Little Girl Blue

by Randy L. Schmidt

Although Karen confided in Evelyn regarding her illness, the two never spoke specifically of anorexia. Despite her attempts at honesty, Karen refrained from using the words “anorexia nervosa.” Frenda Franklin recalls, “She just didn’t like those words.”

  16

  DANCING IN THE DARK

  LEAVING BEHIND the pieces of her broken marriage, Karen set forth on a year-long recovery mission, relocating to New York City’s Regency Hotel in January 1982. Manager Jerry Weintraub was acquainted with the owners of the hotel and arranged for Karen and Itchie Ramone (by then married to Phil) to share a two-bedroom suite with a living room and kitchenette. Itchie secured a private telephone line, in addition to a big screen television with video machine. Karen’s weekly TV appointment was every Friday night with prime-time soap opera Dallas, while Itchie’s must-see was Dynasty.

  Monthly hotel bills were upward of six thousand dollars, not including room service tabs and phone bills. Although Karen was known to be a penny-pincher, she felt that these expenditures were for the most part justified. Therapist Steven Levenkron received one hundred dollars for each hour-long session five days a week, totaling two thousand dollars month. “I liked Levenkron, at least in the beginning,” Itchie says. “He was the new kid on the block, but he did have some answers. No one really knew why someone would get the disorder or how to treat it. We didn’t have answers to any of our questions about the disorder, so we were really looking to him to quote ‘save’ her.”

  Arriving at Levenkron’s office at 16 East Seventy-Ninth in Manhattan, Karen weighed in at an alarming seventy-eight pounds. Although her family cited 1975 as the onset of anorexia nervosa, she felt its inception was a more recent occurrence. From her therapist’s brown leather sofa, Karen explained how her anorexic behaviors began “the day she walked away from Menninger’s after leaving Richard there.” In a 1993 interview the therapist explained, “She had to take this brother who she loved and lock him up in a psychiatric hospital. . . . That’s where she equated the beginning of her anorexia.”

  A week into their daily sessions, Karen admitted to Levenkron she was taking an unfathomable number of laxative tablets—eighty to ninety Dulcolax a night. The ingestion of large quantities of laxatives did not surprise Levenkron. In fact, it was a common practice for many anorexics. “For quite some time, I was taking sixty laxatives at once,” admits Cherry O’Neill. “Mainly because that was how many came in the box. . . . I would ingest the entire contents so as not to leave any evidence.”

  What did stun Levenkron was Karen’s next casual disclosure. She was also taking thyroid medication—ten pills a day. He was shocked, especially when she explained that she had a normal thyroid. He demanded she bring him the bottle, which she did during the following session. Dated August 17, 1981, the prescription for Synthroid had been dispensed by Newport Center Pharmacy and issued in the name of Karen Burris. Realizing she was using the medication to speed her metabolism, Levenkron immediately confiscated the vial and remaining pills. Of all the terrible forms of self-abuse he had witnessed with his patients, this was the first case of thyroid medication abuse he had seen in his dozen years in the field.

  KAREN AND Itchie enjoyed this time together at the Regency Hotel and took advantage of what oftentimes seemed like a recurring sleep-over between teenage girlfriends. “OK, so who would your perfect guy be?” Itchie asked.

  “Mark Harmon,” Karen answered, referring to the actor with whom she enjoyed a couple of dates in the late 1970s.

  Although Harmon was in show business, he was not a “Hollywood hoo-ha” as Karen referred to some men. According to Itchie, “Mark would have been the absolute perfect guy with all the qualifications on her list. He was a star in his own right but really down-to-earth, and he was basically a family guy, which was exactly what she was looking for. But to tell you the truth, I don’t know that Mark could have ever survived the sharks around her.”

  With notebook paper and pen in hand, Itchie jotted down a list of the qualities Karen desired in a man. “We were writing down every single little thing that she wanted in a guy as a mate or as a partner,” Itchie recalls. Obviously Karen was somewhat separating herself emotionally from Tom Burris, and rightfully so. Her requirements were similar to those she had expressed before her marriage to Burris, but she was determined to never be taken advantage of again. She still desired a man who was articulate, bright, intelligent, and witty. He had to be good looking and be a spiffy dresser. She wanted someone who hailed from a good family and preferred someone who was not in show business. He could be a celebrity but only if he was unpretentious. But above all she wanted someone who would love her unreservedly and unconditionally.

  As she settled into her new surroundings, Karen again phoned Cherry O’Neill, who was relieved to hear she had finally taken the first step toward seeking professional help. She was also pleasantly surprised to learn Karen went so far as to remove herself from Los Angeles and what she calls “the ever-present pressures of the music and entertainment business, as well as the expectations of family, agents, managers, and record company executives.” But O’Neill believed New York City was just as fast-paced as Los Angeles. “I really felt like her being there was not enhancing or complementing the recovery. She would have benefitted from a more pastoral, less urban, more low-key environment where she would have no alternative but to slow down and focus on herself, her health, and her recovery.”

  Cherry was also concerned with what she knew of Levenkron’s therapeutic approach, which she explains as an effort to have his patients “develop something of a dependence on him as they wean themselves from their family of origin or spouse who may have contributed inadvertently to the eating disorder.” In Karen’s case it seemed that both family and spouse had aggravated her situation.

  According to Levenkron’s 1982 book, Treating and Overcoming Anorexia Nervosa, the patient must become totally dependent upon the therapist. “The therapist must develop a care-taking relationship with someone who views relationships as always competitive.” This sort of dependence was not easy for Karen. She was more comfortable offering care and concern to others. Receiving care seemed to leave her feeling helpless and somehow unworthy. O’Neill tried to encourage Karen, even though she knew Levenkron’s plan would take much longer than she had allotted. “She had entered therapy with an agenda and time frame in mind that did not allow for that process to run its course. Once the patient has transferred their dependence onto him, he tries to teach them how to create their own sense of identity, and he helps them disengage from their dependence on him with new behaviors, habits, and thought patterns in place. But that takes a lot of time!”

  KAREN RETURNED to Los Angeles for two weeks in April 1982. Most who saw her thought she looked dreadful, but despite her haggard appearance she seemed quite energetic. She even took time to cut several tracks with Richard at A&M Studios during the visit. In what became her final recording session, she laid down work leads for two new Carpenter-Bettis tunes, “At the End of a Song” and “You’re Enough,” in addition to a Ruby and the Romantics oldie, “Your Baby Doesn’t Love You Anymore,” and a Roger Nichols composition entitled “Now.” Richard felt Karen sounded as marvelous as ever, despite her ill health and frailty, but hindsight reveals a weakness to her vocals. Her interpretation, phrasing, and enunciation were beautiful—near perfection, in fact—but something was missing from the timbre.

  Frenda tried her best to reason with Karen, citing her voice and the need to keep it healthy and vibrant. “Kace, you’ve been so lucky for so long,” she told her. “But you’re going to ruin this gift. I don’t care for myself. In fact, I wouldn’t care if you never sang again. You have enough money to live on for the rest of your life. It’s not for any of those reasons. It’s for you. I think you’ll be lost without it. If you don’t eat something, one of these days you’re going to open your mouth and nothing’s going to come out!”

  When she returned to New York Karen took every advantage of the beautiful s
pring weather and began a new exercise routine—to and from her sessions with Levenkron—a brisk two-mile round-trip walk. This was yet another method to burn extra calories. Occasionally she would stop by a needlepoint store she’d found on Madison Avenue. Sometimes she was recognized on the street and asked for her autograph, but to those who had not seen Karen in a number of years she was nearly unrecognizable. Comedian David Brenner, who worked with the Carpenters in Las Vegas, was enjoying lunch with a friend at an outdoor café on Madison Avenue one afternoon. “Hi, David,” he heard from a passerby on the sidewalk near his table. Brenner looked up and smiled, said “hello” to the woman he assumed to be a fan, and returned to his meal. “But, David, it’s me,” she interrupted. “We worked together!” Bewildered, he looked up again but had no idea what this stranger was talking about. “It’s me, Karen,” she said with a laugh. Brenner then recognized the voice and smile.

  “Karen!” he said as he stood to hug her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t recognize you. You’ve lost a lot of weight.” She didn’t reply to his observation but explained she was visiting friends in New York. “Great, well, let’s have lunch sometime,” he said.

  “That’s about as stupid a thing to say to an anorexic as could be said—‘let’s have lunch,’” Brenner says, “but I had no idea she had this disease. Ironically, it was the last time I ever saw her.”

  Former Carpenters manager Sherwin Bash saw Karen in New York in mid-1982 as well. He was walking through Central Park South when he heard a familiar voice. “Shermine Bush!”

  “She would never call me Sherwin Bash,” he explained. “It was always ‘Shermine Bush.’”

  Bash turned around to see Karen running to meet him. “I took her in my arms and gave her a kiss,” he recalled. “She had her sweater and her jacket and everything on, and through it all I could feel the bones. She said she was doing fine and that she was at the point where she was well aware that she was a victim of anorexia. She said she was doing better and she was under a therapist’s care.”

  In her daily calls to both Frenda and Agnes, Karen reported on life in New York City and her recent visitors. Anticipating her daughter’s call, Agnes would always answer on the first or second ring. The two talked at length, but Karen rarely spoke with Harold. “Agnes never once asked Harold if he wanted to talk to Karen,” Evelyn Wallace recalls. “She just talked and talked and then—bang—she’d hang up the receiver.” On one occasion, Harold answered Karen’s call from the office. “Well, just a minute, let me get your mother,” he said.

  “Oh, no, no, no, Dad,” she replied. “You’re the one I want to talk to. I never get to talk to you. Please stay on the line.”

  Evelyn suggested Harold take the call in the privacy of the music room. She knew if Agnes discovered Karen was on the line she would surely take the phone away for herself. That afternoon, the two were finally able to enjoy a long-overdue conversation between father and daughter. “I think that she really loved her father,” Wallace says. “She didn’t have to say anything, but you could tell when she was around him. She just had this happy look when she’d talk to him, and it was always with the sweetest voice. I know she thought the world of her dad, but with her mother, that was another story.”

  According to Frenda, Harold did his best to compensate where Agnes was lacking. “He really, really, really loved her,” she says. “If she had never sung a note he loved her. Pudgy or whatever, he loved her.”

  Being more than two thousand miles from home, Karen relied on a small but close network of relationships on the East Coast. “Please come and stay in New York,” she would beg longtime friend Debbie Cuticello. Debbie and husband C.J. went to Karen’s suite at the Regency several times before taking her out for dinner but always made the return trip to their Connecticut home the same evening. “I would bring Karen here once every two or three weeks, and she’d spend the weekend with me,” Debbie says. “I was much happier to have her here with me in quiet Guilford than being in New York City.”

  Karen enjoyed weekends with the Cuticello clan, which by this time included the couple’s baby son, Jamie. Babysitting while C.J. and Debbie went to church or out to dinner allowed Karen time to play surrogate mom. Like Frenda Leffler’s twins, Jamie Cuticello was quite special to her, and she showered him with love and attention, in addition to gifts including her own needlepoint creations. She also seemed to enjoy the domestic aspect of the family’s home and assisted in preparing meals, washing dishes, and helping with other household duties. “She absolutely adored children,” recalls Itchie Ramone. “She would have been such a wonderful mom. Mothering was totally instinctive. She even taught me how to iron!”

  While visiting Guilford, Karen told Debbie the meetings with her therapist were going better than expected. According to her, it was only a one-year process, and she seemed to be “breezing” through. Her therapist felt she could finish in six months—maybe even four. This seemed to be a very self-deceiving declaration. In fact, Karen was well aware that successful treatment would take years, not months. Following her own quick-fix plan, she told friends and family what they wanted to hear and moreover what she wanted to believe.

  Outwardly Karen seemed committed to the idea of therapy, but as evidenced by her daily walking regimen, she was not as committed to making important changes that would result in real progress and positive results. Friends including Carole Curb say Karen continued to dabble in—if not delve into—even stricter anorexic practices while under Levenkron’s care. “She was still walking a lot, and she was exercising,” Curb says. “And then she was into throwing up and taking water pills that make you lose water weight. Debilitating things like that.”

  Several months into his sessions with Karen, Levenkron began to suspect that she had fallen off the wagon. He phoned Itchie, soliciting her help with a matter she would long regret. “When she leaves the room, go into her bedroom and check under her mattress,” Levenkron instructed. “Check underneath her bed, in her bathroom, and anywhere else you can think of.” The therapist wanted confirmation that Karen had stopped using and thrown away all laxatives, diuretics, and other medications. Even the half quaalude she was known to take on occasion was too strong for her tiny body. “But it really helps me to sleep,” she told Itchie, who insists that Karen was in no way abusing quaaludes.

  “I felt so horrible, but it had to be done,” Itchie says. “She had been saying to Levenkron that she had stopped the laxatives and stopped the ’ludes. I said, ‘There’s just no way. She’s just too thin!’ I called Levenkron back and said, ‘Look, I found all these things. What am I supposed to do?’”

  With Karen in tow, Itchie delivered her findings to Levenkron’s office the following day. Learning of the conspiracy and that her friend had collected evidence against her, Karen became incensed. “When I told her what I had done, I really felt like I’d betrayed her,” Itchie recalls. “All I could say was, ‘I really, really want you to get well.’”

  Following that meeting, Itchie realized that in cooperating with Levenkron she had lost her best friend’s trust. “It caused a major, major upset,” she says. “In retrospect it caused a bit of a setback. She really started to have trust issues with me. I said, ‘Look, I am really sorry.’ And I truly was. I was invading her privacy; I had no idea what I was doing, and I just panicked because I loved her. . . . After that I just felt that she had to do it for herself from that point on.”

  But Levenkron was right. Karen had done exactly as he predicted. Like many of the women he worked with, she resisted the very treatment she was seeking. He was not fooled by her tactics and let her know, just as he let hundreds of other patients know: “You are the victim of a disease and not the designer of a creative way of being special.” A message entitled “For the Afflicted” appeared in his book and remains a revealing look at the language used by the therapist in meeting with his patients. “You suffer,” he wrote, “and are condemned to defend that suffering so that you will feel powerful rather than ashame
d. If you defend that suffering eloquently enough, you may be regarded as manipulative and deceitful, instead of desperate. Surely words that connote being powerful are more desirable labels than words that suggest helplessness.”

  Dependence did not come easy for Karen; it suggested incompleteness and vulnerability. Like many with an eating disorder, Karen would oftentimes argue that she was not in need of any care. She felt she was plenty successful the way she was. Levenkron disagreed and did so using language that cut to her core. He told her she was “incompetent” and unable to keep herself alive. Levenkron’s goal was for her to relearn dependence and see it as a healthy dependence upon him. “The victims must learn how to become patients,” his book reads. “The patients must risk trusting, and being receptive to support, guidance, care and even affection.”

  AFTER MANY weeks of exploring the depths of their daughter’s psyche, Levenkron invited the Carpenter parents and Richard to a ninety-minute family therapy session at his office. “They did come to New York—finally,” Itchie recalls, “and only after a lot of nudging. By then, Karen seemed to be starting to turn the corner a bit emotionally.”

  The stigma surrounding mental illness and a need for therapy was frightening for the family, especially Agnes, who felt Karen was simply going overboard as far as dieting was concerned. If only she would stop being so stubborn and just eat. Over the years, the family tried every possible approach to get through to her and make her eat. “Everyone around her did everything that they could have humanly done,” Richard said in 1993. “I tried everything—the heart-to-heart, the cajole, the holler. . . . It can just make you crazy. I tried everything. Obviously it wasn’t about to work, and I was upset.”

  Levenkron explained that the family’s attempts to threaten or bribe Karen out of her behaviors would never make them go away. According to his book, “Failure of the family to understand this produces division within the family that in turn results in feelings of anger and guilt. The family atmosphere is chaotic, reinforcing the anorexic’s belief that she and no one else knows what is best for her.”