Sarah Stewart Taylor, friend of the Tarts and author of the sublime mystery series featuring art history professor Sweeney St. George, will be guest-blogging now and then while Elaine recovers.

I Had a Secret Love Affair With Marie Osmond!
By Sarah Stewart Taylor

Not the real Marie Osmond. No, I was in love with the six-inch plastic version, her dark perfect hair, the cool pink-and-purple dress with the shredded hemline, her sky blue eyeshadow, the very Marie-ness of her, the way I could almost hear Donnie’s voice singing Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing when I made her shimmy on my bedroom carpet.

Let me explain.

At some point in my early childhood, my mother decided that I shouldn’t have Barbie dolls. I was born in 1971, smack dab in the middle of second wave feminist parenting, and the reasoning was that Barbie dolls, with their big boobs, long, long legs, tiny waists and long blonde hair, represented an ideal of female attractiveness that very few little girls would be able to live up to. Therefore, my Mom and the other wholesome Unitarian mothers of our New York suburb decided we weren’t having any of it. No Barbie. No Barbie-like dolls. Instead we got anatomically correct and multi-ethnic doll “families” that languished lonesomely in their all-wooden houses. If I remember correctly, there was something vaguely disturbing about the elderly Grandma and Grandpa dolls and their realistic crotches.

(Aside -- If you haven't seen a copy of Book Tart Sarah Strohmeyer's Barbie Unbound, go find one. Now!)

So, I made do without Barbies. I wasn’t much of a lover-of-dolls anyway.  At 3, I lopped the hair off a gorgeous Madame Alexander doll my maternal grandmother had given me and named her . . . Timmy. Most of my friends were living under the Barbie ban too, but when I visited the ones who weren’t, I would always take a few guilty looks at the Magic Playhouse or whatever and then try to steer the playdate away from dressing Barbie. It just wasn’t that interesting to me. Once you’d put her clothes on, and she’d had simulated intercourse with Ken (we had that backwards, huh?) what was there left to do with her? I would rather have played hours-long games of hide-and-seek or pretended to be detectives.

But then came my ninth birthday. My parents must have been doing something else when I was opening presents, because when I unwrapped a package from the daughter of some unenlightened materialist, I felt a surge of excitement and fear.

It was a purple cardboard box and inside was a Marie Osmond doll with long legs, stiletto heels, and a sexy-yet-somehow-modest dress. She was holding a little silver microphone. She sparkled! And she was all mine. I looked for my mother, made sure she was out of sight, and did what any nine-year-old under a Barbie ban would do. I ran up to my bedroom and I hid that Marie Osmond in the secret crawlspace behind my closet.

Now, my parents were – and are –very nice people, but somehow, in my nine-year-old mind, it was like I was hiding Anne Frank. If they found her, I knew what they would do to her. They couldn’t find her. They couldn’t!

And so began my secret love affair with Marie Osmond. Every day after school, I would go up and visit her in the closet. She didn’t seem to mind being locked in the crawlspace. I got myself a second-hand copy of Who’s Sorry Now and I would play it on my little powder blue record player and let her lip synch. I didn’t tell anyone about her. She was dangerous and forbidden, with her makeup and short skirt and her high morals.

But then it got kind of stale. I don’t know, I guess I listened to Paper Roses one too many times. And Marie’s pink and purple dress with the shredded bottom? It started looking a little trashy. It was the ‘80s now and Marie was stuck in the ‘70s. Her TV show got canceled. For Christmas that year, I got a Blondie album and that was that. I started visiting Marie less and less often and then one day I closed the door to the crawlspace and didn’t look back.

I don’t know what happened to Marie. My parents sold the house when I was in graduate school and I always wondered if the people who bought it found her when they were inspecting the second floor. I wonder what they thought of Marie and her trashy dress. I wonder if just for a minute they heard someone singing Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.

Comments

[Josh]

Sounds a bit like the plot to Toy Story 2. Marie is now a tragic figure in America, what with the 10 children and the two divorces and whatnot.

Aside from that, the first "concert" I ever went to was Donny and Marie at the Allentown Fair, 1976 or '77. They were a very polished act, their show ran exactly 60 minutes, not a second shorter nor longer, and none of this Jello Biafra-esque riffing on fascism that I've come to enjoy in my concerts, and life, since. I think the vile Jimmy even came on to do a number. All-in-all, I don't think I've ever seen a happier crowd at a concert in my life.

[Sarah Stewart Taylor]

Yes, I fully realize I've offended all the Marie O. fans out there. Come on, Marie fans, stand up for your girl! That gets me thinking about the best concerts I've been to, Josh, and what made them so good . . . Anyone else?

[William Simon]

We didn't have "dolls".....we had Action Figures! There was a James Bond figure, a double set of the Men from UNCLE, and the Ultimate Action Figure for Boys, G.I. Joe. My brother was the Joe collector. When Mom passed away, we blitz-cleaned the house and I clearly remember the G.I. Joe Mercury Astronaut Space Capsule; that thing was huge! We tossed it into the dumpster.

Want to make a grown man cry? You should see me when I poke around and realize what those things sell for on eBay today....

[Joyce]

I never had a Marie doll, but I will confess I had Barbie and all her minions. I'm old enough that I actually had one of the original Barbies, and yes, I wish I still had it. I do have a collection of replicas, though, including one of Barbie as Daphne from Scooby-Doo!

[Nancy Martin]

Can I admit this? I had the bald Barbie who came with 3 wigs. Heaven for a kid stuck with a mother-inforced pixie haircut for the first 13 years of life.

Great to see you here, Sarah!

[michele martinez]

I'm fascinated by the fact that you played with Marie in secret. When we try to socialize our children, are we just pushing their innate instincts underground? I have a similar issue with my boys. I don't like them to play with toy guns but whatever I do, guns end up in the play -- whether the actual plastic ones or cardboard or just fingers. Not all the time. There's plenty of other play going on. But often enough that I have to think there's something hard-wired about it. And these are really sweet well-behaved boys.

With dolls, the only issue I ever had was affording them. I loved Barbies. My parents had no problem with me playing with them. But I always wanted more outfits than we could afford. Perfect training for grown-up consumerism.

[Harley]

Somehow I missed out on Barbie altogether. Was she not around in Nebraska? Did my mother too have an anti-Barbie bias?

And Marie? Oh, Sarah, I'm dating myself, but by the time Marie was part of the Zeitgeist, even I, unhip I knew I could not bring her music into our house. My older siblings would've set the records on fire.

[Harley]

ps: we have a huge drawer full of Barbies in our house, most nude, missing limbs and sporting bad haircuts. My son is the only one who ever visits them anymore.

[Sarah Stewart Taylor]

Yeah, I'm fascinated by mutilated Barbies, Harley. There's a short story by A.M. Homes that explores this aspect of Barbie in, um, graphic and disturbing detail. But I found it really affecting. There's something about dolls, I think, and the things we project on to them. Any feminist scholars out there?

[SarahS]

Barbie changed my life - even in adulthood. But Marie = I'm obsessed with Marie. The divorces. The drama. The leaving-the-eight-kids-on-a-whim. The post-partum depression. The PRE partum depression. Her own obsession with dolls. And, of course, Mormonism. I'm totally obsessed with Mormonism. (Looking forward to the PBS special on it tonight.)
Somehow, though, I missed the whole Marie Osmond as Barbie thing. God, I love America.

[Word Nerd]

Oh, the Barbie ban lasted into the 1980s as well. I was never allowed to have a Barbie of my own. For some reason though, I was allowed to play wtih my mom's old Barbie, complete with Jackie-O hair. Mom's set had Barbie and Ken and clothes! Lots of clothes, some of them even homemade from when you could sew your own Barbie clothes. I never understood (still don't) why having my own Barbies was bad but mom's old one was OK.

[Karen Olson]

Oh, Sarah, you were born just as I was discovering Donny Osmond and David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman. We did have Marie's Paper Roses, but I think it was my sister's. I loved Barbies, but I only had two. In middle school my sister got a Starsky doll (from Starsky & Hutch). Who knows whatever happened to that?

My daughter has millions of Barbies in various stages of undress all over her room. She doesn't play with them a lot, her American Girl dolls are the flavor of the month. But because what's on TV these days is such crap for kids, she's now got Partridge Family, Brady Bunch and I Love Lucy DVDs to watch. She LOVES them, especially the Partridge Family (which had such guest stars as Richard Pryor, Lou Gossett Jr., Mark Hamill, Bobby Sherman and others. And I remember all the words to all the songs. Frightening.)

[Joyce Tremel]

Karen, when I was in 7th grade, my English teacher had us write our autobiographies, except we had to extend them to the year 2000. I, of course, went on to star with David Cassidy on the Partridge Family and married him, lol. I really wish I still had a copy of that!

My sister just moved after being in the same house for 42 years and found my Partridge Family album. Now if I just had a turntable...

[Kathy Reschini Sweeney]

Hi Sarah - welcome to TLC- hope to see you again soon!

I played with Jane and Johnny West, Cheif Cherokee, and their families.

And Sarah Strohmeyer's "Barbie Unbound" - is a MUST for every library.

[michele martinez]

Watch out Joyce. David Cassidy is all mine! I loved him to death -- posters all over my walls, David memorabilia, an addiction to Tiger Beat, the whole nine yards. I never understood the girls who went for Bobby Sherman.

[Kerry, The Martial Tart]

Joyce, Karen, Michele - I'm willing to bet I had first dibs on David. Donny was next, with Bobby Sherman well behind. I much preferred the Indian guy on "Maya" (Sajid Khan, I think his name was -- what a hunk!). I actually thought Donny was a girl the first time I saw him on the Andy Williams show; I tried forever to figure out how the group could be called "The Osmond Brothers" when one of them was clearly a sister.

My daughter also did Barbies-in-a-box. An even dozen, none with clothes. I don't know how much she actually played with them, but she held onto them for a good long while. I gave dolls a brief try (mine was "Francie", who I believe was Barbie's cousin or something), but really preferred playing baseball and reading.

[Joyce Tremel]

I wonder if David would like to know he still has women fighting over him!

Kerry, I remember Sajid Khan! Yes, he was very cute in that nehru jacket. I liked Francie, too, Remember the British cousin, Casey, with the Twiggy haircut and dangling earrings?

Man, I need to get a life.

[Harley]

and just exactly what IS the deal with Ken?

[Sarah Stewart Taylor]

Now, see my early marriage fantasies were about Tom Cruise. If a recent edition of People I read waiting to get my hair cut is to be believed, it turns out being married to Tom isn't all it was cracked up to be. Poor imprisoned Katie.

I know, Harley, what is the deal with Ken? He always gave me the creeps . . .

[j renee stuart]

Oh Michele, Bobby Sherman was the perfect man. A sweet, sensitive lumberjack - so cute with the flannel shirts and the dimples when he smiled (sigh). David Cassidy was cute, but I liked their wildly painted bus better. By the way - my mom was in rehab with Danny Bonaduce so, you know... he's practically family. But my favorite heart-throb was (and still is) Davey Jones of The Monkees. I hear he lives somewhere in PA, and if it weren't for those pesky 'anti-stalking' laws, by God, I'd hunt him down and just hug the stuffins out of him.

[j renee stuart]

p.s. Marie Osmond has eight kids and depression ?! When did all that happen ? I am *so* out of the loop...

[Karen Olson]

Oh, I completely forgot about Davy Jones. Which I guess says something in itself. When I watched the Bobby Sherman episode of Partridge Family with my daughter recently, I did ask myself what the heck I had been thinking. David Cassidy apparently is still huge — in England and Vegas. As for poor Donny Osmond, my best friend Alison Prendergast and I used to throw darts at his poster and if we hit a tooth we got 10 points. Not that it was hard...

[ramona]

Sarah, how nice of you to guest blog and on such a fun subject. I had the Sajid Khan crush, too, but my pimary feeling about Marie Osmond, and indeed about all of the Osmonds, is that their teeth scared me.

That being said, Sarah could you now please go back to working on your next Sweeney book? Because I'm, like, waiting.

[Nancy Martin]

"My mom was in rehab with Danny Bonaduce."

Now, there's a blog. Is your mom available?

And I find myself thinking there's nothing more painful than stepping on a Barbie shoe in your bare feet. Yeeow!

[michele martinez]

Ohmigod, Danny Bonaduce! Am I the only one who was totally riveted by "Breaking Bonaduce"?? It's the only reality show I've ever been hooked on. Renee -- was your mom in the rehab place that was in the show? Danny was such a mess. I was happy to read that Gretchen finally got herself out of that situation.

Tom and Katie -- here's the question: Would you sell your soul for that much money? I know the politically correct answer is no, but stop and think! US Mag reports that Katie gets to spend $200K a month at Barneys and -- even more tempting -- she only flies private!