Now we know what Donny Osmond was hinting around about a couple of weeks ago. Not only are he and his sister, Marie, launching a new phase of their careers, they're doing it in a big way.

The Osmond siblings are about to become big-time Las Vegas headliners. Beginning in September, Donny and Marie will play the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel for 26 weeks spread over eight months.

When the pair hosted the Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas two weeks ago, Donny called it "kind of a precursor as to what we're going to be doing a lot more of."

Donny and Marie have already announced — and sold out — a weeklong engagement at the MGM Grand. Now they'll be headliners in the Flamingo Showroom, putting them in the same league as Bette Midler, Cher, the Blue Man Group and the various incarnations of Cirque du Soleil.

"We decided to go back into Las Vegas (for the) first time in, like, 30 years or so," Donny said of the MGM Grand engagement. "So this begins the process."

That process continues on Sept. 9 when the Osmonds will open at the Flamingo Las Vegas. According to a release announcing the engagement, the 90-minute show will be presented by Danny Gans, an impressionist/comedian who is a longtime Las Vegas entertainer, and Chip Lightman of GansLight Entertainment. It will be an "extravaganza" that will "highlight Donny and Marie's greatest hits in a multimedia spectacle presented on a custom-designed stage with multiple video screens and a large cast of dancers."

"My version of a variety show has been what Vegas has known thus far," said Gans in a prepared statement. "What we have now is a true variety show which conveys the real essence of America and the country's love of homegrown talent."

Donny and Marie, of course, are variety-show veterans, having hosted their own show on ABC back in the 1970s. (And Marie hosted a short-lived variety show of her own on NBC in 1980.)

Tickets for the Flamingo Room engagement — $85, $99 and $115 — go on sale Monday and will be available at the Flamingo Box Office, by phone at 702-733-3333 or 800-221-7299 or online at www.flamingolasvegas.com.

Donny and Marie will perform Tuesdays-Saturdays. That schedule would seemingly preclude Donny from following in Marie's footsteps and participating in ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" this fall — something he confirmed he was thinking about.

As much as they've become pop-culture icons, the siblings haven't worked together a great deal in recent years. With the exception of the Osmond family's short stint in Las Vegas last year, recently shown on PBS stations, "Marie and I haven't really been seen together that much," Donny said before the Miss USA pageant.

"We have plans of doing a lot more stuff in the future," Donny said. "This really does begin the process of reuniting (with) Marie."

---

E-mail: pierce@desnews.com