Devoted to show business and the entertainment industry

In a business where living a wholesome life is treated like a liability, Donny Osmond has had his share of ups and downs throughout the years.

He is about to tour Australia for the first time in almost 20 years. Iain Sheddon writes "It's a surprising return for a performer whose heyday -- at least as a teen idol -- is long behind him. To most Australians Osmond remains synonymous with jumpsuits, screaming girls and, not least, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

"In his teenage prime he was a good-looking boy who had it all, singing Puppy Love and Go Away Little Girl to audiences that would have happily run away from home just to spend a few minutes in his company. When his pop stardom faded, so he disappeared from our radar."

Osmond comments that during that period of time where he was slumping, it was one of the lowest times of his life.

"It was very hard trying to make it back into the business when everybody said I was a has-been in my 20s," he says. "That's pretty darned low, especially when you're as young as you are, married with a couple of children."

Since that time he has gotten into a number of diverse areas of show business including being a talk show host, the leading man in a theatrical production, record producer and a businessman. That along with being a husband, father and devout follower of Mormonism has been quite a mix for his life.

Sheddon goes on to say "for all their global success, however, there was always an opposing camp that considered anything Osmond uncool. "You better believe it," he says. "What I find interesting today is that the Donny and Marie show did leave us with a little bit of an uncool thing, which in my 20s was quite hard. But you know what, they were actually pretty good shows."

The resistance against his wholesome image revealed itself when he was attempting a comeback in Hollywood in the 1980s.

He said "Obviously there were difficult times, I was constantly surprised by the way we were shunned. But the older I got the more I realised the reasons behind it ... not being willing to indulge in certain practices, whether it be the drug scene, the alcohol scene, whatever. I shied away from all that."

Maybe the most obvious hit was when him and his sister Marie were hosting a successful talk show and it was cut in spite of its success.

Donny responds to that saying "That was really a blow because there were absolutely no indicators that they were going to pull the plug on the show, because it was doing well. That's the frustrating thing about show business ... that a lot of people in executive roles who make those decisions don't know what the heck they're doing."

That is behind him now as he gears up to entertain the Australian fans. The Donny Osmond tour starts in Melbourne on April 30 and then goes to Perth, Sydney, Canberra and Tweed Heads.