MARIE OSMOND ON B&B ROLE

It was singer/entertainer/ author Marie Osmond’s longtime friendship with B&B Executive Producer/Head Writer Bradley Bell that led to her official soap debut.

“Before I started following THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, I watched THE YOUNG AND RESTLESS, way back to the DONNY & MARIE [variety] show [in the 1970s],” she begins. “Some time ago, Brad said, ‘We need you to do BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL,’ and I went, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’d love to,’ so it’s always been on my bucket list.”

Crossing off that particular item, however, turned out to be years in the making. “[My brother] Donny and I had a residency in Vegas for 11 years and we worked five days a week,” Osmond explains. “And in summers, we toured and at Christmas we have a Christmas tour, so it was just nonstop work for many years. Brad would check in now and then and I’d have to say, ‘I’d love to but I just don’t have the time.’ You can’t do a lot of other things that you’d like to do.”

Recently, Osmond was in Los Angeles when B&B called again (“My daughter had a baby, my ninth grandchild, so I’m down here helping her with their kids”), and this time, she had a different answer. “I said, ‘Why not? Let’s do it!’ ” she enthuses. “And they wrote a great part for me.”

Osmond was especially thrilled to be playing a character rather than a cameo as herself. “I told Brad, ‘Just write a part that you need and let me have some fun,’ ” she recalls. “He asked, ‘Do you want to play this jerky countess?’ and I said, ‘Yeah!’ ”