Who is karen carpenters

She hired a personal trainer who told her to change her diet, which caused her to build muscle, making her seem heavier rather than slimmer. Karen fired the trainer, and began her own weight loss schedule by counting calories. She soon lost about 20 pounds 1 st 6 lb and hoped to lose more. Her eating habits saw her getting food off her plate by offering it to others. By , her weight was just 6 st 7 lb.

Some fans had noticed and wrote to the pair to ask what may be wrong. She refused to publicly say she was in ill, and in she said she was just "pooped".

Richard later said he and his parents didn't know how to help her. She told Richard that she needed help with her anorexia. In the s, Karen had also started using thyroid replacement medication, which increased her metabolism, and laxatives, which made food pass quickly. Her condition continued to get worse, and she lost even more weight.

The procedure was a success, and she started gaining weight, but this put a strain on her heart. She managed to keep to a stable weight for the rest of her life after this point. On January 11, , Karen made her final public appearance at a gathering of past Grammy Award winners.

She looked frail, but according to friend Dionne Warwick, she appeared outgoing, telling everyone: "Look at me! I've got an ass! On February 1, , Karen saw her brother for the last time, discussing plans for a new Carpenters album.

On February 4, she collapsed in her bedroom at her parents' home. It seemed like Levenkron was simply trying to talk Karen out of having anorexia, but she'd talk to him and she'd go back to the same routine.

By the autumn of Karen showed no real signs of progress. In fact, her walks to and from sessions with Levenkron kept her body weight beneath the six stone mark. Itchie Ramone called Levenkron and voiced her concerns. When do you expect this turnaround? She's just skin and bone. The therapist agreed that Karen seemed extra tired and was not responding as quickly as he had hoped, and vowed to try another approach.

After her next session with Levenkron, Karen asked Itchie if she could borrow a swimsuit. Besides, it's cold out! The two stopped by the Ramones's apartment to pick up a size 2 light green bikini belonging to Itchie. Karen changed into the bikini and emerged smiling. Itchie was mortified and unable to hide her reaction. Returning to Levenkron the following day, Karen was asked to change into the bikini and stand in front of the office mirror.

He urged her to survey and evaluate her body. But she was 79lb. In mid-September Karen phoned Levenkron and told him her heart was "beating funny". She was quite upset, anxious, and confused.

She complained of dizziness to an extent that she was unable to walk. Despite not being medically qualified, he recognised her symptoms as those of someone suffering extreme dehydration. Karen was admitted to New York's Lenox Hill Hospital on 20 September to begin hyperalimentation, or intravenous feeding.

The next morning she went into surgery to have a small-bore catheter implanted within the superior vena cava right atrium of the heart. An unexpected complication was discovered later that day when she complained to the nurse of excruciating chest pain, and X-rays revealed the doctors had accidentally punctured one of her lungs in their attempts to insert the tube. As her lung began to heal, Karen's body quickly responded to the artificial means of feeding. The hyperalimentation process completely replaced all of her nutritional needs, and a precise daily calorie intake was dispensed through the catheter.

This loss of control was known to often spark fear in patients, and doctors who oppose hyperalimentation argue that it does not teach the patient to eat properly. However, Karen went along with it and gained 12lb in only a few days. Solid foods were slowly reintroduced as the level of assistance from Karen's IV lessened, and she continued to gain weight steadily. Unlike many other patients she seemed pleased and excited to show visitors her progress.

Richard flew in to visit on 25 October and, like most who saw her there, was shocked and saddened. She was still horribly emaciated and barely identifiable by this stage.

Richard nodded in agreement but only to appease his sister. In an attempt to divert the attention away from herself, Karen told him of other patients who were much worse off. But he was not sidetracked. This is crap! You're going about this all the wrong way. This guy isn't getting anything accomplished because you're in a hospital now!

By November Karen was eating three meals a day at Lenox Hill, and trying to stay positive about the weight gain, by then approaching the 30lb mark.

The return of her menstrual cycle, which had ceased during the previous year, seemed to signify an improvement in emotional and physical wellbeing. On 16 November Karen visited Steven Levenkron for the last time and presented him with a farewell gift, a framed personal message in needlepoint.

The large green-threaded words "you win — I gain" served as tangible proof of the long hours Karen had spent alone in the hospital. Learning of her plan to leave, Levenkron reminded Karen she was abandoning the program much too soon, and that treatment takes at least three years. He suggested a therapist in Los Angeles so that she might continue a routine of some sort upon her return home, but she declined. She promised to call him and swore she would not take any more laxatives or diuretics.

Agnes and Harold Karen's father met up with her at Levenkron's office that day. The couple had flown to New York City to bring their daughter and her 22 pieces of luggage home. It was obvious to most that Karen's treatment was inadequate and ending too soon. It just wasn't the right way to do it. If this had happened in today's world I think Karen would have lived.

I think we would have had a good shot. They know so much more. We were dancing in the dark. Karen ate heartily on Thanksgiving Day, much to the delight of her family, and she even called Itchie Ramone that night to tell her of all she had eaten.

We were all very proud of her. It seemed like progress. In the weeks following her return to Los Angeles Karen went back to shopping and socialising without delay. She bounced into his office saying, "Hey, look at me, Herbie!

What do you think? How do I look? Despite her high spirits, she was taking more naps than usual and sometimes lying down by seven in the evening. Richard did not believe she was well, and he told her so. There the housekeeper made an unnerving discovery. Florine checked on Karen again before leaving. By then she was awake and adamant she was OK. They were joined by stage producer Joe Layton, and the trio discussed plans for the Carpenters' return to touring.

Karen ate with enthusiasm and after dinner returned to Century Towers. This was the last time Richard would see his sister alive. The next day Karen spoke with Itchie Ramone, who was pregnant with her and Phil's first child. Karen shared her plans for the week. She would sign the final divorce papers on Friday and then prepare to leave for New York. Shortly after midnight, staying overnight with her parents, Karen went over her to-do list with Frenda Franklin by phone, and finalised plans for the next day.

There shouldn't be a lot of traffic," she said. According to Frenda, Karen enjoyed keeping up with traffic reports. On Friday morning, 4 February, Karen awoke and went downstairs to the kitchen, where she turned on the coffeepot her mother had prepared the night before. She went back upstairs to get dressed. When the coffee was ready, Agnes dialled the upstairs bedroom phone, but its ring, heard faintly in the distance, went unanswered.

Agnes went to the foot of the stairs and called to her daughter but there was no response. Entering the room, Agnes found Karen's motionless, nude body lying face down on the floor of the walk-in wardrobe. Her eyes were open but rolled back. She was lying in a straight line and did not appear to have fallen. The autopsy report listed the cause of death as "emetine cardiotoxicity due to or as a consequence of anorexia nervosa.

Levenkron claimed to know nothing of Karen's use or abuse of ipecac. In their phone calls she assured him she was maintaining her new 7st 10lb figure and had completely suspended use of all laxatives. He never suspected she was resorting to something much more lethal. In a radio interview taped shortly after Karen's death, Levenkron discussed the autopsy findings: "According to the LA coroner, she discovered ipecac… and started taking it every day.

There are a lot of women out there who are using ipecac for self-induced vomiting. It creates painful cramps, tastes terrible, and it does another thing that the public isn't aware of. It slowly dissolves the heart muscle. If you take it day after day, every dose is taking another little piece of that heart muscle apart. Karen, after fighting bravely for a year in therapy, went home and apparently decided that she wouldn't lose any weight with ipecac, but that she'd make sure she didn't gain any.

At Karen's worst, her family insisted she had no emotional problems and that her 'overdieting' was something they could sort out by themselves. In Little Girl Blue, Karen's disorder is described as having started out innocently enough, when she wanted to lose a few pounds after leaving high school.

She had been a chubby teenager and in , she saw a photo of herself that prompted her to take action. She had put on weight and didn't look good in her stage outfit so she hired a personal trainer who put her on a carbohydrate-based diet.

Naturally, she began to bulk up. She fired her trainer and took her own extreme measures. She lost 20lbs and "looked fabulous", said a sister of an old boyfriend. But unfortunately she didn't stop there.

Get the best home, property and gardening stories straight to your inbox every Saturday. Enter email address This field is required Sign Up. Her manager Sherwin Bash was horrified when he saw her new skeletal body. She hid by day beneath multiple layers of blouses and jumpers but at night, when she took to the stage in low-cut slinky gowns, there was often a collective intake of breath from her fans.

They thought she was dying of cancer. Friends were at a loss as to what to do. Karen was always a strong character when it came to getting others to face up to their problems not least when her brother Richard suffered a Quaaludes addiction but she refused to admit that her weight loss was anything more than stress-related.

At restaurants, Karen pushed her food around her plate or urged her friends at the table to try her meal, stealthily getting rid of her food whilst giving the impression she was enjoying her meal so much she wanted others to try it too.

Anorexia was a new disease and certainly not one with the high profile it has today. People were not aware of how to deal with it. They thought it could be cured by eating. One friend read an article in a copy of Reader's Digest and passed it on to Karen's mother but as far as she could tell, Agnes never showed it to Karen. Sherwin Bash also confronted Karen's parents about her weight but they again took the stance that it was private family business. They thought psychiatrists were for crazy people.

In , Karen was admitted to hospital, physically and emotionally exhausted from two years on the road and years of extreme dieting. This particular occasion got her mother's attention and she nursed Karen.

She even regained some weight -- the singer, who was 5ft4in tall, now weighed 7st 6lb. Despite the disastrous effect Karen's weight loss had on her periods, she had always wanted children and in she met a handsome property developer called Tom Burris.