Little Girl Blue (27 page)

Within two weeks of its release,
Horizon
was certified gold. Although it reached the top of the charts in the United Kingdom and Japan, the album missed the U.S. Top 10 when it peaked at #13. According to Richard, the single “Only Yesterday” was one of their better technical achievements, in which he employed a Phil Spector “wall of sound” approach. Even so, the song's success cost him and John Bettis the thousand dollars they bet a studio engineer that it would not be a hit. According to Bettis, sitting down to write “Only Yesterday” he thought to himself, “
Oh boy, here we go
again—another
yesterday
song.” He was able to avoid the sad and somewhat melancholy approach taken in “Goodbye to Love” and “Yesterday Once More,” turning this song into an upbeat, optimistic love song and one about “being in love
now
,” he explained. “And yesterday was not so good because you weren't here.”

In 1991, while remixing various tracks for a Japanese karaoke compilation, Richard discovered an unmarked, forgotten
Horizon
outtake on a multitrack tape for “Only Yesterday.” It was Karen's work lead with piano, bass, and drums for the David Pomeranz tune, “Trying to Get the Feeling Again,” recorded in 1975. It became the title track for a Barry Manilow album released four months after
Horizon
and a hit single for him in 1976. The Carpenters' version was abandoned when Richard decided the album had plenty of strong ballads. It remained unfinished and was somehow never cataloged into A&M's tape library. Adding a twenty-four-piece string section, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and synthesizer, Richard completed their version of “Trying to Get the Feeling Again” for
Interpretations: A 25th Anniversary Celebration
released in 1994.

Legendary arranger Billy May's lush treatment of the Andrews Sisters' “I Can Dream, Can't I?” was one of several big band ballads Karen recorded during her career, and according to Holden of
Rolling Stone
, “
such a gem
of updated schmaltz, it makes me wish that veteran masters
of the studio like Gordon Jenkins, Ray Ellis, Nelson Riddle and Percy Faith would be encouraged to collaborate with other best selling middle of the road acts of the Seventies.”

Jazz critic Dave Gelly agreed and took notice of Karen's careful attention to microphone technique. “
She sings very close
to the microphone, starting at around Julie London or Peggy Lee volume, that's to say, not much more than a whisper. Then, she gradually opens up to about Jo Stafford level. No tears, no dramatics—just plain, unfussy and beautifully done.”

Ken Barnes's review for
Phonograph Record
called
Horizon
“
soft-rock Nirvana
,” going on to say, “It's certainly less than revolutionary to admit you like the Carpenters these days (in rock circles, if you recall, it formerly bordered on heresy). Everybody must be won over by now. . . . If all MOR were this good, one might not resent its all-out appropriation of the airwaves. . . . As for the Carpenters, they've transcended the genre and stand in a class by themselves.”

K
AREN
'
S NEW
slim figure required that she purchase a new stage wardrobe, and she opted for a number of low-cut silky gowns, some strapless or even backless. Sherwin Bash was horrified to see her bony shoulders and ribs. Even her hip bones were visible through the thin layers of fabric. He asked Karen to rethink the wardrobe choices before going on stage. “
I talked her into
putting a jacket on over the bare back and bare arms,” he said, “but the audience saw it.”

There was often a collective gasp from the audience when Karen would take the stage. In fact, after a few shows, Bash was approached by concerned fans who knew something was terribly wrong but assumed she had cancer or some other disease. Even critics took note of her gaunt appearance. A review for
Variety
praised Karen's exit from the drums but commented on her deteriorating appearance. “
She is terribly thin
, almost a wraith, and should be gowned more becomingly.”

It became increasingly obvious to Terry Ellis that his girlfriend's dieting was far more complex than a simple attempt to shed a few pounds. Even in the few months since the two had met, Karen had
withered before Terry's eyes. “When she went onstage she usually had some backless outfit on,” he recalls. “You could see her shoulder blades and ribs sticking out. You could tell that she was much thinner than she ought to be.”

Five days of shows at Connecticut's Oakdale Theater in Wallingford were attended by many of the duo's childhood friends. Agnes and Harold flew in for the week and were met at their hotel by Carl and Teresa Vaiuso, who drove them to the show. The Oakdale was just fifteen miles north of New Haven's Hall Street, where the couples had first met and raised their families nearly twenty years earlier. “
[Harold] was beside himself
,” Teresa recalled. “As soon as we picked them up, that was the first thing he said. He said, ‘She's not fooling me, I know what's wrong with Karen. She has anorexia nervosa.' That was the first time I ever really heard that. I thought, ‘What is he saying? Could this be true?' And sure enough, when we went to see her, that's exactly what she had. The father was right.”

According to John Bettis, no one really understood why Karen wasn't eating. To those around her the solution seemed simple:
eat
. “
Anorexia nervosa was so new
to me that I didn't even know how to pronounce it until 1980,” he said. “From the outside the solution looks so simple. All a person has to do is eat. So we were constantly trying to shove food at Karen. . . . My opinion about anorexia is it's an attempt to have control; something in your life that you can do something about, that you can regiment. I think that just got out of control with her.”

Cherry O'Neill confirms that control was most definitely a factor in her own struggles. “When you start denying yourself food and begin feeling you have control over a life that has been pretty much controlled for you, it's exhilarating. The anorexic feels that while she may not be able to control anything else, she will, by God, control every morsel that goes in her mouth.”

In contrast with Karen's dieting rituals, Terry Ellis was a connoisseur of both wine and fine dining. He enjoyed participating in long, leisurely dinners at many of the top restaurants across Europe. Karen would order her usual salad and push the greens around the plate while drinking water with dozens of lemons.

It was not long before Ellis witnessed the habits the rest of Karen's friends and family had observed for many months. She pretended to eat a lot, when in reality she was allocating the food to those around her. On one particular instance, out to dinner with the band, Karen ordered a huge slice of cake at the end of meal. “She made a big deal out of telling everybody how she'd ordered this cake, how it looked amazing, and how she was really looking forward to it,” Ellis recalls. “It was like, ‘Look at me, I'm eating this big piece of cake!' When it arrived, she nibbled a corner of it and said, ‘Wow, this is fantastic,' and started working her way around the room, going to the band saying, ‘Boy, this cake is delicious! You've got to try a piece.' By the time she'd finished there was very little left on the plate.”

Band members and others made aware of her condition agreed that Karen fit the description of anorexia to a T. Backstage they witnessed her exhaustion. She was lying down between shows, something she had rarely, if ever, done before. They were shocked to see how she could be flat on her back one minute and on stage singing the next. Even when doing back-to-back shows, Karen displayed “
a tremendous amount of
nervous energy,” said Sherwin Bash. He was a no-nonsense kind of man who freely spoke his mind and had no qualms confronting Karen on the issue of anorexia, even calling it by name, and he did not back down. “The fact that she was anorexic was discussed innumerable times. . . . There was every attempt to get her to seek professional help, but I believe her family was the kind of family that the mother would say, ‘We can take care of ourselves. We don't need to have someone. This is a family matter.'”

According to Ellis, at times Karen seemed to seek the attention of her family and did not mind it coming at the expense of their frustrations with her disorder. When she dieted, or “overdieted” as he explains, there was a rush of attention from the family, especially Agnes. “Karen had never had attention before, so she liked it. The experts say that one of the things that seems to drive young girls to diet and overdiet is that they were oftentimes the kids that never got attention. It's a way of getting the love from their family that they never got before.”

F
OR THE
summer tour of 1975, manager Sherwin Bash paired Karen and Richard with veteran pop singer Neil Sedaka, who was also managed by BNB Associates. Sedaka, experiencing a comeback and the success of his new single “Laughter in the Rain,” would be their opening act. His unbridled energy and onstage antics made him popular with audiences but also made the Carpenters' portion of the show seem a bit dull and disappointing to some. They were pros at presenting their impeccable musicianship in concerts, but there was very little focus on theatrics.

During their first shows together at the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, it was already apparent to the Carpenters that Sedaka's portion of the show was better received by the audiences than their own. “
In contrast to my
thirty-five minutes, their act was quiet and subdued,” Sedaka wrote in his 1982 autobiography
Laughter in the Rain: My Own Story
. “While I was obviously thrilled to be on stage, the Carpenters seemed to walk through the act.”

As the tour continued on to New England, the press seemed to agree. “Sedaka Steals Show from Carpenters,” read a
New York Daily News
headline. Management began hiding the reviews from Karen and Richard, but Sedaka immediately felt resentment coming from the duo. “
I don't know what happened
,” said Bash. “From the very beginning there wasn't a good feeling between Karen, Richard, and Neil. He was doing things or saying things which they were not comfortable with. . . . I could not soothe all the ruffled feathers.”

By summer's end the Carpenters' latest single—their version of Sedaka's own “Solitaire”—was climbing the charts, and the tour returned to the Riviera for another two-week run. On the second night, Richard announced to the band that, due to time constraints, he was pulling the finale, in which Sedaka joined Karen and Richard onstage. All hell broke loose the following night during Sedaka's opening act when he took a moment to nonchalantly introduce and welcome guests Tom Jones and Dick Clark, who were seated in the audience. It was an unwritten rule that this sort of introduction was to be left to the
headliner. For Richard, this was the last straw. He was already upset to have learned Sedaka was using the Carpenters' orchestra. And several keys had been broken on Richard's piano during Sedaka's act. Now he was breaking protocol by introducing celebrities in the audience. “
When I left the stage
,” Sedaka recalled, “I heard Richard Carpenter screaming, ‘Get that son of a bitch out!'”

Karen was crying, “Neil, I'm so sorry about this.”

Sherwin Bash was in Germany making arrangements with promoters for the upcoming European tour when the call came in from the Riviera. “
I got a phone call
one night from Richard absolutely hysterical.” Bash agreed it was a huge blunder and asked Richard if he wanted to fire Sedaka. “You
bet
I want to fire him,” Richard retorted.

“I was in Berlin, not exactly around the corner from the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas,” recalled Bash. “I called and had half of the people in my office in Los Angeles fly up there to no avail. Richard would not agree that this was not the end of the world. He just totally lost it over this.” The next day Sedaka was informed that Richard wanted him to leave the tour immediately. His remaining days would be paid off.