Here is a little something......
USA TODAY ARTICLE - - FEB.8th, 1983
CARPENTER: A COMEBACK CUT SHORT 2/8/83
Karen Carpenter
* First album: Ticket to Ride (1969)
* First million-seller: Close to You (1970)
* Last album: Made in America (1981)
* Last single: Touch Me When We're Dancing (1981)
* Sales: More than $80 million in albums and singles
* Number of hits to reach top 20: 17
* Number of million-selling singles in USA: 10
* Grammy Awards: Best new artist of the year (1970); best contemporary vocal performance by a group for the single Close to You (1970); best pop vocal performance for the album The Carpenters (1971)
COVER STORY
Carpenter: A comeback cut short
'70s star had battled anorexia was ready to begin a new life
By Tom Green
and Eric Brazil
USA TODAY
DOWNEY, Calif. - It was supposed to be the comeback story of a lifetime. Instead it was the end of one. It is the story of Karen Carpenter. Singing with her brother Richard, she achived the kind of success gold records are made of. After that success story - after 80 million records sold - there was a failed marriage. There was a battle against anorexia nervosa, a disease that cut her weight at one point to 85 pounds. There was a move to New York, to try to star a new life on her own.
Her friends said she seemed to be bouncing back - her weight had come back up to 108 pounds, she was making new rcording plans, she was happy. Then she died Friday, at age 32, while visiting her parents' home in Downney. "I saw her last Thursday," said Carl Mundt, who manages
She had " a heaven-sent voice"
the Close-To-You apartment building which the Carpenters own in this middle-class south-central Los Angeles community of 92,000, "and she just looked a whole lot better. Not as good as she did before she got sick, but she looked okay."
"She blamed herself for the breakup of her marriage," said Dionne Warwick, who had been friends with the Carpenters since the early '70s, and who saw Karen frequently after she moved to New York a year an half ago. "Moving to New York," says Warwick, "was her way of saying I've grown up and I'm going out on my own. She wanted to get away from a lot of memories. She was going through her divorce at the time and was terribly depressed."
Warwick says the singer spent her days in New York seeing friends from the recording business - Barry Manilow, and others from A&M Records, the Carpenters' label - and going to the theater. "New York was good for her after a life of demanding work," Paul Bloch, the Carpenters' publicist, said. "Here was a chance to relax and enjoy, and be independent. "She was particularly proud of trading limousines for taxicabs. That made her feel very strong." She stayed at the posh (500-room, suites for $250-$600 a day) Regency hotel on Park Avenue, where Elizabeth Taylor, Clint Eastwood and Omar Sharif are regular guests. Assistant manager Heinz Weck remembered her as "friendly, cheerful, pleasant...a perfect guest."
But it was there that the 5-foot-4-inch singer was struggling against anorexia nervosa, a disease characterized by compulsive dieting that may lead to health problems, including heart ailments. For a time she was hospitalized.
Warwick said she and Karen discussed the anorexia. "I gave her some basic girl-talk," Warwick said. "I told her, 'This doesn't make sense . There si no reason to do this to yourself.' " Karen seemed to respond. By late November, she came home to Downey, the town where she and her brother grew up. "We had every reason to belive that she was well," said Paul Bloch. "She had gained the weight and she was feeling good about herself." "Richard told me she was getting better," said Frank Pooler, once their music director.
Back in Los Angeles, Bloch took her to a publicity photo session for the Grammy Awards show, scheduled for Feb. 23. The Carpenters were among past winners to be featured."I saw her at the photo session and she was so proud of the way she looked," said Warwick. Friends and associates were looking forward Karen's active return to the musical scene. It would have been the next stage in a musical career that had been constantly evolving since its birth at Downey High School and California State University in Long Beach.
"Karen didn't strike me as musically talented at first," said Bruce Gifford, the pair's high school music teacher and band coach. But by the time she was in college, Karen was a soloist in the choir. "She had a fantastic voice," said Pooler, who also taught her at Cal State. "She could move from classics to pop without moving an eye." Signed by A&M in 1969 after Herb Alpert heard a tape they had made, the Carpenters went on to record easy-listening hits that were a resounding success with millions of fans around the world, although often scorned by critics. They were a definition of "middle-of-the-road" with songs like We've Only Just begun, Rainy Days and Mondays, and more. Burt Bacharach, who with Hal David , wrote their first hit, Close to you in 1969, says that Karen was a magical person with a magical voice, " a heaven -sent voice like no one before her."
But there were signs of trouble even as the Carpenters were riding high: In 1975 they were forced to cancel an extended world tour because Karen was suffering from a case of exhaustation and was bedridden for six weeks. Shortly after that, her career stalled. It would be 1981 before another song by the Carpenters (Touch Me When we're Dancing) would reach the Top 20. Bloch said both Carpenters "wanted more time for their personal lives," and cut back on their careers.
Karen was married Sept.2, 1980, to industrial real estate developer Thomas Jr. Burris, of Newport Beach. By last year the couple had separated and Karen was off to New York. Could she and Richard have teamed up for a successful comeback? "She was talking about musical films, and maybe getting into acting. They were going to go on tour this summer domestically, and were talking about an international tour. She was re-evaluating her life," Bloch said.
The coroner's office attributed her death Friday to heart failure. Her family went into seclusion; services will be held at the Methodist Church here today.
Monday, dressed in pink, Carpenter lay in an open casket in a Forest Lawn chapel, and through an afternoon rain athousand mourners passed through to say goodbye. John Bettis, who wrote the lyrics of 31 Carpenters' songs, had the last word: "My words have lost the best voice they ever had."
Louise Tutelian and Kevin McCarthy contributed to this account.
USA TODAY
February 8th, 1983
USA
