By the end of the Seventies, the fallout from these investments coincided with a slide in his offspring's careers. The Donny And Marie Show was cancelled in 1979 as record sales dried up.

Suicide: The apartment building that Marie Osmond's son jumped to his death from

Just a few years later, Donny, who was by now married with a young family, had to resort to playing in front of bored holidaymakers in hotel lobbies with just a keyboard for accompaniment. Meanwhile, Merrill, who is now 56, went bankrupt in 2000 with £400,000 debts, and the once-feted Osmond brothers had to play concerts in school gyms to help them get by.

At his lowest ebb, former pin-up Donny, who's now 52, was advised by Michael Jackson to change his name because, Jackson told him, being an Osmond was 'poison' to his career. (Donny was even told by a former publicist to stage a fake drugs arrest to throw off his squeaky-clean image.)

Finally, in desperation, Donny released his 1988 single Soldier Of Love under a false name. The single was only a moderate hit, but it was enough for Andrew Lloyd Webber to resurrect Donny's career by offering him the lead role in a Broadway version of Joseph And his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He also appeared on Broadway in the musical Beauty And The Beast.

If that offered some professional respite to Donny, the loss of the family's sizeable fortune led to a series of feuds within the clan which, despite a partial rapprochement, remains a source of tension today.

Ill health has also taken its toll, with Merrill suffering from diabetes and heart disease. Wayne, meanwhile, received treatment for a brain tumour in 1997, and Alan has multiple sclerosis.

Jimmy, 46, who had a massive 1972 hit with Long-Haired Lover From Liverpool, when he was nine, has managed to rebuild his fortune.

An astute businessman, Jimmy  -  who appeared on the reality show I'm A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! as well as the ITV series Popstar To Opera Star last month  -  opened The Osmonds Theatre in Missouri, where he still performs with three of his brothers.

Marie, who quit showbusiness in the early Eighties to launch her own money-spinning range of toy dolls on the QVC shopping channel, returned to performing after appearing as a contestant on U.S. reality show Dancing With The Stars three years ago.

band of brothers: The Osmonds in 1975, from left, Merrill, Jay, Donny, Alan and Wayne

Until her son's suicide, she was appearing with Donny in a successful run at a Las Vegas hotel.

Marie has three children from two failed marriages and adopted five others, including tragic Michael, with her second husband, Brian Blosil, from whom she was divorced two years ago.

Marie, who like her brothers remains a devout Mormon, admitted in her book Behind The Smile that she had a breakdown following the birth of her younger natural son, Matthew, in 1999.

And four years ago she confessed to having attempted suicide.

Michael, whom she'd adopted as a baby, had a history of mental illness, and two years ago he was admitted to a rehabilitation centre for treatment for drink and drug addiction.

One of Marie's friends, American TV presenter Mary Hart, said yesterday: 'Michael had struggled, and been in and out of rehab. Marie, always looking for the silver lining, had hoped for the best.'

Sadly, it didn't happen and she is having to come to terms with her loss  -  with the support of the rest of the dysfunctional and damaged Osmond clan.