Karen Carpenter, Richard Carpenter
The Carpenters
Recording Category Star
- Ceremony was on October 12, 1983
Karen Carpenter
Grammy Award-winning singer
From Los Angeles Times News Service
DOWNEY, Calif. - Grammy Award-winning singer Karen Carpenter, who with her brother, Richard, formed one of the most successful soft-rock music acts of the 1970s, is dead after suffering what was believed to be a heart attack. She was 32.
She collapsed yesterday at her parents' home and was taken by paramedics to the hospital, where she died, officials reported.
Her agent, Paul Bloch, said that the singer had battled anorexia for at least a year. The psychological disorder usually affects young women and girls who are obsessed with thinness and turn dieting into a dangerous compulsion that can lead to death.
With her brother, Miss Carpenter rose to the top of the pop-music charts with Close to You in 1970. Another 15 single-record hits followed in the next six years and, by 1981, the Carpenters had recorded a total of 17 Top 20 records. No duo in pop history ever made more, and only the Everly Brothers equaled it.
Other hits included We've Only Just Begun, There's a kind of Hush, and Touch Me When Were Dancing.
Miss Carpenter was married in 1980 to real estate developer Thomas J. Burris. They were divorced last year.
