Karen Carpenter

The sweet tones of Karen Carpenter are some of the most well-known from the 1970s. She and her brother Richard's band, The Carpenters, gave fans songs like.

Karen was at her parents’ house in Downey, California, on February 4, 1983, where she was going to sign divorce papers for real estate developer Thomas James Burris. In the 1980s, Karen also started taking medicine to replace her thyroid, which sped up her metabolism, and laxatives, which helped her get rid of food quickly. She wouldn’t say out loud that she was sick, and in 1981 she said she was just “poopy.” Richard said later that neither he nor his parents knew how to help her. Randy Schmidt’s book Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter says that Karen started dieting when she was in high school. She was especially known for her contralto voice, and other musicians and critics also praised her drumming skills. Her and her brother Richard were members of the well-known duo The Carpenters.