A tribute to one of the greatest singers ever on her birth anniversary

By Sunil Dharmabandhu
Retired visiting Mental Health Act Commissioner
UK
sunilrajdharm@yahoo.co.uk

Karen Anne Carpenter was an American singer and drummer who, along with her elder brother Richard, was part of the duo the Carpenters. Supremely talented and blessed with a distinctive three-octave contralto range, she was praised by her peers as one of the greatest singers ever. Her struggle with and eventual death from anorexia later raised awareness of eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

I am a regular ardent listener to Sri Lanka’s Gold FM in the U.K. and often get emotional when it plays Karen’s beautiful “Sing, sing a song”! This has its roots through a stage in my career working under the then medical director, Dr Mark Tattersall, a specialist in Eating Disorders at a private hospital in the U.K. where I learned first-hand how difficult and challenging it is to treat and look after adolescents, predominantly females suffering from typical and atypical eating disorders, some even having to be detained under Section 3 of the Mental Health Act which legally allowed force feeding through nasogastric tubes as such interventions are deemed to be lifesaving!

Background information

Karen was born on 02 March 1950 in New Haven, Connecticut and moved to Downey, in California, in 1963, with her family and died on Sri Lanka’s Independence Day in 1983. She began to study the drums in high school and joined the Long Beach State choir after graduating. After several years of touring and recording, Carpenters were signed to A & M Records in 1969, achieving enormous commercial and critical success throughout the 1970s. Initially, Karen Carpenter was the band’s full-time drummer, but gradually took the role of frontwoman as drumming was reduced to a handful of live showcases or tracks on albums. While the Carpenters were on hiatus in the late 1970s, she recorded a solo album, which was released years after her death.

At the age of 32, Carpenter died of heart failure due to complications from anorexia nervosa which was sadly little-known at the time even in the States and her death led to increased visibility and awareness of eating disorders. Interest in her life and death has spawned numerous documentaries and movies. Her work continues to attract praise, including appearing on Rolling Stones 2010 list of the 100 greatest singers of all time!

Karen was the daughter of Agnes Reuwer (née Tatum, March 5, 1915 – November 10, 1996) and Harold Bertram Carpenter (November 8, 1908 – October 15, 1988). Harold was born in Wuzhou in China, where his parents were missionaries. He was educated at boarding schools in England before finding work in the printing business.

Karen’s only sibling, Richard, the elder by three years, developed an interest in music at an early age, becoming a piano prodigy. Karen’s first words were “bye-bye” and “stop it”, the latter spoken in response to Richard. She enjoyed dancing and by age four was enrolled in tap dancing and ballet classes.

Family moves

The family moved in June 1963 to the Los Angeles suburb of Downey after Harold was offered a job there by a former business associate. Karen entered Downey High School in 1964 at age 14 and was a year younger than her classmates. She joined the school band, initially to avoid gym classes. Earliest symptom of an eating disorder? She graduated from Downey High School in the spring of 1967, receiving the John Philip Sousa Band Award, and enrolled as a music major at Long Beach State where she performed in the college choir with Richard. The choir’s director, Frank Pooler said that Karen had a good voice that was particularly suited to pop and gave her lessons in order for her to develop a three-octave range.

Karen Carpenter had a complicated relationship with her parents. They had hoped that Richard’s musical talents would be recognied and that he would enter the music business, but were not prepared for Karen’s success. She continued to live with them until 1974. In 1976, Carpenter bought two Century City apartments that she combined into one; the doorbell chimed the opening notes of “We’ve Only Just Begun”. She collected Disney Memorabilia and liked to play softball and baseball! Growing up, she played baseball with other children on the street and was picked before her brother for games. She studied baseball statistics carefully and became a fan of the New York Yankees. In the early 1970s she became the pitcher on a celebrity all-star softball team.

Petula Clark, Olivia Newton-John and Dionne Warwick were her close friends. While she was enjoying success as a female drummer in what was primarily an all-male occupation, Carpenter was not supportive of the women’s liberation movement, saying she believed a wife should cook for her husband and that when married, this was what she planned to do.

No interest in marriage

In early interviews, Carpenter showed no interest in marriage or dating, believing that a relationship would not survive constant touring, adding “as long as we’re on the road most of the time, I will never marry”. In 1976, she said the music business made it hard to meet people and that she refused to just marry someone for the sake of it. Carpenter admitted to Olivia Newton-John that she longed for a happy marriage and family. She later dated several notable men of the day.

After a whirlwind romance, she married real-estate developer Thomas James Burris on August 31, 1980, in the Crystal Room of The Beverly Hills Hotel. Burris, divorced with an 18-year-old son, was nine years her senior. A few days prior to the ceremony, Karen was taped singing a new song, “Because We Are in Love”, and the tape was played for guests during the wedding ceremony. The song, written by her brother and John Bettis, was released in 1981. The couple settled in Newport Beach. Carpenter desperately wanted children, but Burris had undergone a vasectomy and refused to undergo an operation to reverse it. Their marriage did not survive this disagreement and ended after 14 months. Burris was living beyond his means, borrowing up to $50,000 (the equivalent of $142,000 in 2020) at a time from his wife, to the point where reportedly she had only stocks and bonds left. Karen’s friends also indicated he was impatient.

A close friend, recounted an incident in which she and Karen went to their normal hangout, Hamburger Hamlet and Carpenter appeared to be distant emotionally, sitting not at their regular table but in the dark, wearing large dark sunglasses, unable to eat and crying. According to Kamon, the marriage was “the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was absolutely the worst thing that could have ever happened to her.”

In September 1981, Karen revised her will and left her marital home and its contents to Burris, but left everything else to her brother and parents, including her fortune estimated at $ 5 to 10 million (between $14,000,000 and $28,000,000 in 2020). Two months later, following an argument after a family dinner in a restaurant, Karen and Burris broke up. Carpenter filed for divorce on October 28, 1982, while she was in Lenox Hill Hospital.

Carpenter begins dieting

Karen began dieting while in high school. Under a doctor’s guidance, she began the Stillman diet eating lean foods, drinking eight glasses of water a day, (tantamount to water loading, a common tactic in eating disorders) and avoiding fatty foods. She reduced her weight to 120 pounds (54 kg) and stayed approximately at that weight until around 1973, when the Karens’ career reached its peak.That year, she saw a concert photo of herself in which her outfit made her appear heavy. She hired a personal trainer, who advised her to change her diet. The new diet caused her to build muscle, which made her feel heavier instead of slimmer. Carpenter fired the trainer and began her own weight-loss programme using exercise equipment and counting calories. She lost about 20 pounds (9 kg) and intended to lose another five pounds. Her eating habits also changed around this time; she would try to remove food from her plate by offering tastes to others with whom she was dining, typical tactics anorexics adopt in a sly manner!

By September 1975, Karen weighed 91 pounds (41 kg). At live performances, fans reacted with gasps to her gaunt appearance, and many wrote to the pair to ask what was wrong. She refused to declare publicly that she was in ill health; on her 1981 Nationwide appearance, she simply said she was “pooped”. Richard later stated that he and his parents did not know how to help Karen.

In 1981, she told Richard that there was a problem and that she needed help with it. Karen spoke with Cherry Boone who had recovered from anorexia, and contacted Boone’s doctor for help. She was hoping to find a quick solution to her problem, as she had performing and recording obligations, but the doctor told her treatment could take from one to three years.

Visit to psychotherapist

She then chose to be treated in New York City by a psychotherapist. By late 1981, Karen was using thyroid replacement medication, which she obtained using the name of Karen Burris, to increase her metabolism. She used the medication in conjunction with increased consumption of the laxatives (up to 80–90 tablets per night) upon which she had long relied, which caused food to pass quickly through her digestive tract. Despite Psychotherapist Levenkron’s treatment, including confiscation of medications that Karen had misused, her condition continued to deteriorate, and she lost more weight. Karen told Levenkron that she felt dizzy and that her heart was beating irregularly. Finally, in September 1982, she was admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, where she was placed on intravenous parenteral nutrition. The procedure was successful, and she gained some weight in a relatively short time, but this put a strain on her heart, which was already weak from years of improper diet. How different treatment approaches are today when patients are prescribed strictly controlled diets, starting with the lowest at A gradually increasing to B, C etc., with weekly weight charts and physical exercise programmes too gradually increased after multidisciplinary team meetings involving nursing staff, dietitian, art therapist, psychologist, key worker and chaired by the Consultant. I recall the fiasco when the private hospital I was working at recruited an Australian chef who had worked at the Sydney Opera House: he prepared tasty dishes rich in calories which created an immediate uproar amongst the patients! Dietitian got involved quickly to diffuse the situation teaching him how to prepare prescribed calorie-controlled diets! The clinical practice was all the multidisciplinary team sit with patients at lunch time playing a supportive role and giving them set times to finish their meals under close supervision to stop “smearing, hiding, dropping bits of food etc.!

Determination to reinvigorate career

In Karen’s case, she was not able to receive such individual care plans though she maintained a relatively stable weight for the rest of her life and returned to California in November 1982, determined to reinvigorate her career, finalise her divorce and begin a new album with Richard. On December 17, 1982, she gave her last singing performance in the multi-purpose room of the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks in California, singing Christmas carols for her godchildren, their classmates and other friends. On January 11, 1983, she made her last public appearance at a gathering of past Grammy Award winners, who were commemorating the awards show’s 25th anniversary. She seemed somewhat frail and worn out, but according to Dionne Warwick was vibrant and outgoing, exclaiming, “Look at me! I’ve got an ass!” She had also begun to write songs after returning to California and told Warwick that she had “a lot of living left to do”.

Plans for resuming tour

On February 1, 1983, Karen saw her brother for the last time and discussed new plans for the Carpenters and resuming touring. Three days later, on February 4, Karen was scheduled to sign final papers making her divorce official. Shortly after waking up on that day, she collapsed in her bedroom at her parents’ home in Downey. Paramedics found her heart beating once every 10 seconds (6 bpm). She was pronounced dead at Downey Community Hospital at 9.41 am.

Carpenter’s funeral was held on February 8, 1983, at Downey United Methodist Church. Approximately one thousand mourners attended, including her friends. Her estranged husband, Thomas Burris, also attended and placed his wedding ring into her casket. Carpenter was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, California. In 2003 her body was moved along with her parents to a private mausoleum at the Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village in California.

An autopsy released on March 11, 1983, ruled out drug overdose, attributing death to “emetine cardio toxicity due to or as a consequence of anorexia nervosa. Karen was discovered to have abnormal blood sugar levels. Two years later, the coroner told colleagues that Carpenter’s heart failure was caused by repeated use of ipecac syrup, an over the counter emetic often used to induce vomiting in cases of overdosing or poisoning. This was disputed by Levenkron, who said that he had never known her to use ipecac and that he had not seen evidence that she had been vomiting. Karen’s friends were convinced that she had abused laxatives and thyroid medication to maintain her low body weight and thought this had started after her marriage began to crumble.

Eating disorders common

Eating disorders are one of the most common issues experienced by people all over the world, but often the least talked about. An estimated 30 million people are currently in the throes of an eating disorder, in the United States alone. Anorexia is one of many eating disorders, affecting people of all ages, backgrounds, and genders. But with the proper knowledge of the statistics behind anorexia, early intervention, and treatment, people with anorexia can get back to leading healthy and happy lives.

However, for teenagers and young adults, anorexia and other eating disorders can increase the odds of suicide by up to 32 times. Many anorexics feel hopeless and as the number one fatal mental illness in young people, eating disorders maintain a mortality rate that is 12 times higher than the mortality rate of all other causes of death within that age group. Regardless of age, every 1 in 5 anorexia deaths is a result of suicide. Without treatment, up to 20 percent of all eating disorder cases result in death. Ironically, it’s similar in prognosis to alcoholism- once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, though one is an addiction and the other far more complicated. In addition to having an eating disorder, some patients have:

Underlying anxiety

Depression

Mood disorders

Personality disorders

Even self-harm issues

The prevalence of eating disorders in non-Western countries is lower than that of the Western countries but appears to be increasing, according to Maria Makino, MD, PhD and Lorriaine Dennerstein, MBBS, PhD in her thesis “Prevalence of Eating Disorders: A comparison of Western and Non-Western Countries