Little Girl Blue (13 page)

The home—which they themselves designed and decorated, with the help of an interior decorator—was made for comfort, relaxation and precisely those leisure-time activities they prefer. The living room is a bastion of tranquil elegance. It's decorated in cool colors—white, blue, green—and lavished with velvet, crystal and glass. The dining room is ideal for California meals: it features a glass-top table elegantly supported by a carved wood base. The Spanish-style den is stunningly fabric'd in black and red and ocelot, and features a pool table over which Richard and Karen spend many hours poking cues. To facilitate another favorite sport of the Carpenters, there's a big swimming pool, and there are plans for the building of a fish pond. For an ace cook like Karen, the kitchen of the new house is a dream come true: there's everything in the way of household conveniences from a trash-masher down to “a refrigerator that shoots ice cubes.”

Karen selected one of four upstairs bedrooms but was appalled by the gaudy wallpaper and proceeded to redecorate in shades of yellow and black. The king-sized bed and its black fur bedspread became home to her overflowing collection of stuffed animals. “
They all have names
,” she told
Teen
magazine a year later. “That's Gru-pig and there's Marsh-field,” she said, pointing to a checkered pig and oversized pink dog.

Richard claimed the large master bedroom downstairs, but Agnes objected. “No, you bought this for us,” she said. “You told us you were going to buy us a house, so it's ours. We get this bedroom.” He settled for two of the rooms across the hall from Karen's and tore out a wall to create one large space.

Many of the duo's music industry associates wondered why two budding superstars would choose to stay in Downey and live at home with their parents when they could be on their own enjoying the fruits of their labor somewhere nearer to Hollywood. “
We can live
a normal life here,” Karen explained in 1972. “Roam around, do whatever we like. Everyone knows who we are everywhere we go, but here they don't bother us. Sometimes cars pass slowly by the house and people look in, but we expect that. Our friends are here from school—the kids Rich went to college with and my high school friends.”

Karen and Richard justified the decision saying they were on the road so much it would make no sense to leave a house sitting empty. In truth it was easier to stay, and neither wanted to rock the boat. Both felt a great obligation to their parents for their support during their formative years. Agnes had been laid off from North American Aviation several years earlier, and Harold was still working his printing job. He retired only when it became obvious his children's success was enduring.
YOU PUT US ON THE ROAD
was Karen's needlepoint inscription to her parents in a design that illustrated a yellow brick road leading to an emerald dollar sign.

To keep their new residence tidy, Agnes was encouraged to hire a housekeeper. Beverly Nogawski suggested her own employee, Florine Elie, who lived in nearby Compton. Florine's cleanliness and work ethic won even Agnes's approval, and for the next quarter century Elie spent five days a week working for the family. Even so, she admits she was never a real fan of their music: “I'm a Pentecostal person. I just listened to gospel music.”

M
ANAGERS
S
HERWIN
Bash and Ed Leffler soon discovered numerous red flags within the Carpenters' accounting records. They found that Agnes Carpenter had taken charge of her children's finances and essentially put Karen and Richard on an allowance. According to Bash, “Even though they were making hundreds of thousands of dollars, they were treated by their parents—especially their mother—as if they were still children at home and on an allowance. The allowance part didn't
bother me, but not having someone who was sophisticated in the handling of monies, tax consequences, and contracts did. It was an area I knew would become a serious problem for the two of them.”

Going through what Sherwin called a “
library full of bank books
” they realized Agnes had opened numerous savings accounts in banks all over Downey and throughout the surrounding area. She had been careful to see that the accounts never exceeded the maximum amount insured by the government. When one account reached its limit she would move on to another bank and open a new account. Evelyn Wallace was juggling as many as five different checkbooks at a time and all the while trying to reserve adequate funds for taxes, but there was no formula in use. She would simply set aside extra funds in hopes it would suffice at tax time. The job quickly became too much for her to handle, and she asked the Carpenters to hire a professional accountant. But Agnes was paranoid. She had heard too many stories of managers and accountants running off with their stars' money and was confident her children's finances would be safe if left in her control.

Management finally called a meeting with Karen, Richard, and their parents, during which Sherwin and Ed explained the desperate need for sophisticated and scrupulous supervision as far as their finances were concerned. “When you start earning millions of dollars you need professional guidance,” they were told.

Enter attorney and financial advisor Werner Wolfen of the Law Offices of Irell and Manella. Wolfen had been in charge of Herb Alpert's investments for years and came highly recommended. “He made himself known as the boss,” recalls Wallace. “He assured everyone he was going to make the kids rich, and the rest of us were told to do whatever we were told to do to make it happen.” Agnes left the table during that first meeting with Wolfen. She refused to talk to him and communicated through handwritten notes. “
It took some doing
,” Bash recalled, “because Agnes felt it was a personal attack and didn't realize it was for everybody's good. Eventually she allowed professional attorneys and accountants to prevail.”

The accounting firm of Gelfand, Rennert, and Feldman had the arduous task of cleaning up the financial mess they inherited. Luckily Evelyn had documented everything in her well-intentioned but
amateur bookkeeping practices. She was relieved of her accounting duties but continued to work for the Carpenter family in the capacity of secretary, assisting Harold Carpenter in sifting through and replying to what quickly became a barrage of fan mail. By the end of 1971, the Carpenters Fan Club consisted of more than ten thousand members.

Werner Wolfen went on to make other financial recommendations and helped the Carpenters manage their newfound wealth by investing in real estate. Newville Realty Company, a joint partnership for Karen and Richard, was formed, and with the help of Beverly Nogawski they set out to purchase two apartment houses located at 8353 and 8356 East Fifth Street in Downey, site of the old Downey Hospital. Tex McAlister, the owner and builder, named the apartments the Geneva in honor of his mother, Geneva, who'd died in the hospital some time earlier. “The Carpenters asked if I would mind if they changed the name to ‘Close to You' and ‘Only Just Begun,'” he recalls. “I said ‘No, not at all. They're yours. You can do what you want with them now.'” Tex and his wife, Charlene, became close friends of the Carpenter family after this first business transaction. Shortly thereafter, the McAlisters built their own house on Newville Avenue across from the Carpenter home.

I
N
N
OVEMBER
1970, the search was on for what would become the Carpenters' next single. In Toronto, where the Carpenters were set to open three weeks of shows for Engelbert Humperdinck, Sherwin Bash suggested that the group go out and enjoy their last free evening. “Why don't you just get your minds off your business?” he said. “Go see this movie I saw called
Lovers and Other Strangers
.”

While watching the film, a melody in the underscore caught Richard's attention. The song was “For All We Know,” written for the movie's wedding scene. Richard immediately called the office at A&M and asked that a lead sheet be waiting for him upon his return to Los Angeles. Although credited to Fred Karlin, Robb Wilson, and Arthur James, Wilson and James were actually pen names for Robb Royer and James Griffen, members of the pop group Bread.

The Carpenters were also offered “(Where Do I Begin) Love Story” from
Love Story
but were hesitant to record two successive movie
themes. They passed on “Love Story” and chose to record and release “For All We Know,” which went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song that year. Though the chart performance of the Carpenters' single was responsible for most of the song's popularity, Academy rules prevented the Carpenters from performing on the telecast since they had never appeared in a film, and the song was assigned to Petula Clark.

The offer of yet another movie theme came in March 1971 during a recording session at A&M when engineer Ray Gerhardt pressed the talkback button and said, “Richard, Stanley Kramer's on the phone for you.”

“
Sure
!” Richard looked at Karen with a sarcastic expression. He went into the booth, picked up the phone, and realized it truly was the legendary filmmaker (
Judgment at Nuremburg
,
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
) calling to offer the Carpenters the opportunity to record the title song on the soundtrack of his upcoming film
Bless the Beasts and Children
. Kramer agreed to meet Karen and Richard in Las Vegas where they were set to open for comedian Don Adams at the Sands in what became their final stint as an opening act. Richard dreaded the idea of meeting with Stanley Kramer because chances were slim the song would be a fit with the Carpenters and their style. Pleasantly surprised by the work of the film's composers, Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin Jr., he and Karen accepted the offer and recorded “Bless the Beasts and Children” in a matter of days to meet Kramer's deadline.

The Carpenters' first major recognition within the music industry came on the evening of March 16, 1971, at the Thirteenth Annual Grammy Awards. Filmed at the Hollywood Palladium, the show was the first Grammy ceremony to be broadcast live via television. Karen and Richard won for Best New Artist and were especially thrilled to take home a second Grammy for Best Contemporary Performance by a Duo, Group, or Chorus, a category in which they were nominated alongside the Jackson Five, Simon and Garfunkel, Chicago, and the Beatles.

T
HE SEARCH
for hit songs continued in early 1971 as Richard sat down with a stack of demos from A&M's publishing houses, Almo and Irving.
His attention was captured by another Roger Nichols–Paul Williams tune. In spite of the demo's sparse instrumentation, Richard was taken with the song's lyrical hook.

Hangin' around

Nothin' to do but frown

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down

By second listen Richard was certain it was a perfect song for Karen, especially with its melancholy and plaintive melody. The opening line—“Talking to myself and feeling old”—was inspired by Williams's mother. “She used to talk to herself,” he says. “She was a sweet little old lady who smoked cigarettes and had a little drink every night. She used to walk through the room mumbling and would swear under her breath. I would ask, ‘What the hell's wrong, Mom?' She'd say, ‘Oh, you wouldn't understand. You're too young. I'm just old. I'm feeling old.' That's how far away from the Carpenters that the lyric began. It was something from out of my own past.”