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Karen Anne Carpenter (March 2, 1950 – February 4, 1983) was an American singer and drummer. She and her brother, Richard, formed the 1970s duo The Carpenters. She was a drummer of exceptional skill, but she is best remembered for her vocal performances. She suffered from anorexia nervosa, a little known eating disorder at the time, and died at the age of 32 from heart failure, later attributed to complications related to her illness.
Karen Carpenter was the lead singer for the soft-rock duo the Carpenters, who scored a string of Top 10 hits in the early '70s, including "Close to You," "We've Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days and Mondays," and "Yesterday Once More."
Karen Carpenter recorded one solo album in the late '70s, yet it was unreleased at the time.
Following the recording of the record, she returned to the Carpenters, and they had one final Top 40 hit: "Touch Me When We're Dancing" in 1981 before she tragically died of heart failure, brought on by anorexia nervosa, in February of 1983.
Karen's drumming was praised by fellow drummers Hal Blaine, Cubby O'Brien, Buddy Rich and Modern Drummer magazine.
On February 4, 1983, less than a month before her 33rd birthday, Karen suffered heart failure at her parents' home in Downey, California. She was taken to Downey Community Hospital, where she was pronounced dead twenty minutes later. The Los Angeles coroner gave the cause of death as "heartbeat irregularities brought on by chemical imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa." Under the anatomical summary, the first item was heart failure, with anorexia as second. The third finding was cachexia, which is extremely low weight and weakness and general body decline associated with chronic disease. Her divorce was scheduled to have been finalized that day. The autopsy stated that Carpenter's death was the result of emetine cardiotoxicity due to anorexia nervosa, revealing that Carpenter had poisoned herself with ipecac syrup, an emetic often used to induce vomiting in cases of overdosing or poisoning.[18] Carpenter's use of ipecac syrup was later disputed by Agnes and Richard, who both stated that they never found empty vials of ipecac in her apartment and have denied that there was any concrete evidence that Karen had been vomiting. Richard also expressed that he believes Karen was not willing to ingest ipecac syrup because of the potential damage it presented to her vocal cords and that she relied on laxatives alone to maintain her low body weight.
Her funeral service took place on February 8, 1983, at the Downey United Methodist Church. Dressed in a rose colored suit, Carpenter lay in an open white casket. Over 1,000 mourners passed through to say goodbye, among them her friends Dorothy Hamill, Olivia Newton-John, Petula Clark, and Dionne Warwick. Carpenter's estranged husband Tom attended her funeral, where he took off his wedding ring and threw it into the casket.[10] She was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, California. In 2003, Richard Carpenter had Karen re-interred, along with their parents, in a Carpenter family mausoleum at the Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California, which is closer to his Southern California home.
Carpenter's death brought lasting media attention to anorexia nervosa and also to bulimia. In the years after Carpenter's death, a number of celebrities decided to go public about their eating disorders, among them actress Tracey Gold and Diana, Princess of Wales. Medical centres and hospitals began receiving increased contacts from people with these disordersThe general public had little knowledge of anorexia nervosa and bulimia prior to Carpenter's death, making the condition difficult to identify and treat. Her family started the "Karen A. Carpenter Memorial Foundation," which raised money for research on anorexia nervosa and eating disorders. Today the name of the organization has been changed to the "Carpenter Family Foundation." In addition to eating disorders, the foundation now funds the arts, entertainment and education. On October 12, 1983, the Carpenters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 6931 Hollywood Blvd., a few yards from the Kodak Theater. Richard, Harold and Agnes Carpenter attended the inauguration, as did many fans. In 1987, movie director Todd Haynes used songs by Richard and Karen in his movie Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. In the movie, Haynes portrayed the Carpenters with Barbie dolls, rather than live actors. The movie was later pulled from distribution after Richard Carpenter won a court case involving song royalties; Haynes had not obtained legal permission to use The Carpenters' recordings. On January 1, 1989, the similarly-titled made-for-TV movie The Karen Carpenter Story aired on CBS with Cynthia Gibb in the title role. Gibb lip-synced the songs to Carpenter's recorded voice. Both films use the song "This Masquerade" in the background while showing Karen's marriage to Burris.
