Donny Osmond has spent most of his 68 years around famous people, but one phone call to his family’s house still makes him laugh. Telling the story again in a recent interview with BBC Radio 2, as Parade reported this week, the “Puppy Love” singer explained that Elvis Presley used to ring the Osmond home with one person in mind, and it wasn’t any of the singing brothers. He wanted to talk to their mother, Olive.
The trouble was that the brother who picked up one day had no idea he was talking to the King of Rock and Roll. Donny has told the story more than once over the years, and the way it played out says a lot about Elvis, and even more about the woman he was calling.
How Did Elvis Presley Get To Know The Osmonds?
The friendship grew up in Las Vegas, where the Osmonds were a working family act while Elvis was filling the showroom at the Hilton. Donny went to see him there as a boy.
“I must have been about 13 or 14 years old,” he said in a 2004 interview on The Michael Parkinson Channel that he reposted on Instagram in August 2025, according to Parade. “But what impressed me about him was that he could grab an audience in the palm of his hand and just manipulate that audience with emotion.”
Elvis returned the admiration. He sent the family flowers shaped like a guitar before their shows and stopped backstage to wish them well, Donny recalled in that clip. The oldest brother, Alan, remembered in an account published by LDS Living that Elvis “especially loved meeting my mother, Olive, and gave her a big hug.” What stayed with Donny most was how Elvis changed once the lights went down. “When he came off stage, he shut it off and he was a real person,” he said.
Elvis also handed the teenager a piece of advice Donny still follows. “If I could do it all over again, I’d get closer to my fans,” Elvis told the family, Donny shared with People, adding that he was 14 at the time and that it “really, really influenced me.” Elvis took his own advice with the Osmonds, and before long he was calling the house.
Why Did Elvis Presley Keep Calling Donny Osmond’s Mother?
Olive Osmond was born May 4, 1925, in Idaho, and she raised nine children with her husband, George, while the boys sang their way from barbershop harmony to the top of the charts. To Elvis, she stood for something he had lost. His own mother, Gladys, died in August 1958, when he was 23 and serving in the Army, and the Osmonds have said he talked about how much he missed her.
“She was almost a surrogate mum,” Donny told the Evening Standard in 2023. “He would call the house just to talk to my mum.” Their talks often turned to faith. Olive gave Elvis a copy of the Book of Mormon, a story her son Merrill shared at her funeral, and the Deseret News noted at the time that the two had spoken by phone many times over the years.
Olive died on Mother’s Day, May 9, 2004, at 79, after living with complications from a 2001 stroke. Elvis had been gone since 1977, but his calls had long since become family legend, and Donny keeps that legend alive on a stage of his own.
What Is Donny Osmond Doing Now At 68?
Born December 9, 1957, in Ogden, Utah, Donny turns 69 in December, and he shows no sign of slowing down. He opened at Harrah’s Las Vegas in 2021, and in September the show marked five years on the Strip. Caesars announced in August that he has extended the residency through June 2027. The current show even pairs Donny with a 3-D AI version of himself at 14, singing “Puppy Love” over original multitrack recordings from the 1970s, according to a Caesars announcement in January.
He still likes to surprise a crowd, too. Earlier this month, he made a surprise appearance in front of New Kids on the Block fans. And if you grew up watching Donny & Marie on ABC from 1976 to 1979, you can catch up on where the stars of that show are today.
Home life has stayed steady. Donny and his wife, Debbie, married in the Salt Lake Temple on May 8, 1978, and they have five sons and 16 grandchildren. Asked by iHeartRadio this week about 48 years of marriage, he joked, “I’ve learned two words in 48 years of marriage: Yes ma’am,” before getting serious, People reported. “You can create a lot of jokes and try for the laughs, but be easy to love,” he said. “It’s a two-way street. My wife is easy to love. I’m trying to be easy to love as well.”
The past two years have also brought loss. Wayne Osmond died in January 2025 at 73 after a stroke, and Alan, the oldest of the performing brothers, died April 20, 2026, at 76 after nearly four decades with multiple sclerosis. Donny called Alan his “protector” and “guide.” Both men grew up in the house where the phone would ring, and a familiar Southern voice would ask for Mom.
Who Answered When Elvis Called The Osmond House?
Donny gave the fullest version in that 2023 Evening Standard interview. “One day, my brother Jay, he picks up the phone and he says ‘Hello’ and he hears this voice,” he said. The caller asked, “Is your mother there?” Jay answered, “Yeah! Who’s calling?” The man gave his name, and Jay turned to call for Olive.
“Hey mom, some guy named Elvis is on the phone for ya!”
Jay never connected the name with the most famous voice in the world. “He told me that story and we laughed our heads off,” Donny said. “He didn’t know it was Elvis Presley.” On BBC Radio 2, according to Parade, he described the same kind of mix-up, with a brother answering who had no clue who was on the line, and he remembered Elvis as a sweet, gentle giant both backstage and onstage.
Merrill has a memory of his own, which he shared at a 2010 family fireside reported by the Deseret News. A deep voice asked, “Hello, is your mother there?” When Merrill asked who was calling, the answer came back, “Elvis Presley.” Merrill went to find Olive, and she didn’t seem the least bit surprised.
“Tell him to hold on a second,” she said. “I’ll be right there.”
Her sons heard the King of Rock and Roll on the line. Olive heard a young man who missed his mother, and she always made time for him.
