Little Girl Blue

by Randy L. Schmidt

  Evelyn Wallace felt Tom was not taking the vows seriously. “He probably knew exactly what was going to happen once he got Karen. All he was in for was the money. He wasn’t thinking of her; he was thinking of her money. That’s all.”

  In contrast, Karen delivered her vows in a very solemn and serious manner—almost stern. “So help us God,” she repeated, giving a long, firm glare and nod to her groom. “Amen.”

  Following the ceremony, guests sipped cocktails as they mingled in the Maisonette Room, while Karen and Tom met with the media for a press conference in the Persian Room. Richard was also present and photographed in somewhat of an awkward trio with the newlyweds. According to one reporter, he looked “more like a father giving away his daughter.”

  The Crystal Ballroom was transformed into a giant banquet hall and the site of the $25,000 wedding luncheon, which began around 3:00 P.M. “The big attraction was Olivia Newton-John,” recalls Frank Bonito. “That was not long after the time when Grease was big, so there was lots of discussion about where Livvy would sit. We all told Karen, ‘Oh, Olivia can sit at our table!’” At one point during the reception a security officer approached Bonito as he snapped photos with his camera. “Kindly stop taking pictures of Miss Newton-John,” he cautioned when Frank was unable to produce press credentials.

  “I am a guest of the bride, and she asked me to take them for her,” he fibbed.

  The elegant banquet tables were decorated with lavender tablecloths and arrangements of purple orchids, Alba lilies, and African violets. The menu included Karen’s favorite, shrimp salad, and a main course of chicken chasseur with broccoli polonaise, rice pilaf, strawberries Romanoff, and Parducci Chablis wine. Karen and Tom cut the five-tiered chocolate and mocha cream wedding cake, adorned with traditional bride and groom figures on top, and Mike Curb proposed the first toast to the couple. “Excuse me, waiter!” Jerry Weintraub called out to Phil Ramone periodically throughout the meal, poking fun at his tuxedo predicament. Providing the live dance music was the Michael Paige Big Band, inviting the newlyweds to lead the first dance, which was of course to “We’ve Only Just Begun.”

  15

  BEGINNING OF THE END

  FOLLOWING A brief stop in Baja California, the honeymooners flew to the Tahitian island of Bora Bora, where they planned to spend ten days on what promised to be “the most romantic island in the world.” Known for its white sand, dazzling turquoise waters, and unique overwater bungalows, Bora Bora had all the ingredients for the perfect romantic getaway for two. But instead of two, these travelers numbered four. Considering that Karen Carpenter’s marriage to Tom Burris was essentially over before it began, it is understandable that she might not have had any qualms inviting her husband’s brother Rick and his wife to join them on their honeymoon. She had extended the same bizarre invitation to her aunt Bernice and other family members as well, but all declined.

  Arriving on Bora Bora, a location chosen by Tom, Karen immediately began to complain about the setting, which she likened to a forsaken, deserted island. She called it Boring, Boring and blamed her loathing on having grown accustomed to hotels with room service and twenty-four-hour concierge service while on tour. True, there were no phones, radios, or televisions in the resort guest rooms, but when Karen rescheduled their return flights and ended the honeymoon early, it had little to do with her dislike for the accommodations. She wanted to get back home to Los Angeles as fast as she could.

  Karen and Tom made their home at 61 Linda Isle in Newport Beach, just across the Lido Channel from another of their residences at 117 Via Yella. In addition to Karen’s Century Towers condo, the couple also kept a large house in Bel Air and even one in Mexico—a vacation getaway situated in the gated celebrity enclave El Pedregal, the first residential community in Cabo San Lucas. “Karen bought their house in Newport Beach, and she was paying for all of these homes,” Itchie Ramone recalls. “All the antennas were starting to go up between Frenda, Livvy, Carole, and myself. We knew what was going on.”

  For a period of time Karen played the part of the happy newlywed, at least to anyone she thought she could fool. “I love it,” she said of her marriage during a phone interview broadcast to Japanese radio audiences. “I’m having a wonderful time. I’m very, very happy.”

  The couple’s time in Newport Beach was short lived. Karen preferred to stay at their two-and-a-half-acre rented estate in Bel Air, where Frenda Leffler was close by. From the time Karen moved to Century City she had established a small circle of friends and acquaintances. “She made friends in Century City,” Frenda explains, “but she still had never really been on her own. This was Bel Air now, and she was a married lady and on her own.”

  “NOBODY’S BEING stolen,” Karen assured the press during a public appearance in the fall of 1980. Richard and Tom did their best to uphold smiles for the cameras but were ill at ease. Work on the Carpenters’ next album had ceased with the couple’s engagement and wedding plans, but Richard had stayed busy making preparations for Karen’s return to the recording studio. Jerry Moss suggested that the duo stick with their tried-and-true Carpenters formula, which they had abandoned in some ways for the mishmash selections on 1977’s Passage album.

  Perhaps in an attempt to recapture the 1973 success of Joe Raposo’s “Sing,” the Carpenters told Paul Williams they wished to record his and Kenny Ascher’s “The Rainbow Connection” from the highly successful 1979 film The Muppet Movie. “I saw Karen after I won the Oscar for A Star is Born,” Williams says. “She was really sweet about that and also said that ‘Evergreen’ was a great song. Then the same thing happened with The Muppet Movie. They loved the songs from that movie and wanted to record ‘Rainbow Connection.’” But Richard was bothered by the syllabification of the song, notably the opening phrases written for Muppet character Kermit the Frog to sing. “Richard wanted me to change some of it,” Williams recalls, “but this song was nominated for an Academy Award! The song is written in Kermit’s speaking rhythm, and I wouldn’t change it. It was written for Kermit; it should be recorded the way that Kermit recorded it.”

  Although the Carpenters went on to record “The Rainbow Connection,” they took artistic license and altered the rhythm and melody to suit their wishes. Even so, Karen was displeased with the outcome, and her work lead was filed away with the album’s other outtakes. It was not until 1999 that Richard completed the recording, which ultimately saw release on the As Time Goes By collection. “I really wanted them to do ‘Rainbow Connection,’” Williams says, “but I didn’t like the changes they made in it. Still, it’s always a treasure to hear her sing my words.”

  A surprise call came in November 1980 from legendary guitarist Les Paul. He wanted to meet Karen and Richard, who were busy working in A&M’s studio D. Like Lester William Polsfuss, his given name, Evelyn Wallace grew up in Waukesha, Wisconsin. “He was a neighbor of ours when I was a kid,” she says. “He went to the same school as we did and lived just down the street.” Wallace phoned Richard at A&M and explained Les Paul would like to sit in on a Carpenters recording session. Karen and Richard had often cited Les Paul and Mary Ford among their earliest musical inspirations, making this meeting especially meaningful. They discussed with him their recording techniques and the evolution of the overdubbing process, which Les Paul essentially pioneered.

  A few months later on January 20, 1981, Karen arrived at A&M Studios wearing a new patriotic-themed running suit with large block letters across the chest: MADE IN AMERICA. Although the Carpenters had Republican ties, neither was known to be political. But this was Inauguration Day, and Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the fortieth president of the United States. Richard noticed the suit and immediately said, “Well, there it is!” He felt “Made in America” was a perfect name for the duo’s forthcoming album. Karen agreed.

  Released June 16, 1981, Made in America was the Carpenters’ first traditional studio album in nearly four years. Although the inner photograph showed Karen looking comfortable and seemingl
y fit, it had been heavily retouched by A&M’s art department. The original, untouched photo reveals her bloodshot eyes and drawn appearance. In just the few short months between that John Engstead photo session and the album’s release, Karen had lost even more weight.

  The standout track on Made in America was “Touch Me When We’re Dancing,” the obvious choice for debut single. When the demo for “Touch Me” arrived from Welk Publishing, Karen and Richard needed only one listen to know it was the right song to launch their return to Top 40 radio. And it did. The debut single was released a week prior to the album’s release and soon peaked at #16. “Touch Me” had all the ingredients of a 1971 Carpenters hit packaged neatly in a 1981 production. “When all the ingredients gelled, the result was irresistible,” wrote John Tobler in a review. “That’s what we have here, a perfect Carpenters confection, reminiscent of the classic days of the early Seventies.”

  “(Want You) Back in My Life Again” was one of the most 1980s-influenced recordings in the Carpenters catalog. Incidentally, the synthesizers were manned by two well-known artists in their own right—Daryl Dragon, the “Captain” of Captain and Tennille, and Ian Underwood of the Mothers of Invention. With its strong, melodic, singable hook, “Back in My Life Again” seemed a wise choice for the second single, but it did not fare as well as “Touch Me.” Reminiscent of “Top of the World” was “Those Good Old Dreams,” a country-tinged collaboration by Richard and John Bettis released as the album’s third single. “When It’s Gone (It’s Just Gone)” was another tune with a country ballad feel, sounding a bit like “Two Sides” from Passage. Randy Handley’s poetic lyric tells of an aching, unrequited love. Judging from the effectiveness of Karen’s interpretation, it sounds as if she penned it herself.

  Where’s the word for the sadness

  Where’s the poetry in the pain

  Where’s the color in the stain where the tears have fallen

  It’s gone, it’s just gone

  Karen still loved oldies, and somehow an “oldie-but-goodie” seemed to find its way onto every Carpenters album after 1973’s Now and Then medley. Horizon had “Please Mr. Postman.” A Kind of Hush opened with the title track and closed with Sedaka’s “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.” Then “Man Smart, Woman Smarter” from Passage reached all the way back to a 1956 Harry Belafonte album, and Karen even cut a work lead of “Jimmy Mack” by Martha and the Vandellas during her 1979 solo sessions. “Richard and I always talked about bringing back songs,” says Mike Curb, who was treated to a preview of the Carpenters’ next oldie. “I’ve gotta play a song for you,” Karen told him. “You’ll get a kick of out it. It is really fun! It’ll bring back memories.” After playing the recording of “Beechwood 4-5789” down the phone line she asked, “So, what do you think of this as a single?”

  Curb was encouraging and unable to bring himself to tell her it lacked Top 40 potential. “That was the last song she played for me,” he says. Whereas “Postman” was a case of the right song at the right time, “There’s a Kind of Hush” was overkill, and remaking the Marvelettes’ “Beechwood 4-5789” was a waste. A promotional video for “Beechwood,” shot on A&M’s Chaplin Stage, further relegated the song to the most syrupy sweet category of bubblegum pop. Karen looked ill at ease—to say the least—as a thirty-one-year old woman sporting a poodle skirt and swaying her way around a faux malt shop. “Beechwood” was released on Karen’s birthday, March 2, 1982, and became the Carpenters’ lowest-charting single at #74 and their final appearance on the U.S. singles chart during Karen’s lifetime.

  From listening to demos and writing new material through to the mastering process, Made in America took over a year to create, twice as long as the average Carpenters record. Considering the wealth of quality leftovers and outtakes from their 1980–1981 sessions, namely “The Uninvited Guest” and “Kiss Me the Way You Did Last Night,” both of which saw posthumous release, Made in America could have fared much stronger. In his review for Billboard, Paul Grein explains: “Innocuous ditties like ‘Postman’ and ‘Beechwood’ don’t begin to tap the depths of Karen’s voice. She needs a meaningful lyric to really show her stuff.”

  The Carpenters’ new album and their contributions to A&M Records were celebrated by Herb Alpert and the entire label on the evening of June 29, 1981, at a party in their honor on the grounds of the Bel Air Hotel. An audience of more than two hundred guests watched as Alpert welcomed Karen and Richard back to the music scene, presenting two matching plaques that displayed their eleven studio albums for A&M. He also announced that the Carpenters’ record sales as of March that year had topped seventy-nine million units.

  MADE IN America concluded with “Because We Are in Love (The Wedding Song),” written for Karen’s wedding, but by the time the album hit shelves, Karen’s marriage was already on its last leg. “She thought she’d married the right guy,” Maria Galeazzi says, “but this one took her for a ride.” Friends of the couple, including Carole Curb, began to hear “bits and pieces that didn’t feel good and didn’t sound right. I heard that there were some monetary things that popped up with Tom that none of us knew about. That didn’t sit right with her. All that glitters isn’t gold.”

  According to Itchie, Karen had learned the truth of Tom’s financial status the morning of their wedding. “They were all in the process of investigating, but there wasn’t enough time,” she says. But Karen was more upset to learn of her family’s probing and refused to heed the warnings from Werner Wolfen and others. “Artists are prone to fall in love with somebody who can spend their money without them knowing it,” explains Phil Ramone. “Karen was pretty frugal, to say the least. Some of the older-thinking artists watched every penny. The Carpenters had a pretty good money advisor, so I am surprised that Tom got through that fence.”

  Most had assumed Burris’s lifestyle and net worth were comparable to that of Karen’s. The expensive cars and other possessions gave him the appearance of a multimillionaire, but what others did not realize was that he was living well beyond his means. On several occasions he treated the Carpenter parents and their friends to a short yacht trip around Newport Harbor, even instructing Evelyn Wallace on steering technique. “Oh, I have six boats,” he boasted to her.

  “Tom had wanted Karen to think that he was Mr. Money Guy, but it wasn’t long after they got married that he started asking her for money,” recalls Wallace. “He’d give her some excuse, and she’d give him the money. He’d ask for $35,000 and $50,000 at a time. Finally it got down to the point where all she had left was stocks and bonds.”

  As Itchie recalls, “Tom couldn’t afford the houses, the cars, her wedding ring; he couldn’t pay for anything.” Karen began to share with friends her growing misgivings about Tom, not only concerning his finances but also his lack of feelings for her. He was often impatient, and she admitted being fearful when he would occasionally lose his temper. “He could be very cruel to her,” says Itchie. But Karen’s longing to be a mother proved to be stronger than her desire to leave her husband. At the house in Newport Beach Karen expressed to Tom her desire to get pregnant and start a family. Of course a vasectomy reversal would be required, and he had promised to go through with the procedure, but in this particular moment Karen just wanted to be intimate with her husband. She never could have dreamed that his response would be so brutal. She was still crying hysterically when she called Itchie for support. According to Karen, Tom had told her he wouldn’t even consider having children with her and called her “a bag of bones.” Karen was well aware that her weight had plummeted since her wedding to Tom the previous year, but hearing such callous words in response to a physical advance toward her husband was unbearable.

  Karen and Tom saw their first anniversary come and go with little merriment. During the last week of August the two set out on a journey taking them more than six thousand miles round-trip in Tom’s cumbersome four-wheel-drive Dodge Ramcharger, equipped with CB radio and refrigerator. Although the Carpenters rarely toured or traveled
in what would be considered excessive luxury, this trip found the Burris couple roughing it, to say the least. Following a stay in the San Juan Mountains near Durango, Colorado, Karen and Tom schlepped northward. They stopped at Canada’s hiking capital, Lake Louise in Banff National Park, before visiting the city of Vancouver. Relieved to return to Los Angeles, Karen recovered from what she considered to have been a disaster of a vacation.

  Itchie flew to Los Angeles to find out for herself what was happening in her friend’s marriage and offer her love and support to Karen. They met for lunch at their normal hangout, Hamburger Hamlet, but Karen asked the host for a different table than their usual. “We didn’t sit at our regular table, which was odd,” Itchie recalls. “We sat in the dark, and she wore huge, dark sunglasses.”

  “OK, what do you want me to do, Kace?” she asked, realizing things had gone too far. “You can’t go on living like this.”

  According to Itchie, this marriage was “the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was absolutely the worst thing that could have ever happened to her. She was just so loving and so wonderful, and then the next thing you know you’re sitting there across the table from your best friend all bruised up. How do you do that? She was pretty much wrecked.” Karen initially passed it off, but she then could not make it through the meal. “She couldn’t eat, she was crying, and we had to leave. We didn’t want anyone to recognize her.”

  At the urging of friends and family, Karen met with legal counsel to revise her will on September 1, 1981. She could not yet bring herself to file for divorce but was obviously moving in that direction. “I give all household furniture and furnishings, household equipment and appliances, and silverware located in the residence occupied by my husband and myself to my husband,” she stated in the codicil. “I give any residence occupied by my husband and myself as our home at the time of my death to my husband.” Karen willed everything else to Harold, Agnes, and Richard, listing estimated assets totaling between five and ten million dollars.