Little Girl Blue (35 page)

Due to her tenacious spirit—or perhaps just out of sheer stubbornness—Karen flew to London with the band to make good on their promise to perform. Covering for Richard, she told Bruce Forsyth's
audience that he was under the weather. “Two days before we were going to come over, he caught himself a real nice case of the flu,” she said through a nervous smile. “So he's flat on his back in Los Angeles, and he's really upset that he couldn't come.”

Musically, the show went off without a hitch, thanks to the support of friend Peter Knight and Jeff Wesley, the latter filling in for Richard on keyboards. Taking liberties with the melody, Karen's performance of “I Need to Be in Love” was perhaps the most tender and intimate reading of the song ever. She also performed “Please Mr. Postman,” “Merry Christmas, Darling,” and the ambitious grouping of “Winter Wonderland,” “Silver Bells,” and “White Christmas” as a duet with Forsyth.

Word of a possible split between the Carpenters spread across Europe with the airing of the Forsyth show, but Karen did her best to dispel such rumors. “
Karen wants everyone
to know that she is not going solo,” Tim Ewbank wrote in the
Sun
, with Karen explaining that “Brucie's show is setting a sort of unfortunate record for us. It is the first time that the Carpenters have been billed to appear anywhere without both of us going on.” Ewbank inquired about her health, to which she replied, “I'm fine now. I've got my energy back and I'm raring to go!”

Indeed, this was one of the first occasions in her entire career that Karen had been away from home without Richard by her side. From her hotel suite at the Inn on the Park in central London, Karen sent her brother a postcard of encouragement, postmarked December 12, 1978: “It's all coming off like clockwork—the album is getting hotter by the minute. The music end is tops. Miss you—Love,
KAC1.”
(Karen's abbreviated signature referred to the personalized California license plate attached to her 1972 Mercedes 350.)

While in London, Karen requested that John “Softly” Adrian assist her. Softly was by then a married man and maintained a safe distance from Karen. Their conversations consisted mostly of small talk. “You haven't said ‘thank you' for your wedding present, Softly,” Karen said playfully.

“What present?” he asked.

“The present I sent you,” she said. “I sent you a crystal punch bowl with glasses!”

Softly was puzzled. The only contact he was aware of came in 1976 when Karen sent him a note saying “The bird has finally flown the coop”—this after her move from Downey to Century City.

“Karen, I didn't get any present from you,” he said.

“Hmm,” Karen pondered. “Well, I gave it to someone at A&M. Obviously they didn't send it to you.” The mystery surrounding the orchestrated ending of their relationship some two years earlier seemed to continue but without their knowledge. The two shared one last hug at London's airport as Karen boarded a plane bound for home.

S
OARING RECORD
sales in Europe did little to cheer Karen. The reality of her personal problems and those of her brother hit home once she returned to Los Angeles just in time for Christmas. A year earlier they were celebrating on stage in Las Vegas, but in 1978 the holidays were anything but happy in the Carpenter household. Heated arguments ensued with Richard becoming increasingly dismayed by Karen's withering figure. “He was not all that kind to Karen,” recalls Evelyn Wallace. “But at times he'd even argue with his mother, which was taking his life in his hands!” Karen would retort with comments about the consequences of his addiction. To Richard, these were not welcome observations from someone on a similar path of self-destruction. “She was so concerned,” Frenda Franklin explains. “You see, Karen was very sensible about everybody else. In the case of Richard, there was nothing to debate. It was terrible. She just couldn't wait any longer to get him help. He wasn't happy with her, but she took the strong role and did what she had to do as a sister.”

Richard was called to a meeting at the office of Jerry Weintraub with Werner Wolfen and others present. “Before you know it, in the middle of the meeting Richard was sound asleep in the chair,” recalls Wallace. “They knew Richard was on something even then.”

On the morning of January 10, 1979, Richard popped ten pills before boarding a plane bound for Topeka, Kansas. “Karen forced him,” Frenda says. “She took him on an air ambulance to Menninger's.” There Richard checked into the chemical dependency unit with Karen
and Wolfen at his side. Both Richard and Werner felt this would be a great opportunity for Karen to address her issues as well, but she was not serious enough about her eating disorder to do anything significant about it. Instead she returned to Los Angeles—full of nervous energy—and began looking for projects to occupy her time while Richard was in rehab. “
It was OK
for a little bit,” she told the
Los Angeles Times
, “but then I was anxious to go back to work.”

During her first return visit to see Richard at Menninger, Karen hesitantly shared her plans to go into the studio to begin recording a solo album. Just two weeks into the six-week program, he was in no condition to hear this sort of news and was understandably livid. “He was madder than hell,” recalls Evelyn Wallace. “He did
not
want her to go to New York and record on her own. I think that he realized that Karen could sell more records than he could.”

By this time, Richard was certain Karen was battling the disorder brought to his family's attention by Wallace three years earlier, and he confronted her about her own well-being and deteriorating physical appearance. “What the hell are you talking about? Going and doing a solo album?! Why don't
you
go and check into something like this that is meant for anorexics!” He reminded Karen of their upcoming tenth anniversary in the music industry. “We can go into the eighties the same way we went into the seventies. We have our talent. We have our record contract.”

Karen shut down. She adamantly denied her own issues. “No,” she insisted, “there's nothing wrong with me. I don't have anorexia nervosa; I have colitis.” In her diary entry for January 24, 1979, Karen wrote: “
Confrontation about album
.”

In public, Karen refused to admit that her physical state was due to anything more than exhaustion from years of overwork. In private, however, Karen took her illness seriously enough to seek professional help—but not without Frenda Leffler by her side. “I had known for a while that she had some sort of a mental illness,” Frenda explains. “I knew it wasn't just that she didn't want to eat because she didn't want to eat. She just couldn't conquer this. We were somewhat aware of what it could be, but they just didn't know how to treat it. We didn't have a
Menninger type of thing for her. If we had the great centers for eating disorders they have today, everything could have been different. “ With Karen's blessing, Frenda had researched and made appointments with several Los Angeles–based psychiatrists, several of whom dealt with food issues. During each visit, Karen insisted Frenda remain with her while she met with the doctors. “Let me just go in the other room,” Frenda said, sensing one doctor's exasperation during a consultation.

“No, Frenny,” Karen exclaimed in a panic. “Take me, too!”

“I'm just going to the outer office,” she said, assuring Karen she would be fine. “I'll be right out there. You don't have to worry.”

“I'm going with you,” Karen said, jumping from the couch and heading for the door, leaving Frenda to apologize.

Another cry for help went out to singer Cherry O'Neill when Karen phoned her for advice. “She didn't sound panicked, but she felt that she really needed some help,” O'Neill says. “Karen was having particular problems with laxatives, and she didn't believe she could ever get to a point where she was not dependent upon them.” O'Neill felt Karen needed a change of scenery. She understood the benefits of getting away from family and the obligations of work. “You need to get away from the pressures of L.A. and show business and concentrate on your own life and survival,” she said.

“I'm going to do it,” Karen told her. “I'll get well. It's just so damn hard.” Evelyn Wallace entered the office during one of the calls in time to overhear Karen say, “Well, I don't want to
die
.” Wallace quickly grabbed her things and exited once she realized the serious tone of Karen's conversation.

Cherry sent Karen a copy of a typewritten manuscript for her forthcoming book, which made its way to Ev's desk.
Starving for Attention
was O'Neill's autobiographical look at her battle with anorexia and her eventual recovery. “Whether Karen read the whole thing or not, I don't know,” Wallace says. “I think she left it on my desk purposely. Otherwise she would have gotten rid of it or she would have hid it in some of her stuff. Why would she leave that on my desk? I think she wanted me to read it.”

B
Y
1979 Karen's voice had dominated the airwaves for nearly a decade alongside other great pop female vocalists, including Barbra Streisand, Anne Murray, Helen Reddy, and Olivia Newton-John. These singers maintained individual identities as solo artists, garnering a great deal of attention to their personal strengths and abilities, but the public identified Karen as part of a duo. Year after year she was overlooked when Grammy and American Music Awards nominations were announced in categories recognizing female vocalists. Although she rarely voiced disappointment, Karen had yet to receive accolades for her talents as an individual singer.

Karen would mention from time to time that she would like to record a solo album and receive recognition as a solo artist. She had received numerous requests to guest on albums by other artists but always declined out of respect for Richard. In fact, just months earlier she had turned down an invitation from KISS member Gene Simmons, who asked her to sing on his self-titled solo album (which ultimately featured appearances by Helen Reddy and Donna Summer). But Karen had gradually reached a point in her career where she wanted to be known as Karen Carpenter, not just the lead singer from the Carpenters. “
That is the ultimate compliment
,” she had told Ray Coleman back in 1975, “to have respect not only from your fans but also your peers and other singers. To have that kind of reputation and have it stay, it would be fantastic. And it's really nice to know that other people think that something you have is that special.”

There was no doubt in Frenda's mind that Karen knew she was good. She was always confident in her talent and abilities. “I think she knew that she had an ability to really touch people,” she recalls. “I also think she wanted to do her own thing, and that was a big, big problem. She had talked about it for a long time. It wasn't about hurting anybody. It was about exploring her talents.” Frenda encouraged Karen, seeing a solo project as a huge step toward the independence and autonomy Karen so desperately needed. “It was her Emancipation Proclamation,” she says. “There's no question, it was her coming out party. That's exactly what it was. But she had no idea the price she was going to pay.”

Karen seemed optimistic about her musical options, despite Richard's debilitated state. “
Everybody is trying new things
,” she said in a radio interview during her visit to England in December. “Needless to say, the disco thing is so hot right now. Even a lot of the disco things are pretty, you know. Donna Summer has done some beautiful songs.” She also expressed a love for the music of the Bee Gees, whose
Saturday Night Fever
album became one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time.

When asked about future projects and the possibility of both she and Richard working separately, Karen spoke of her brother's interest in scoring a film and hinted of a possible solo project for herself. “
We have often thought
about it,” she said in 1978. “We have discussed it—not necessarily interrupting the Carpenters as a unit but to add on to that. One of the things that Richard's wanted to do for years is produce other people, and if he did something like that I might do a solo album or get into acting, but at the same time keep the Carpenters going because we don't ever want to let that go. We've been discussing a lot of things. There's so much to do, and it's a lot of fun to keep changing.”